Help deciding what cycle to apply (EC's good enough?)

[wutamidoing]

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Hello, I am an premed student graduating in December that needs some advice on what to do before applying to med school. I decided on medical school very late, about 9 months ago, and am wondering how long I should delay my application in order to build my application to a good level. I was initially thinking of applying during the 2020 cycle, but I’m now unsure if waiting 2 years is necessary. Basically, I’m wondering if I should take more time to get additional research experience/more volunteering or if my application will be competitive enough in 1 year.


I can see advantages in applying in both 2019 and 2020. I think between waiting a year until 2019 and the year before I actually matriculate I’ll be able to put together a competitive resume. However, I also feel additional time can’t hurt and I’m in no real ‘rush’ to apply. I have several ideas for what I could do in an additional year, including Americorps (always a goal of mine) and full-time research in a lab I know I could get a job at. I feel like I don’t have a ‘wow’ factor and hopefully would be able to do something exciting with more time. I would be completely okay, financially/mentally, waiting until 2020 but obviously am excited to start med school if I have a strong enough resume.


I don’t have any illusions about the strength of my application and will apply to mostly mid tier schools including all the Ohio schools/ BU and Tufts (family in Boston). I really haven’t put much thought into schools at all, these are just the first couple that I will be applying to.


Below are my current stats- I have no doubt that I’ll be able to double+ my volunteer hours over the next year. Also, I have not taken the MCAT yet but plan on taking it next April. I’m not dead set on taking it at this time and if I delay applying until 2020 I will probably take it next fall. By talking to others/knowing my own abilities I’m hoping for around a 515. I know it’ll be hard to evaluate my chances without an MCAT score but the main intent of this post is to gauge my EC’s/timeline. My LizzyM with an assumed 515 is 71.9.

1. cGPA and sGPA as calculated by AMCAS or AACOMAS
cGPA: 3.79
sGPA: 3.68

My GPA’s are not fantastic, but my last 2 year GPAs are much better:
cGPA: 3.97
sGPA: 3.96, almost all upper level major (microbiology) classes


MCAT N/A


2. State of residence or country of citizenship (if non-US)
Ohio

3. Ethnicity and/or race
White, male

4. Undergraduate institution or category
Large public, microbiology major/architecture minor

5. Clinical experience (volunteer and non-volunteer)
Current emergency department scribe: 1000’s of hours
Volunteering in hospital as patient experience: 30 hours, ongoing
Volunteering in free clinic, mainly performing vision screenings: 50 hours, ongoing
Volunteering in university med school clinic, personally redoing undergrad referrals process: 50 hours, ongoing

6. Research experience and productivity
Sophomore-Junior year researching phage viability timelines in virology lab, no publications, no LoR, left on okay (not fantastic) terms. 500 hours
Current research project with professor developing a platform to address social determinants of health. Not bench work. 10 hours, ongoing, just started

7. Shadowing experience and specialties represented
None. Not an area I have focused on, as I feel like as working as a scribe my time will be better suited volunteering. However, I have family friends that work in family practice and neonatal surgery that I can shadow easily as well as use to branch out and find more shadowing opportunities.

8. Non-clinical volunteering
Volunteering in homeless shelters/food banks in an undergrad club: 30 hours, ongoing
Note taking through university disability services: 200 hours, probably no further hours
Non-clinical volunteering is something I genuinely enjoy and will boost considerably before applying.

9. Other extracurricular activities (including athletics, military service, gap year activities, leadership, teaching, etc)
History of teaching science to elementary school students as well as coaching club-level sports. I do not have a lot of undergrad leadership, but been employed in extremely high leadership, high responsibility positions. In addition, at several volunteer positions I am training new members.

 

[FroYoOreo]

Zero shadowing experience is going to hurt you so badly. I had 0 hours last cycle and was only interviewed at 2 schools, both waitlisted me.
This appears to be a big red flag

 

[wutamidoing]

Zero shadowing experience is going to hurt you so badly. I had 0 hours last cycle and was only interviewed at 2 schools, both waitlisted me.
This appears to be a big red flag

Great to know, thank you! Just curious, did you scribe as well? My thought process (probably flawed!) was that scribing is essentially paid shadowing, so I should focus on other areas of my app. That's a great tip, I'll make sure to do some shadowing in the future.

 

[bioboy23]

Great to know, thank you! Just curious, did you scribe as well? My thought process (probably flawed!) was that scribing is essentially paid shadowing, so I should focus on other areas of my app. That's a great tip, I'll make sure to do some shadowing in the future.

Although probably true that you see a lot as a scribe, shadowing is basically an unspoken requirement. You only need 30-50 hours shadowing primary care. Might as well check the box so that there is less for them to look down upon. Just take 5 days and shadow a PCP.

 

[LoveBeingHuman:)]

I wonder if the note-taking hours “count”. As I understand it, it basically just means that you take decent notes in your own classes and supply them to the disability center at your university. So in a way, you are significantly benefiting from it yourself since you are taking notes in your own classes (and if you are a good note taker to begin with, you’re merely just handing a copy of those over). I’m not saying that it definetly won’t count, but I’m just saying that it might be a gray area. @LizzyM and @Catalystik would be good to ask!

 

[wutamidoing]

I wonder if the note-taking hours “count”. As I understand it, it basically just means that you take decent notes in your own classes and supply them to the disability center at your university. So in a way, you are significantly benefiting from it yourself since you are taking notes in your own classes (and if you are a good note taker to begin with, you’re merely just handing a copy of those over). I’m not saying that it definetly won’t count, but I’m just saying that it might be a gray area. @LizzyM and @Catalystik would be good to ask!

Great to know, thanks. All of this is pretty new to me, so I'm not sure about a lot. I'll be sure to check it out!

 

[LizzyM]

If you are just spending a few minutes transferring your notes to a disabilities center for use by students with special needs, I would not count this as voluneer work. The homeless shelter work is good and perhaps you can continue that and grow in the role to include leadership or some greater level of involvement.

 

[Catalystik]

I wonder if the note-taking hours “count”. As I understand it, it basically just means that you take decent notes in your own classes and supply them to the disability center at your university. So in a way, you are significantly benefiting from it yourself since you are taking notes in your own classes (and if you are a good note taker to begin with, you’re merely just handing a copy of those over). I’m not saying that it definetly won’t count, but I’m just saying that it might be a gray area. @LizzyM and @Catalystik would be good to ask!

Sounds gray to me, too, if the notes taken were indeed for a class for which one was registered. While there'd be small degree of altruism assigned for sharing notes with a non-friend, it wouldn't be even close to 200 hours worth.