Help! Do I need research?

[Thesankquance]

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Hi I have a 32M (10,11,11) MCAT and 3.75bcmp, 3.77 total
I have lots of shadowing, clinical and non-clinical volunteer experience...but no research 🙁 How much will this affect me during the application process. I really don't care what MD program I get into as long as it is an MD program in the United States. I am an Oregon resident and I have applied to ~25 schools with a wide range of rankings (high/middle/low tier). I am getting worried because the University of Utah just rejected my application because I have never done research (outside from a class I was enrolled in)

All advice would be appreciated...you don't need to sugar coat your answers either.

 

[stixx]

I'm in a similar situation. The advice I got was to avoid applying to schools that are research heavy. It seems like all schools claim to be well reknowned for their research, but the scary ones are the top 30 maybe of USNews's research ranking.

That said, I've heard a lot of people claim that they have extensive research experience when really all they've done is a few semester long projects as part of classes...I'm sure there are some schools that will consider that.

 

[enjoydrywax]

I think you should be set for non-research oriented schools. However, any school that heavily emphasizes or participates in research will probably not even look at you. I hope you applied to OHSU since I hear they are pretty big on the patient-care side of medicine. Either way, I would evaluate your school choices (of those 25 you mentioned) and determine if any of them really stress biological investigation. If you do happen to find any I would either A) withdraw if you haven't sent a secondary or B) apply to another non-research school in order to maintain a balance. Good luck.

 

[Thesankquance]

Thanks for the advice...what schools do you think I should add? are any of the SUNY schools a good choice for me?