Good stats, are ECs enough for top schools?

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MakeItRain

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Hey all, I'll list my stats and ECs, and was hoping that someone could comment on my chances at top schools (i.e. Harvard, UPenn, UCSF, Stanford etc.)

GPA: 3.95
MCAT: 40 S (11 V, 15 B, 14 P)

Molecular Biology department award for Outanding Scholar (shared with one other student)

ECs:
- 5 years research in 3 labs (not concurrent). 1 non-first author pub, Oral presentation at undergraduate honors symposium.
- 1 year peer advising (~4 hours per week) with school's undergraduate research program.
- ~60 hours clinical volunteering over 1 summer at community health center
- ~10 hours shadowing. ICU and neurologist.
- ~100 hours volunteering with local chapter of national volunteer group. Mostly work in the inner city and with the homeless. 75% of those hours will be logged as a group leader, who sets up volunteer experiences and organizes after-work social events.
- 1 year (~5 hours/week) work as a tutor at a national tutoring service for kids. Tutored math and reading.

I'm not really worried about getting into a school, but am concerned about my chances at the top schools. I'm a California resident.

Thanks.

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Hey all, I'll list my stats and ECs, and was hoping that someone could comment on my chances at top schools (i.e. Harvard, UPenn, UCSF, Stanford etc.)

GPA: 3.95
MCAT: 40 S (11 V, 15 B, 14 P)

Molecular Biology department award for Outanding Scholar (shared with one other student)

ECs:
- 5 years research in 3 labs (not concurrent). 1 non-first author pub, Oral presentation at undergraduate honors symposium.
- 1 year peer advising (~4 hours per week) with school's undergraduate research program.
- ~60 hours clinical volunteering over 1 summer at community health center
- ~10 hours shadowing. ICU and neurologist.
- ~100 hours volunteering with local chapter of national volunteer group. Mostly work in the inner city and with the homeless. 75% of those hours will be logged as a group leader, who sets up volunteer experiences and organizes after-work social events.
- 1 year (~5 hours/week) work as a tutor at a national tutoring service for kids. Tutored math and reading.

I'm not really worried about getting into a school, but am concerned about my chances at the top schools. I'm a California resident.

Thanks.
While your numbers are terrific, and your research is of excellent duration, your clinical experience and shadowing are weak. This would be less of a handicap if you plan to apply for MD/PhD programs, which care most about the research. Is your research sufficiently substantive (you had creative input and/or took a lead role in a project, as first author pub would imply) to be appealing to top research schools and MD/PhD programs?

The teaching/mentoring looks good. The leadership is about average. I'm glad to see nonmedical community service that helps the poor.

Do you have any interesting hobbies or artistic endeavors to help you stand out?
 
For the two projects that are of long duration, I was the main person working on both of them. Therefore I was responsible for all experimental design on these projects. Both of them are likely to be published in the near future, but not before apps.

I was afraid that my clinical wouldn't be sufficient, but do you think it's absolutely prohibitive to getting into the top schools? I will obviously try to get more in the next 3-4 months, but if I was applying as is would I have a good chance? I'm not really looking into MD/PhD.

As for hobbies, I'm an avid basketball player, but nothing organized since high school

Thanks again.
 
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If your research is sufficiently "cutting edge", maybe top schools would overlook the deficiencies, but there are so many excellent candidates that have it all, and whose experiences support that they have strong protential to become a future leader in medicine, that I cannot blithely say you're a shoo-in at Top Schools from what I know of you. Opinions may vary.

Are you not interested in PhD/MD?
 
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