Medical Canadian MD Applicant seeking help choosing a fitting U.S. school list

[TheBoneDoctah]

Hello there,

I am a white, Canadian male from Manitoba, Canada seeking assistance in forming a U.S. medical school list for application.
I am seeking to apply to a healthy distribution of 25-30 schools, ideally including safe, target, and reach schools.

Components:
MCAT: 516 (129, 127, 131, 129)

cGPA (4.00), sGPA (4.00)

See attached CV for full descriptions
Volunteering: Multicultural festival performer/singer for a week in August (4 years ~240h total), Cantor at weekly mass (I'm a practicing Roman Catholic - 650h+), Skateboarding Teacher (20 h total), Foodbank volunteer (12h - probably wouldn't include).

Work: Therapeutic Musician at nursing home - play ukulele, sing, converse with residents, facilitate FaceTime calls, feed, comfort those in pain; Wedding and funeral singer (infrequent); University Recruiter.

Research: Co-reviewer and project lead on systematic review of cardiovascular impact of exercise during dialysis treatments (2018-ongoing, hope to be done this year); Helped recruit and run clinical study on dialysis units of exercise's impacts on patients' hypotension (4-weeks, 2018); Co-reviewer on systematic review of gastrointestinal infection among smallholder farmers (Part time in Summer 2020).

Undergraduate study
For my undergraduate studies, I've done a Bachelor of Arts and Science, which has essentially been a broad-based liberal arts curriculum with concentrations in science, biblical & theological studies, and psychology. I now feel a bit of a chip on my shoulder about it, because I am afraid that the lack of focus I've sacrificed with the breadth communicates that I'm not willing to apply myself to intense coursework: I have no 4000-level courses, for instance. In truth, my small university did not offer enough science courses that were directly applicable to human health in my later years, and I was not willing to fully transfer to another institution, although I did study as a visiting student for some science courses. I figured it would be best to learn something else for my last year - history, psychology, and English; albeit at 2000- and 3000-levels.

I would deeply appreciate any advice you may have about setting up a school list, and perhaps any other suggestions that strike you may have. I could not believe it when I recently learned about SDN and these forums.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

You need to beef up your non-clinical hours. I know you aren’t asking about this, but you have 12 hours helping those less fortunate than yourself which is a huge red flag (especially as a Canadian applicant).

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Goro]

Thank you very much for letting me know. I did not know about the importance of non-clinical hours.

If I gain a significant amount of non-clinical hours within the year of 2021 before application, will that be held against me? I suppose it would at least be better than nothing.

It may give the appearance of box-checking.

Most medical schools state on thier admissions pages that they have an expectation of service to others. Medicine is a service profession and you need to show off your altruism.

 

[TheBoneDoctah]

In Jan. 2020, I started volunteering as a therapeutic musician in nursing homes with precisely the motive of helping a marginalized population, but COVID restrictions locked things down. (I had 12 hours of volunteering there). The only way I was legally permitted to come into facilities during the pandemic was if I was employed. Would this be worth mentioning in a "How did COVID affect your application process?" question on a secondary application?

Did this affect your application process? If yes, then sure.

The non-clinical volunteering may look like box checking but what choice do you have at this point?

 

[TheBoneDoctah]

Also, I volunteered in high school, having done 23 hours of coaching at a free sports camp for kids in 2014-15, and 33 hours of helping with a children's catechism program in 2015-16.

I also had 110 hours of intra-school leadership for 2016-2017 in high school: leading retreats, mentoring freshmen weekly, fundraising,

Are these worth including, and from your experience, will they be viewed on a similar par with non-clinical volunteering during university?

High school doesn’t count. They wanna see college.

 

[NotAProgDirector]

Are you planning on applying to Canadian MD programs also? Getting into an MD program in Canada isn't easy, but you've got a stellar GPA and MCAT (>90%ile). Needless to say, a US MD is going to be much more expensive. Completing med school in Canada and then coming to the US for residency is possible in many fields. The answer might impact your school choices.