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If you beef up your clinical hours I don't see why you wouldn't at least be considered at any school you apply to. I don't think you are likely to be accepted to Harvard but top tier schools eat up research and you seem to have that covered. Obviously your GPA is lackluster for these school. Mid-tier schools aren't a guarantee either but applying broadly and early, I have no doubt you will receive many interviews.

Your ECs do leave quite a bit to be desired as I said. You don't seem to have shown a passion for medicine but rather a passion for science. I would use the PS to address this weakness. I'm not sure your GPA is low enough to also get a mention in your PS, maybe someone else can chime in and advise you on that.

Best of luck.
 
Mike makes a great point - you need to passionately write about why you want to go into medicine in your PS. That said, while a weakness, I don't think that you have shown an inadequate passion for medicine with your activities, and definitely have a strong chance at being accepted to a top 20 med school, especially if you emphasize that you would add to the diversity of the class with your affinity towards the other aspects of science, as this is for sure the direction medical advances in technology is going. Good luck!
 
I would read "strong chance" as "slightly better than most". I think it's better to be slightly pessimistic than overly confident in your application to avoid having a top heavy list and no acceptances at the end of the cycle.

Given that, you are not competitive at Harvard, but you won't exactly have a 0% chance of getting in. I'm skeptical of any stats that I pull from MSAR, because while Harvard's 10th percentile GPA is listed as 3.71 (which I assume is about as low as you can go before Harvard automatically filters you out of their application pool), some of these matriculants are URM, which gives them a significant leg up on their non-URM counterparts. So while Harvard might not filter you out immediately, chances are a caucasian male with your stats won't get in. You never do know, I guess.

You are competitive for BU.
 
I don't know about Harvard Med, but a top 20 institution can definitely be interested. I would work on adding more patient contact hours and perhaps pushing up that sGPA if the goal is a top 20 institution. Otherwise, I think getting into a mid-tier school or your in-state college as very likely.
 
TriagePreMed said:
I don't know about Harvard Med, but a top 20 institution can definitely be interested. I would work on adding more patient contact hours and perhaps pushing up that sGPA if the goal is a top 20 institution. Otherwise, I think getting into a mid-tier school or your in-state college as very likely.
Click to expand...

I agree. Lack of clinical hours and GPA will hold you back a bit from top schools...

However a lot more goes into Med school admissions... if you apply early and make sure you write a good application! More than anything I'm a decent writer and that helped me out a ton!
 
member1029 said:
"probability of acceptance to at least one top 20s I apply to"
Click to expand...

Not guaranteed, but definitely above average. With that publication, make sure to throw in Stanford, as well.

member1029 said:
I suppose I could double down on the volunteering, or seek out another shadowing opportunity, in next few two months or so, and then update my application with the updated hours when I submit my secondaries (Updating in this way is possible, right?)
Click to expand...

You can't change your primary application, but in some secondaries you can add additional information you didn't get to include in your primary. Those hours just won't be in your Activities section of your primary, which is where most AdComs will look for that info.
 
member1029 said:
Thanks again for the replies!
I'm definitely writing my PS to demonstrate why I choose medicine given my background. An adcom called it a very strong PS.

WilsonFan: perhaps I am being pessimistic in feeling the need to ask for clarification, but you're saying I have a good shot of getting into (at least) one of the following schools (according to the usnews list which of course I take with a grain of salt) NYU, Northwestern, Mt. Sinai, Pitt, Cornell, Vandy, UCLA, UofM, UChicago, Duke, Columbia, Yale, UPenn, UCSF, etc etc?
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it doesn't really make a difference where you go. dont peserverate on this. i've been a physician for 36 years and i don't know where any of the members of the medical staff at my hospital went to med school and they don't know where i went---and none of us care. we're all board certified.period.
having said that, your a kid and you will not listen to the voice of experience.
 
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OP, with your 200+ hours of time with patients, I'm not at all sure what others are saying about how you lack clinical time. Maybe you just added that later, but it certainly does seem that you've had lots of contact with patients.

My only suggestion is that it seems you're checking the boxes for what makes a good application. Do you have other interests so we get to know the person as well as your stats?

Finally, NO ONE can tell you honestly what your chances are any more than if can do a blind guess. So much of this is the big unknown: your PS, recommendations, your interview, etc.
 
hummm…. I missed large chunks of your conversation. Like ten days of convo.

What was your final list of schools? I ask because your MCAT is so strong, but your gpa is kinda meh, so that puts you in a funny spot. Then you also have to figure which schools prefer the MCAT over the gpa. And then you get into their mssion statement and whether that fits with you. So helps us out here and share.
 
Your research is so good! The rest of your EC are pretty fine/standard. Your MCAT is good but your GPA is a little low. I'm not sure what makes Yale a "hopeful" and Stanford "Go for it." Stanford favors CA residents and it has a lower acceptance rate than Yale. Columbia also has a lower acceptance rate and yield than Yale. I would move Duke, Stanford, and Columbia to my "Hopeful" pile. I think any top 10 would be a "reach." For most of these schools, your high MCAT becomes pretty standard, and you are banking on your research. You never know what may happen, but I would imagine these schools would be a unlikely.

"Go for it" should be the rest of the top 20-25. I would imagine you would get several interviews and you have a good shot.

"High Chance-" cut a few of the schools you really don't want to attend. 35 is soo many schools and if your LOR/essays/interview skills are good (as you indicated) , there is not need to apply to so many.
 
I agree with dahassa. I think 35 is just too many. If you had certain holes in your application, then 35 may be understandable, but you don't. If you listed a slew of schools that were in many different ranges and rankings, then it makes sense, but you didn't. If you focused on a certain location, or had a range of public/privates, then it may make sense. Instead, you picked so many schools that are all in the tippy-top category of ranking throughout the country. I think you'll be fine and can get an acceptance this year, but applying to 35 will be exhausting as you try to get to all those secondaries. Be sure to keep as posted how it goes.
 
member1029 said:
Thanks again, Louie. I really appreciate that you have kept up with this thread and have made multiple posts. I hope you got a chance to listen to the story I posted!
At any rate, dahassa mentioned I should consider cutting a few of my high chance schools, while you mentioned that I should maybe consider applying to more high chance type schools. Do you have any suggestions as to which I should apply to? There are indeed several (about 4) high chance schools that might cut, as well as one Go for It school.
Click to expand...

I did? I don't recall suggesting you apply to any type of school, high chance or not. I only wondered which ones you finally applied to. Truthfully, I don't think you should apply to any that are "high chance" unless you have a boatload of extra cash for the secondaries.

Then, I want to know what you're doing to your thread. Are you simply trying to keep it bounced up so we see it, or are you writing something and then deleting it? In any case, unless there's something new here to discuss, let's have someone else jump up to the top.
 
Wow, Michigan gave out interview offers already? lol.

Love Ann Arbor man, it's a great place =) Grats on the interview!
 
member1029 said:
Thanks for the kind words, everyone.

Now, the question is: I just got an interview invite from University of Michigan; do you think I should not bother submitting secondaries to some of my safeties (Drexel, downstate, georgetown, 2 super safe state schools)?.
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Would you go to school at any of those places if accepted? If so, submit them. If not, don't submit them.

One interview invite doesn't guarantee an acceptance.
 
member1029 said:
Thanks for the kind words, everyone.

Now, the question is: I just got an interview invite from University of Michigan; do you think I should not bother submitting secondaries to some of my safeties (Drexel, downstate, georgetown, 2 super safe state schools)?.
Click to expand...

If time and money isn't an issue, I don't see why not. It can only help.
 
Why is everybody saying the OP lacks clinical exposure? If that's a "lack", what can be said about the 90% of SDNers who have the same # hours and activities?
 
Radon XP said:
Why is everybody saying the OP lacks clinical exposure? If that's a "lack", what can be said about the 90% of SDNers who have the same # hours and activities?
Click to expand...

Read closer. OP has shadowing and expects 200+ hours hospital volunteering by August 2014. S/he has never stated how many hours are currently accrued, but I suspect it's low.

OP - I would only drop those schools if you really wouldn't attend them. Michigan is a school that is known to like high stats, and one II from there doesn't provide indications that you'll get IIs from your other schools that look at an app more holistically. That being said, congrats on the II!
 
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