Gay Friendly School List Needed

[hughnguyen22]

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Hi all,

Sorry for this catchy title. I justwant to get more inputs. I am a gay man, but I am here for general suggestionfor school list based on all of my stats not just my sexual orientation. I am aTexas resident, so Balyor should be my top choice considering its incredible lowcost and excellent MSTP program. However, I am really tired of being in thecloset and living in a harassed environment. I am not ready to come out tomy parents yet. My step-father is a fundamentalist. Trust me, he will nevertalk to me again if I tell him about my sexual orientation. Since I want to doMD/PhD, I feel I will have some major mental break down if I live in Texas foranother eight years (I am serious). Please give me some suggestions about schoollist and application.

Basic Information:

Goal: MD/PhD,interested in computational biology or bioengineering or HIV related topic

Undergraduate Major: Chemical Engineering Major in a top engineering school in Texas

GPA: 3.9 (NoA+ in our school)

MCAT: 34(P12 V10 B12)

EC:

200+ hours’ communityservice and clinical volunteering: Local hospital, nursing home, AIDS clinics.Since I am in the closet, I can’t get involved in something likePride Alliance, so I am very involved in AIDS related organizations.

100+ hours’shadowing: private clinic, AIDS clinic, ER

Research: I really enjoy research. Working 15 hours/week in two different labs since myfreshman year, independent projects related to HIV infection and elderlyosteoporosis. I had several conference poster presentations and onesecond-author publication. Both of my mentors know me personally and like me,though one of my mentors is very skeptical about sexual orientation issue, and fortunatelyI did not tell him I am gay. This is one of the reasons I do not want to stayin Texas any more.

Working experience: Did research at NIH last summer. I will do an engineering intern ina big pharmaceutical company this summer. Tutor of college introduction scienceand calculus classes.

Leadership: Officers in AIDS service organization and Asian culture club. Resident Advisorof a resident hall for two years.

Award: Fulbright Scholar (I will do research aboard for a year before I go to medicalschool), some research awards from the school, one school outstandingleadership award

Recommendation Letter: Three Research Mentors (two of them are my science/engineeringprofessors), one letter from resident hall director, one letter from mysociology professors (we have talked about AIDS and LGBT related issues with him forseveral times, and he seems to like me), one letter from a volunteercoordinator. Most of them should be very strong.

Weakness:

I am an Asian…

I am not very artistic and not terribly good at writing (I know, I am the shame of bothgay and Asian), but I will put a lot of efforts into my PS.

I get a little bit nervous when I do interviews according to my previous job interviewexperience.

Current School List:

Harvard, Yale, Stanford, UCSF, Columbia,Cornell, NYU, Mount Sinai (Thank you NY! So many good schools!), Tufts, UWSeattle

Lower ranking school needed!

Questions (Please help):

1) My MCAT is a little bit low considering my current school list, should I retake itin July or August? (Urgent question, I need to sign up now if it is necessary)

2) Wha tshould I add into my current school list? I feel most of them can reject me. Should I apply for Baylorjust in case? I would love to go if they are not in Texas 🙂\). Some schools inmy mind, but not sure: UPenn (same sex marriage is not granted in Penn), UCSD,Duke (NC just passed anti same sex marriage law, so very unlikely I will gothere), Northwestern, U Chicago, U of Rochester, U of Maryland.

3) I feel it is too risky to mention my sexual orientation in my primary application. Can I mention my sexual orientation in my secondaryapplication especially for diversity questions? I want to say my sexualorientation and family situation helped me understand the suffering of patientsbesides their pain and diseases. And my personal experience as a gay maninspired me to be doctors to help the people who are suffering.

4) Should I bring up my sexual orientation during the interview? (If they asked I will behonest, but I don't think it’s legal for them to ask ;p).

As a fellow gaysian, if you are still in the closet, I do not recommend you to use the time of med app as a grand come-out moment. It is just because it could go either way. I do not know if you are ready for its going sour. Also, being asian is not a weakness. Just my 2 cents.

 

[Midifelder10]

You are obviously a super smart person just go to the coasts or mid west and you will be fine.

 

[postalkwk]

34 MCAT is a bit low for MSTP, but so is my GPA 3.6 (and 36 MCAT) and i have interviews to some amazing programs - (Mt. Sinai, UCSF to name two). You can definitely apply to top programs, but also apply to mid and lower tier programs too. It was extremely important to me to apply to only gay friendly areas as i grew up in the liberal SF bay area my whole life and knew i only wanted to live in certain areas until i'm 30. That being said, I found tons of schools is very gay friendly areas. Apply widely like I did (I applied to 28 schools and can pm my list to you if you're curious) Being gay wasn't in my primary personal statement, but my diversity essay talked about being gay and my volunteer work/leadership in the LGBT community (which was very substantial). I think this essay was a super strong essay and helped my admissions prospects. But part of why it was helpful was that I am completely comfortable with my sexuality and had significant leadership and volunteer work to relate to my identity and medicine. If you can somehow tie your work with HIV/AIDS groups to being gay, that may work, but if you're not completely comfortable with your sexual identity, it will definitely come across and be negative so only do so if you are proud and happy about being gay.