Average Stats. Where can I get interviews?

[Nazca]

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[Catalystik]

Any peer leadership? Any publication in the pipeline? Is the HS tutoring a community service? If not, do you have any nonmedical/noncampus volunteerism?

It's perfectly fine listing physician shadowing with parents, just so long as you don't get LORs from them. The summer medical office work is good to have as your clinical experience is otherwise on the skimpy side. List it as employment.

 

[Catalystik]

Personally, I'd list TA under the Teaching category, unless you can write a very convincing description in the narrative about the ways in which you led.

I see your activities as very solid. From what you've written, I don't see them as convincing top-twenties adcomms that you have the potential to be a future leader in medicine, which is who they want to educate. I think they like people who took on a lot of responsibility, had a substantive research experience, maybe with publications, or show a lot of strength in community service. Only you can decide if you can write convincing enough descriptions of what you did to win those adcomms over. Certainly your numbers are strong enough to make any of them happy.

Go ahead and apply to some top schools because no one can ever be sure what they're looking for in a given year, and something in your application may resonate with them. I'd also include a healthy dose of upper mid-range schools, too. Look at the mission statements of each of your in-state schools and decide which ones are suited for you.

Some recent comments on California schools:

all the schools have a different focus. From my application experience, this is what I usually see :

UCLA- good amount of research and community service mix. Global health helps too
UC Davis- HUGE focus on rural health and working in these types of settings.
UCSD/UCSF- sort of the number ****** of the UCs. Lots of research is necessary generally.
UC Irvine- not really sure about this school at all.

DoctorSchool;9440328]Each UC program 'leans' toward applicants who best fit their mission. In this sense, IN GENERAL, UCD and UCI prioritize applicants who seem likely to practice primary care medicine in California. UCSD prioritizes applicants interested in biomedical research, again IN GENERAL. UCLA is more about disease treatment and state of the art therapies. UCSF is far and away the most eclectic, and least likely among the five to admit only state residents.

Before you apply, maybe consider some formal shadowing in two specialties other than your parents'. A day or two with each would be fine, to give you a better breadth of experience.

 

[Hamiltonian]

Average is a relative term

 

[Catalystik]

You can't "assure" yourself of an acceptance in this process, no mattter how perfect your application is.

Here are some schools for you to research below the top twenty most selective, but include WashU for sure as they are more numbers oriented:
Ordered from least to more selective
Rosalind Franklin,
UWisconsin, Penn State, Wake, UNCarolina, SUNY Upstate, SLU, UMinnesota, UIowa, UMiami,
UCincinnati, Boston,


UVirgina, Ohio State, Case, URochester, Einstein, Dartmouth.

This semester's grades will be included if you send in the transcripts after the grades are released, otherwise, they won't be taken into account.

I think your clinical experience overall is fine. The hospital experience rounds out the office experience you've gotten, so you don't necessarily need more. Hopefully others will chime in with opinions also.

 

[Catalystik]

Can you get the letter the day after he graduates? It does make a difference. Alternatively, ask if the professor might be willing to cosign the letter written by the TA, so his degrees and titles will be present to make the letter shinier (pretty silly, huh). This is commonly done in huge public institutions where no one gets a real professor for a teacher until senior year or grad school.

 

[drizzt3117]

I think you mean MCW, not UW. UW is taking more OOS people now but it's still not a lot, and our averages for OOS are 3.8/35ish.

You can't "assure" yourself of an acceptance in this process, no mattter how perfect your application is.

Here are some schools for you to research below the top twenty most selective, but include WashU for sure as they are more numbers oriented:
Ordered from least to more selective
Rosalind Franklin,
UWisconsin, Penn State, Wake, UNCarolina, SUNY Upstate, SLU, UMinnesota, UIowa, UMiami,
UCincinnati, Boston,


UVirgina, Ohio State, Case, URochester, Einstein, Dartmouth.

This semester's grades will be included if you send in the transcripts after the grades are released, otherwise, they won't be taken into account.

I think your clinical experience overall is fine. The hospital experience rounds out the office experience you've gotten, so you don't necessarily need more. Hopefully others will chime in with opinions also.

 

[Catalystik]

I think you mean MCW, not UW. UW is taking more OOS people now but it's still not a lot, and our averages for OOS are 3.8/35ish.

The OP's stats, before they were taken down, were sufficiently competitive to qualify for that range, to my recall. The stats were by no means the "average" referred to.

 

[drizzt3117]

The OP's stats, before they were taken down, were sufficiently competitive to qualify for that range, to my recall. The stats were by no means the "average" referred to.

What I was referring to was your list of "less competitive schools"

UW, UNC, and UVa all have a huge percentage of their students from IS, so applying OOS, you need to have strong ties to the state or a compelling reason for them to consider your application, and it isn't just stats. This cycle we rejected lots of 4.0/35+ish candidates. If we don't feel like you have any reason to attend and you picked schools at random it's just a waste of everyone's time to accept someone just b/c they have high stats. Things are different for MSTP or for URMs, but for candidates in the general pool it takes more than purely stats. The averages do tend to be pretty high though, for accepted candidates.

 

[Catalystik]

This is an applicant with Wash U level stats and strong enough, but not WOW-type ECs. I think his niche is upper middle-selectivity level schools and he asked for suggestions. There's no question he needs to research the schools (as I mentioned) for "fit" and you've brought up some good ideas he/she needs to keep in mind when making decisions, along with mission, weather, safety, curriculum and cost.

 

[drizzt3117]

This is an applicant with Wash U level stats and strong enough, but not WOW-type ECs. I think his niche is upper middle-selectivity level schools and he asked for suggestions. There's no question he needs to research the schools (as I mentioned) for "fit" and you've brought up some good ideas he/she needs to keep in mind when making decisions, along with mission, weather, safety, curriculum and cost.

I suppose. If I was the OP I'd probably make a list like the one I applied to (top 25 + CA) and drop UWash and schools he wouldn't want to go to. I wouldn't bother with SLU and schools like that.