MD & DO cGPA 3.22 sGPA 3.04 graduateGPA 3.8 MCAT 514

[NucleusO]

Californian Resident - Asian Female 26 yrs old
First person in my family to go to college, from low-income family and underserved neighborhood

Undergrad - UC Berkeley (Major - Molecular and Cell Biology)
- bad sGPA, but there is a slight upward trend
- Took some post bac courses at UCLA extension - GPA 3.7
Graduate School - USC (MPH - Epidemiology and Biostatistics)

MCAT - 514 (92 percentile)
Chem/Phys = 127, CARS = 127, Bio = 131, Psych = 129

3 publications
Heavy research work for over 5 years at UCSF and USC - presented posters at conferences
Awarded a research fellowship to do work at UCSF
Over 400 hours of volunteer work at free clinics for the homeless and hospital volunteering/ physician shadowing
300 hours of tutoring/mentoring underserved high school students and prison inmates
Went to Ecuador for a medical brigade during the summer

Could anyone suggest a list of schools for me to apply to? I understand that my undergraduate GPA is a huge setback. I experienced a death of a loved one during that time and I wrote about it in my personal statement to give a better context of what I was going through during my undergraduate years. I would really like to work with the medically underserved.

Thank you so much for your time!

DO Schools:
AZCOM
Chicago COM
New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine
PacNW
Touro
Western

MD schools:
UCR
UCLA/ Drew
Howard
Morehouse
Wayne State
Tulane
Drexel
Rosalind Franklin
Temple
EVMS
Michigan State
Virginia Tech

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[Faha]

You are competitive for most DO schools so apply to at least 8 and you should receive several interviews. Some schools require a DO LOR
For MD you could try these schools:
Quinnipiac
Vermont
New York Medical College
Drexel
Temple
Jefferson
Penn State
Eastern Virginia
Oakland Beaumont
Western Michigan
GW
Georgetown
Medical College Wisconsin
Rosalind Franklin
Creighton
Tulane

 

[NucleusO]

You are competitive for most DO schools so apply to at least 8 and you should receive several interviews. Some schools require a DO LOR
For MD you could try these schools:
Quinnipiac
Vermont
New York Medical College
Drexel
Temple
Jefferson
Penn State
Eastern Virginia
Oakland Beaumont
Western Michigan
GW
Georgetown
Medical College Wisconsin
Rosalind Franklin
Creighton
Tulane

Thank you for the reply!

 

[NucleusO]

@Goro Could give me some advice on a list of schools to apply to? Unfortunately I don't have a DO letter but I'm going to apply to DO schools anyways.

 

[Goro]

Any DO school (like mine) that's OK with an MD letter. There are lots of them.

Start your list with
AZCOM
TUNCOM
PacNW
Touro-CA
Western (both).

@Goro Could give me some advice on a list of schools to apply to? Unfortunately I don't have a DO letter but I'm going to apply to DO schools anyways.

 

[NucleusO]

Any DO school (like mine) that's OK with an MD letter. There are lots of them.

Start your list with
AZCOM
TUNCOM
PacNW
Touro-CA
Western (both).

Are there some MD schools that you'd recommend? I'm applying to both AMCAS and AACOMAS.

I've applied two years before and was able to receive an interview invite to a school in California, but I guess I wasn't able to nail it.

Thank you for replying!

 

[Goro]

Maybe the low tiers. But skip CNU.

Are there some MD schools that you'd recommend? I'm applying to both AMCAS and AACOMAS.

I've applied two years before and was able to receive an interview invite to a school in California, but I guess I wasn't able to nail it.

Thank you for replying!

 

[NucleusO]

@gyngyn Do you believe that there are any more schools that I should add to my list? Thank you for any input and your time.

 

[gyngyn]

@gyngyn Do you believe that there are any more schools that I should add to my list? Thank you for any input and your time.

Where is your list?

 

[NucleusO]

Where is your list?

DO Schools:
AZCOM
Chicago COM
New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine
PacNW
Touro
Western

MD schools:
UCR
UCLA/ Drew
Howard
Morehouse
SUNY Upstate
Wayne State
BU
Tulane
Drexel
Rosalind Franklin
Temple
OHSU
EVMS
Michigan State

 

[gyngyn]

Are you from the IE? UCR is a mission based school.
Howard and Morehouse are also mission based schools (different mission).
OHSU accepts very few CA applicants.
BU is a long shot (you have enough of those if you apply to the UC's!).
Upstate takes very few OOS with your stats.

 

[NucleusO]

I'm not from the

Are you from the IE? UCR is a mission based school.
Howard and Morehouse are also mission based schools (different mission).
OHSU accepts very few CA applicants.
BU is a long shot (you have enough of those if you apply to the UC's!).
Upstate takes very few OOS with your stats.

I'm not from the IE. But in my personal statement I stress why I want to be a physician for the medically underserved due to my personal experiences of growing up in an underserved neighborhood.
Are there any other schools that you recommend that I apply to?

 

[gyngyn]

I'm not from the


I'm not from the IE. But in my personal statement I stress why I want to be a physician for the medically underserved due to my personal experiences of growing up in an underserved neighborhood.
Are there any other schools that you recommend that I apply to?

This is a mission based school whose mandate is to increase docs for the IE specifically.
The non-mission-based MD schools with the lowest median stats that get less than 10K aps would be my recommendation.

 

[NucleusO]

This is a mission based school whose mandate is to increase docs for the IE specifically.
The non-mission-based MD schools with the lowest median stats that get less than 10K aps would be my recommendation.

Thank you for the response!

 

[The Knife & Gun Club]

Virginia tech.

Also don't apply to schools that are historically black or not your home state unless they exhibit basically 0 instate preference. Those schools may have low averages but they're not looking for damaged goods outside of their mission.

 

[NucleusO]

Virginia tech.

Also don't apply to schools that are historically black or not your home state unless they exhibit basically 0 instate preference. Those schools may have low averages but they're not looking for damaged goods outside of their mission.

Great thank you, I will add this to my list! I appreciate the input.

I've read the mission statements for the historically black universities and I thought that they matched with what I wanted to do in the future. I really want to be a physician for the urban underserved due to my personal experiences with receiving healthcare and my background. There is a huge healthcare disparity in where I grew up and it played a significant role in why I wanted to become a doctor. I guess where I call home, other people call it the "ghetto". I worked in a sweatshop as a child and you wouldn't believe how many people refused to seek medical attention after they got injured from the machines. All because of these different (financial, language, geographic) barriers to healthcare access. Sorry for the digression, but I'll double check their mission statements again. Maybe I can't apply to those schools because I'm not a URM?

 

[The Knife & Gun Club]

I was unaware of your past experiences, sorry for being condescending. Meharry and Morehouse do in fact consider people from underserved communities, and you would probably have a shot there given your background. Fairly certain Howard is AA only though.

 

[NucleusO]

I was unaware of your past experiences, sorry for being condescending. Meharry and Morehouse do in fact consider people from underserved communities, and you would probably have a shot there given your background. Fairly certain Howard is AA only though.

No need to be sorry! I really appreciate your input. It's good for me to double check the mission statements before I add them on to my app. It still hasn't been verified yet. Plus you couldn't have known about my background unless I wrote about it in my post.

 

[gyngyn]

No need to be sorry! I really appreciate your input. It's good for me to double check the mission statements before I add them on to my app. It still hasn't been verified yet. Plus you couldn't have known about my background unless I wrote about it in my post.

They really are looking for a lifetime commitment to the African American community, though.

 

[NucleusO]

They really are looking for a lifetime commitment to the African American community, though.

Would I have to specify that in my application? I'm just very passionate about working with the underserved, to me it doesn't matter if it's the Asian, Latino, or African American community. I think that I was lucky enough to grow up in a diverse city, so I can work well and be happy in any of those communities.