MD Cali Resident - cGPA: 3.971, sGPA: 4.00; MCAT: 35; Weak ECs

[Asiandunce]

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[Goro]

You need to work on the self-esteem. Anybody who works around dying patients, gets a thumbs up in my book, and tutoring is a plus for me. BUT, was this volunteer, or for pay?

Based upon MSAR numbers are are good for Cali schools.

Others to consider:
Emory
Pitt
NYU
Northwestern
Yale
Dartmouth
Miami
Baylor
U Chicago
Duke
U NV (maybe)
U WA (maybe)
U OR (maybe)
U AZ's
Loyola
SLU
Hofstra
All PA schools

You could bone up on the non-clinical ECs.

Hi all,
I am currently a third year student at UCLA majoring in Physiological Science and will be applying this June/early July. My break down for the MCAT is (13BS/12PS/10VR). Yes, I am Asian/Chinese (but please ignore the rest of my username if you can, I didn’t exactly pick the name).

Here are my ECs:
-Clinical Volunteering (particularly, Cancer/Chemo/Terminal patients): ~240 hrs/3 years
-Tutoring/mentoring underprivileged children: ~160 hrs/1.5 years
-Organized volunteering at a local clinic in underprivileged area: summer
-Cardiac Proteomics Research: ~300 hours/1.5 years (working on two projects that will probably be published, but not anytime soon at all, so I guess that doesn’t matter; Poster
-Pathology and Internist Intern: ~40 hrs each, during summer and winter, respectively. (Basically assisted them in their work like scribing, slide-work, as opposed to just shadowing)
-Shadowing: ~70 hours (Pathology, Oncology, Internist, and Ortho Surgeon)
-Awards for tutoring, chemistry, and Dean’s Honors

Perceived problems:
Lack of long term committed ECs, nothing relatively interesting (ie VERY cookie cutter, hence I say weak ECs), lack of leadership position. I am Chinese, I am not at all bilingual (cannot speak Spanish, in particular, though I will be taking Spanish my Senior Year and hopefully can note that somewhere). I understand certain languages (Burmese, etc), but I cannot speak them. I am sure that Spanish is highly preferable in CA.

What are my chances at the Cali schools? To be more specific, here is my list:
UCI
UCLA
UCD
UCSD
Keck

A primary concern for me personally is that I am having a lot of trouble deciding on OOS schools? It seems like I am just checking their OOS acceptance rates and GPA and MCAT ranges. Does anyone have advice for a Cali resident when looking at the OOS schools? How would you select safety schools?

Location (outside of CA), price, prestige are not particularly important to me, so it is very tough actually making a meaningful list of schools OOS. I plan on applying to 15-20 schools but I have no idea how I should go about choosing the best options OOS to reach the 15-20.

Thank you all so much for your consideration and time!!

 

[Asiandunce]

I appreciate the reply! The tutoring was volunteering. As for the self-esteem, it's either looking at other posts here on SDN or only thinking about the CA schools too much haha.

I'll check out the schools you listed, thanks so much.