Chances for a reapplicant

[onamission5]

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Hey Everyone,
I am a long time lurker like many on this site. I applied last round and didn't put 100% into my applications, I was studying for my MCAT etc, etc. I was waitlisted at one school and it's time to start planning.... I want to reapply this round and I want to do it right. I would appreciate advice on my plan for next year and possibly some schools to look into:

MCAT: 29R (BS-10 PS-10 VR-9)
GPA: 3.3
sGPA: 3.2

This is incredibly low, I know. I found out too late in college that it is better to focus on a few classes than try to cram as many in as possible. Needless to say, I received a few bad grades in hard biology classes.

I'm a Biology major with three minors.

I have no clinical volunteering but I have spent 100+ shadowing

No research

Teaching assistant for two classes for 2 years (about 15 hrs a week)

Volunteering here and there

My big thing is leadership: I've been involved with many organizations and have held 3 major leadership positions

So in my opinion my weaknesses are: GPA, clinical volunteering/experience, and research.

So here is my plan for next year:
1. Get a job: my first choice is researching, if that doesn't work out then I'll do phlebotomy
2. Take some classes (specifically higher level bio classes) to get some more A's
3. Volunteer both in a hospital and outside of a hospital

I would appreciate any opinions on my plan, what I should focus on, or schools I should apply to. Thank you so much, I really appreciate the advice.

 

[music2doc]

Hey Everyone,
I am a long time lurker like many on this site. I applied last round and didn't put 100% into my applications, I was studying for my MCAT etc, etc. I was waitlisted at one school and it's time to start planning.... I want to reapply this round and I want to do it right. I would appreciate advice on my plan for next year and possibly some schools to look into:

MCAT: 29Q (BS-10, PS-10, VR-9)
GPA: 3.3
sGPA: 3.2

This is incredibly low I know. I found out too late in college that it is better to focus on a few classes than try to cram as many in as possible and get a million degrees. Needless to say, I received a few bad grades in hard biology classes and found out too late that I'm pretty good at physics.

I'm a Biology major with math, physics, and psychology minors

I have no clinical volunteering but I have spent 100+ shadowing

No research

Teaching assistant for two classes for 2 years (about 15 hrs a week)

Volunteering here and there

My big thing is leadership: I've been involved with many organizations and have held 3 major leadership positions

So in my opinion my weaknesses are: GPA, clinical volunteering/experience, and research.

So here is my plan for next year:
1. Get a job: my first choice is researching, if that doesn't work out phlebotomy
2. Take some classes (specifically higher level bio classes) to get some more A's
3. Volunteer both in a hospital and outside of a hospital

I want to apply early, but not too early where it doesn't look like anything has changed on my app.

Also, my state only has a private medical school, so I have no state schools to apply too

I would appreciate any opinions on my plan, what I should focus on, or schools I should apply to. Thank you so much, I really appreciate the advice.

Honestly, I find it surprising you applied with that application last year. Where was your advisor?!

Unless you're URM, those numbers with excellent ECs wouldn't stand a chance at an MD program.

My first suggestion to you is this: DON'T apply this year.

My second suggestion: Apply DO about 1-2 years from now.

You need to develop a number of things here:

• Competitive academics (GPA should be higher even for DO, or you'd need to ace an SMP program to even begin to consider MD)
• Competitive MCAT (anything <31 is fatal for an applicant with your GPA (<25% chance and, frankly, you really need a 39+ MCAT to even approach a 50/50 chance of being accepted somewhere for an MD program -- my suggestion would be to build a strong DO application....)
• Research experience (at least 6-12 months for most people; for you, 12+ with some serious accomplishments would at least give you something to stand on)
• Clinical experience (the shadowing does NOT count toward this; you want a good 12 months of this before applying)
• Leadership -- get some real-world leadership experience if you haven't already done so (3 leadership positions in small, student-run organizations would be laughable, if that's what you're considering the crown jewel of your application)

Basically, take your time and prepare. Reapplying this cycle would be a waste of money and only further dig your grave since schools will see the previous cycles in which you have applied and the more rejections you've accumulated, the more skeptical they will become of your application. I haven't looked at the stats recently, but IIRC, your chances do, in fact, drop with each reapplication. The first app has about a 45% chance of admission somewhere, the second is in the mid to high 30s, I think (like 37%). I wouldn't be surprised if the 3rd cycle were below significantly below 30% (perhaps even in the teens or low 20s).

If you are still unsure, I'd suggest looking a bit at the mdapps website to see what kind of things people apply with. I have a friend who was recently wait listed at multiple schools ranging from Yale to several state schools (with rankings ranging from Top 40 to mid-range) and has no acceptances as of yet. Here is what you are competing with (in this person):

• 3.9-4.0 GPA / 32-34 MCAT
• Program Director at an academic hospital (recruits, hires, trains, supervises, fires hospital employees; awesome leadership experience with phenomenal physician LORs)
• Biology & Chemistry Lab Instructor
• Several unique hobbies and developed interest areas
• Qualifies as disadvantaged on AMCAS
• From an identified underserved/rural area

Not to discourage, but you really have some work to do to be competitive with people like that and that person was not even accepted despite plenty of experience interviewing others and presumably having a decent enough interview!

I think it's important to ask yourself "why" a school would consider you over someone with superior academic (hard) qualifications. If you cannot answer that question, then why would you expect they will come to any such conclusion? Like it or not, you were probably in the first cut at [almost] every school you applied to this year. You need to improve your application enough to make it past all of the cuts if you want to make it in somewhere in the future.

 

[onamission5]

Thank you, I really do appreciate the honest advice. I don't really want to be to specific with what I've done exactly but my leadership and teaching experiences are significant. However, I realize my academics and my clinical experience are my weakest point. Would your suggestion be to focus on improving my grades for my 1-2 years off or to improve on clinical experience/research.

 

[music2doc]

Thank you, I really do appreciate the honest advice. I don't really want to be to specific with what I've done exactly but my leadership and teaching experiences are significant. However, I realize my academics and my clinical experience are my weakest point. Would your suggestion be to focus on improving my grades for my 1-2 years off or to improve on clinical experience/research.

You're welcome. I hope I wasn't too harsh, but you don't want to waste any more money (I don't think).

As for the bolded, you really need to do both. Without better grades, you'll never get an interview and without clinical experience (and preferably some research), you'll never get accepted. Both are entirely separate critical elements.

 

[DallasCowboys22]

I think it's pretty impressive you managed to get on a waitlist. Was this at an MD school? I think if you apply broadly to DO and get some clinical volunteering ASAP you have a decent shot at the lower tier schools.

 

[onamission5]

Yes, it was at an MD school. I think that I have a lot to bring (obviously to compensate what I lack in grades) and I have tried to make that very clear in my essays etc. It was at school that I guess can be considered one of those that "looks at the whole applicant" type of situations. By apply broadly, do you just mean apply to a lot of diverse schools? In your opinion what would be something good to do in a gap year or two in addition to clinical volunteering?