Help me cross schools off my list?

[fdwy13]

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Hi! I have way too many schools and know I am going to struggle with writing secondaries - please help me remove some schools.

TLDR: High stats but not sure about everything else, wanna apply broadly bc im scared. May be interested in competitive specialities -> school w/ good research opportunities would be cool but really i just wanna get in anywhere

1. cGPA and sGPA: 4.0
2. MCAT score(s) and breakdown: 527 (132/132/131/132)
3. State of residence or country of citizenship (if non-US): Wa
4. Ethnicity and/or race: ORM (indian)
5. Undergraduate institution or category: public state school
6. Clinical experience (volunteer and non-volunteer): hospital (90 hours), street medicine (150 hours), free clinic (200 hours), scribe (only started recently, 100 hours at time of app, projected 1000 hours)
7. Research experience and productivity: 2500+ hours over 4 years, no pubs, 2 poster presentations, my research is not lab work - it is related to rural/underserved populations in medicine. Will have strong PI letter of rec
8. Shadowing experience and specialties represented: 90 hours total - cardiologist, oncologist, obgyn, family med
9. Non-clinical volunteering: food bank (60 hours), faith (not Christian if relevant) related volunteering to overcome taboos around mental health (100 hours/ongoing - also leadership), nonprofit working with unhoused populations (300+ hours, ongoing, leadership role), tutoring (100)
10. Other extracurricular activities: paid employment (coach at high school and employee at/helped start family business).
11. Relevant honors or awards: N/A except deans list?
12. Anything else not listed you think might be important: Majored in global health, i think my application centers around commitment to underserved and letters of rec will likely reflect that. I have family in Texas and New York if that makes a difference

School List:

Reach schools that like high stats: Hopkins, UPenn, WashU, Pritzker, NYU, Vanderbilt, Northwestern

Reach reach schools: Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Columbia, Duke, Cornell, UCLA, UCSF, UCSD, Umich, Pitt, Sinai , Case Western, Emory

Texas School: Baylor, UTSW, McGovern, Long

New York Schools: Hofstra, Rochester, Einstein, Stony Brook, SUNY upstate, SUNY downstate, NYMC (should I remove the SUNYs?)

Other schools: Kaiser, USC Keck, UVA, Morsani, Miami, Ohio, Indiana, UVM, Iowa, Quinnipac, Cincinatti, St Louis, Jefferson, Creighton, eastern virginia, brown, dartmouth

Low yield schools but i like the location: BostonU, Tufts, Georgetown, George Washington

state school: UW



Schools I was considering? should i add any of these: drexel, temple, loyola, rfu, rush, wake

 

[Faha]

Remove NYMC, SUNY Upstate, Indiana, UVM, Quinnipiac, Creighton since they will "yield protect" with your states. That is also true for all the schools on your considering list.

 

[chilly_md]

You will want to limit your list to about 35 to save money and avoid being overwhelmed with secondaries. Consider why you want to attend some of the high tier Ivy League and remove the ones you don’t like.

Apply to:
Hopkins
Penn
WashU
Pritzker
NYU
Vanderbilt
Northwestern
Harvard
Stanford
Yale
Columbia
Duke
Cornell
UCLA
UCSF
Umich
Pitt
Sinai
Case Western
Emory
Baylor
UTSW
Hofstra
Rochester
Einstein
Stony Brook
Kaiser
USC Keck
UVA
USF
Miami
Ohio State
Iowa
Cincinnati
St Louis
Jefferson
Dartmouth
Boston
University of Washington

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Which schools have faculty/departments that truly appreciate your public health research work? At your poster presentations, which faculty/students were represented among those that actually talked to you and gave you feedback? Where do your PI's peers work (not at your school, but peers who review his/her grants and papers)? If there are grad students in the group, find out where they considered for public health training.

Find out which schools could support you in your interests, or where your PI's think you can find additional mentors who can support you, and take those suggestions more seriously. If he's writing a stellar LOR for you, it's best you know which schools might have someone who know your PI.

Your stats and experiences should make schools want YOU. Find out which schools fit and can fulfill your purpose. You probably will find about 20 will do that effectively given the suggestions above.

 

[fdwy13]

Remove NYMC, SUNY Upstate, Indiana, UVM, Quinnipiac, Creighton since they will "yield protect" with your states. That is also true for all the schools on your considering list.

Thank you so much for the feedback! I was wondering for yield protecting - does that mean they won't look at the application at all? If I can make a good case for wanting to go there will that make a difference?

 

[chilly_md]

Thank you so much for the feedback! I was wondering for yield protecting - does that mean they won't look at the application at all? If I can make a good case for wanting to go there will that make a difference?

They know from historic data that those kind of applicants won’t matriculate. Writing what you like about them will not help.

 

[fdwy13]

@Faha or anyone else - Thank you for the advice - I was wondering, is there a reason why Miami is not low yield/will yield protect compared to some of the other schools?
Ex: according to MSAR, Miami has avg. accepted MCAT of 514 and interviewed around 300 out of 8.6k OOS applicants. Meanwhile, Creighton also has an accepted MCAT of 514, but interviews around 800 out of 6.8k OOS applicants (with 200 OOS students matriculating as opposed to Miami's 100). Am I looking at these numbers wrong?
Thank you

 

[Faha]

Creighton is unlikely to interview you since they know that applicants with your stats will attend a high tier school.