Help balancing school list (IL, ORM, 3.99 GPA, 521 MCAT)

[8to5stepper]

Hi everyone, I could use some help balancing out my school list, as I know I applied a bit top-heavy. Any suggestions at all are appreciated!

• State/Country of Residence: IL, ORM Female
• Ties to other States/Regions: AZ
• Year in School: Incoming senior
• Undergraduate Major(s)/Minor(s): Biology Honors major, Chemistry minor
• Graduate Degrees (if applicable): None
• Cumulative GPA: 3.99
• Science GPA: 3.99
• MCAT Score(s): 521 (129/131/130/131)
• Research Experience: (850+ hours, 400 plant biochemistry summer REU, 450+ undergraduate research lab in animal biology)
• Publications/Abstracts/Posters (include how you were credited e.g. First author, second author, etc.): one paper and poster from the REU (second author), working on a paper now from my undergrad lab (hoping it’ll be accepted by next year, would be first author)
• Clinical Experience (paid or volunteer): ~100 hours, will be more this semester
• Physician Shadowing: 15 hours (this is a weak point, I had some more hours lined up before COVID, but alas)
• Non-Clinical Volunteering: 130 hours
• Other Extracurricular Activities: ~720 hours as a member of a Big 10 marching band, 120 hours as an anatomy TA for a summer camp for young high schoolers
• Other Employment History: Receptionist at my school, some retail
• Scholarships: Received one scholarship award by my college's department, and one that allowed me to be paid to work in my research lab for the summer
• Immediate family members in medicine? (Y/N): N
• Specialty of Interest (if applicable): Would love to work in medical genetics
• Interest in Primary Care (Y/N): N
• Interest in Rural Health (Y/N): N
• Misc: I have one writing intensive science course and AP credit for English, so I don’t meet the English requirements for some schools. Also no physician’s LOR, as I didn’t feel comfortable asking for one after so little shadowing.
• Medical School List (I know this is quite top-heavy. I guess I was concentrating on hitting the big ones early in the cycle, but now I don’t know what to choose for mid and low tiers!):

Baylor
NYU
Harvard
Mayo
MCW
Northwestern Feinberg
OSU
UPenn Perelman
SIU
Stanford
USF Morsani
Arizona-Phoenix
UCSF
UChicago Pritzker
Illinois
Iowa
UMich
WashU

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[Faha]

Your low clinical exposure hours and low non clinical volunteering hours will limit your chances for interviews. I suggest adding these schools:
Western Michigan
Case Western
Cincinnati
Pittsburgh
Rochester
Hofstra
Einstein
Mount Sinai
U Virginia
Tufts
Kaiser

 

[8to5stepper]

Your low clinical exposure hours and low non clinical volunteering hours will limit your chances for interviews. I suggest adding these schools:
Western Michigan
Case Western
Cincinnati
Pittsburgh
Rochester
Hofstra
Einstein
Mount Sinai
U Virginia
Tufts
Kaiser

Agreed, thank you so much!