Any Suggestions/Comments for My School List and App?

[Ivan880]

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Hi sdn community, can anyone please help me look over my school list? I beg; it's been stressing me out so much.

22M, Asian (Chinese, overrepresented ik), Idaho Resident (UW student)

512 MCAT, 3.93 cGPA

Community service (non-clinical) - 160 hours (Crisis Textline and Foodbank)

Community service clinical - 180 hours (Volunteering at two hospitals, one for summer, one during school)

Clinical experience Paid - 800 hours remote over video interpreter; 15 hours in-person interpreter

Research - 300 hours (Wet lab biochem and evolution-related research topic, no poster, no paper)

Shadowing - 90 hours (45 from just finding random physicians, 50 hours on a UW club trip to shadow in hospitals in rural Washington)

Tutoring - 150 hours (More/less informal tutoring, I just ended up the teacher for all of the study groups I was and tbh idk if I should count it.)

Leadership - 300 (Worked up the ranks in the dorm room council over the span of 3 years, got to plan many large events and campus improvement projects)

Hobbie - 2000 hours Swimming, since I was 12 (Used to do competitive, Covid hit, took a pause and UW doesn't have team D🙂

Any help or suggestion would be greatly appreciated!!!

Here is my school list, and I am currently only planning on applying for MD school, is that a bad plan? Also, I am really hoping to stay on the West side of the US, please let me know if there is any school I should add or remove from my list. Thanks a bunch.

Note: The orange colored as my reach schools. (Most likely get rejected from them but want to try anyways)

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Welcome to the forums.

I don't have an issue with many of your usual suspects on the list geographically, but I'm missing a sense of purpose: what motivates you to be a physician, and what is your purpose? I think you are just under 150 hours of service orientation activities (so your file could get screened out at most schools), so I need more details of your non-clinical community service activities with hours. You have a lot of virtual activities; that may be what you are offered given where you are a resident (Idaho), but if you are at UWashington, I would expect you to have taken advantage of more opportunities around you.

As such, I don't think you have enough community service hours for many of the schools on your list (Loyola, Georgetown, Creighton). How much support are you getting from your prehealth advisors about your application?

As an Idaho resident, you may be more informed about your DO choices around you in the PNW. Your metrics should be good for MD, but to take advantage of your overall chances, you should be open to the DO options.

 

[Faha]

You have state public schools on your list that admit few non residents with no connection to the state. Also, Georgetown, Loyola and Creighton are looking for applicants with many hundreds of hours of non clinical volunteering. I suggest these schools with your stats:
U Washington
Vermont
Quinnipiac
Albany
New York Medical College
Hackensack
Drexel
Temple
Jefferson
Penn State
George Washington
Virginia Commonwealth
Wake Forest
Methodist (when it opens)
NOVA MD
Belmont
Alice Walton
TCU
Rosalind Franklin
Medical College Wisconsin
Oakland Beaumont
Wayne State
Arizona (Phoenix)
Utah
Iowa
Roseman

 

[Ivan880]

Welcome to the forums.

I don't have an issue with many of your usual suspects on the list geographically, but I'm missing a sense of purpose: what motivates you to be a physician, and what is your purpose? I think you are just under 150 hours of service orientation activities (so your file could get screened out at most schools), so I need more details of your non-clinical community service activities with hours. You have a lot of virtual activities; that may be what you are offered given where you are a resident (Idaho), but if you are at UWashington, I would expect you to have taken advantage of more opportunities around you.

As such, I don't think you have enough community service hours for many of the schools on your list (Loyola, Georgetown, Creighton). How much support are you getting from your prehealth advisors about your application?

As an Idaho resident, you may be more informed about your DO choices around you in the PNW. Your metrics should be good for MD, but to take advantage of your overall chances, you should be open to the DO options.

Hi, thank you so much for your comments.

Motivation/sense of purpose: I’m a first-generation immigrant who grew up translating for neighbors and relatives who avoided care because of language or fear of the system. Seeing how a simple conversation in their native language opened doors to treatment is what pushed me toward medicine. My goal is to become the kind of physician who can bridge that gap, especially for immigrant communities in the Inland NW.

Community Service: The virtual activities are taken as I am ultimately an out-of-state student, I usually go back and forth between Idaho and Washington, which strains my schedule (Especially for the summer, to save money for the school year, Seattle's cost of living is very high). Additionally, I also decided to complete a double major in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, which means my quarterly schedule is full and most non-clinical volunteering would occur during the middle of the day and many of those near the school are closed over weekends. Lastly, during my time at UW, I have relied entirely on public transit, which further limits how far I can go for those longer-term volunteer opportunities.

I certainly agree that my community services and many of my extracurricular are low and I have been working hard to improve it, I am looking for other opportunities as I graduate and move back to Idaho so I will have access to reliable transportation and longer-term stay.

UW Prehealth Advising: Unfortunately UW’s general pre-health advising hasn’t gone much deeper than Google results. That’s why I’m here—to crowd-source insight from folks who’ve been through it.

DO vs. MD: I’m open to DO programs in the PNW/West. My understanding is that the AACOMAS personal statement wants you to specifically indicate why you want to be a DO physician right? Does that mean I should completely revise my personal statement as it is very much generalized to the why medicine as that is the prompt of the AMCAS.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Hi, thank you so much for your comments.

Motivation/sense of purpose: I’m a first-generation immigrant who grew up translating for neighbors and relatives who avoided care because of language or fear of the system. Seeing how a simple conversation in their native language opened doors to treatment is what pushed me toward medicine. My goal is to become the kind of physician who can bridge that gap, especially for immigrant communities in the Inland NW.

I know the chances are challenging with your in-state status, but if general concern about inland PacNW patients is part of your purpose, you should ask other programs about what they could offer you. Washington State, PNWU, OHSU at least. Granted, your MD schools may be more strict on the in-state/out-of-state composition of the class, but I'll let them tell you if you might be someone they would consider.

DO vs. MD: I’m open to DO programs in the PNW/West. My understanding is that the AACOMAS personal statement wants you to specifically indicate why you want to be a DO physician right? Does that mean I should completely revise my personal statement as it is very much generalized to the why medicine as that is the prompt of the AMCAS.

Look at the applicant instructions and help documentation. You might want to discuss how your purpose aligns with osteopathic medicine for their PS. Otherwise, I don't get the impression your AACOMAS PS needs to be different from your AMCAS PS.