Any suggestions? Not sure...

[sAmsOn25]

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Residency: UT
cGPA: 3.76 sGPA: 3.62
MCAT: 41P (PS 12, VR 14, BS 15)
Major: English
Clinical: worked for 4 months at care facility for physically/mentally disabled persons, essentially CNA
Shadow: 30+ hours as Spanish interpreter for doctors (and much more to be added before June)
ECs: 4 years intramural soccer, worked full/part time all through college, completed 4 month editing internship, Gen Chem and O-Chem TA (3 semesters), student athlete tutor (2 semesters), high school AP chem tutor, ESL tutor
Other: fluent in Spanish, spent two years in Chile on a service mission for my church (LOTS of leadership experience there as well as humanitarian work)
Research: none

I've assembled a list of schools I am considering applying to. My MCAT is quite good, which has gotten up my hopes of applying to a few more "prestigious" schools, although I realize my lack of research experience is definitely working against me. Ideally I want to apply to 15-20 schools. These are schools I have considered. The top schools I'm shooting for are Columbia, Cornell, Emory, Baylor, and Vandy. Any suggestions, especially regarding schools that are more research oriented? Thanks.


Miami
Emory
Louisville
Michigan
Cornell
Columbia
Mt. Sinai
Rochester
Buffalo
Wake Forest
Ohio State
Cincinnati
Vanderbilt
Baylor
UT Southwestern
UT San Antonio
UT Houston
UT Galveston
Texas A&M
Texas Tech

I've heard people say that you can't really count on the Texas schools, so apply to at least 15 in addition to the Texas system. Not sure how much validity there is to that. Does this list look decent, i.e. does it have enough upper, mid, and lower tier schools? Any suggestions? I've thought about doing an MD/MBA, but am not 100% set on it, just keeping my options open. Most of the schools I listed offer an MD/MBA joint degree (all except UT San Antonio, UT Houston, and UT Galveston).

 

[Stratego]

I am going to quote a recent post from another thread that is pertinent to your situation:

I don't think that you should take off schools from your list just because you lack research experience. Adcoms may see something else in your application that is different from what the typical pre med does (i.e. you're a charge nurse at Stanford) and that may give you an advantage. But, if you insist on removing schools based on how "research oriented" they are, I would recommend looking through the MSAR. See what percentage of students entered each school with prior research experience. Additionally, if research is required during medical school (i.e. Case) then it is more likely that you should have some research experience prior to medical school, although not absolute. On a side note, I was looking through the book and found two interesting facts: at Vanderbilt (96% of entering students had research experience) and the University of Utah (97% of entering students had research experience). They weren't on your list, but I thought that they were cool statistics. In concluding, you will see that most of the top tiered schools have high 80s to low 90s of % of students entering with research experience. Most schools have mid 70s to low 80s in terms of the percentage of students that enter with prior research experience. Though these numbers are relatively high, there are students that do get in without research experience. If possible, however, I would recommend testing what research is like, whether in a lab or doing clinical research (you have a year). At least this way, you could learn whether you like research or not. Hope this helps!

While it is true that top research schools take a few students without a research background, those students tend to be very, very strong in leadership or community service. Considering admission is less likely at such schools if your application is more average, if money for applications and interviews is tight, you should consider eliminating any school in the top 20 of US News and World Report ratings.

 

[sAmsOn25]

Okay, so after a little research I've decided to cut Vandy, Michigan, Columbia, and Cornell from off the list. Emory and Baylor are more my dream schools so I'll try my luck with them. As replacements I have considered adding:

USC, Oregon, Colorado, UNC, EVMS, VCU, or MC Wisconsin

I have really strong ties to Texas (I only lost my residency because I graduated from high school overseas, where my family still lives), and am hopeful about my chances for success there. Do you think I'm covered?