Fairly new poster here and I would appreciate any advice. Stats: Science GPA: 3.62 Overall GPA: 3.62 Practice MCAT Scores: 31-35 (took on May 23rd) Florida Resident ECs: Clinical -Volunteering in hospitals since 7th grade (several awards for number of hours) (about 1000 hours total) -EMT-B certified (120 hours in Hospitals and Fire Stations as EMT) -Shadowed a few doctors - probably 16 hours total -Participated in Medical Mission to Guatemala - 5 Days - alot of exposure to medicine - scrubbed in on two surgeries! Work - paid positions -Swim Instructor and Director of Swim Program - taught kids how to swim and managed the business end and 20 employees (freshman year to present) -Lovaas Behavioral Therapist - gave ABA (applied behavioral analysis) to autistic 4 year old for course of 8 months. Took data, submitted to Lovaas for research purposes and had alot of fun! Other - Assistant Water Polo Coach for a High school - 1 season - few clubs on campus - semi-pro poker player - Eucharistic Minister My GPA is low due to my mother's severe illness but shows an upward trend. Here is the list of schools I am thinking about applying to right now I want to cast a pretty wide net due to my lower stats. Money isnt a huge issue, but its always nice to spend less. Any comments about which I should take off or what my chances are at these schools would be great. Albany Medical College Boston University School of Medicine Drexel University Eastern Virginia Medical School Florida State University George Washington Georgetown Loyola Chicago Oregon Health and Science University Penn State Rosalind Franklind University Rush Temple University Jefferson Tufts Tulane University of Alabama University of Colorado University of Florida University of Central Florida University of Illinois at Chicago University of Maryland University of Miami University of Pittsburg University of South Florida University of Virginia Virginia Commonwealth University Albert Einstein Yesiva THANKS SOOOO MUCH!
One thing I would say is to not mention that you scrubbed in on two surgeries. If it is something that you would not do here, you should not be doing it in a developing country. This is very controversial and depending on the adcom it could be looked upon very poorly and considered quite unethical. Also, you might want to consider mt sinai
You are listing a lot of state schools that won't give your application a second look, simply because they have such a huge bias towards in-state applicants.
Thanks for all your replies. I will definitely look into taking off some of the state schools. CarlyMD: Thanks for your advice. When I scrubbed in on the surgeries, all I did was suction and balance a retractor with my hand because their retractor was broken. I definitely didn't do anything that would be considered unethical, the surgeon truly just needed someone who could speak both spanish and english to be close enough to the patient to translate to the staff and that meant I had to be sterile.
I agree with CarlyMD that you probably shouldn't bring this up. The simplicity of the procedure doesn't really matter. If you participated at all, it could be seen as unethical depending on the interviewer. Here, in the OR, you're lucky if you even get to watch a surgery without any licenses or certifications. Hospitals in the US don't require licensure for surgery techs just to give them some job security. It's important that the people in there know exactly what to do and how to respond in case something serious happens. Even if other countries don't have the same requirements, that doesn't really mean that it's ok for you to do it there. In my opinion it would look worse, because it looks like you circumvented the system here so you could fulfill your own curiosities at the expense of someone else's safety. I'm not saying that that is what you did, but it can easily be construed in that way. I'd be very careful when talking about it.
I went to school there several years back, and 40% of the class was out-of-state. I don't think that has changed much. I say keep it on.
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