I did not have any success this past cycle. I applied somewhat late (end of July), and it took well over a month to get verified (verified 9/20). My list was too mid-tier school focused, and I am from FL, and did not have luck with MD schools in FL this year. I did not apply to USF and FSU, and only added UCF in November--I'll add all of these next year.
I am also somewhat of a career changer/non-trad. I graduated undergrad in 2017, and finished my masters in 2018. The significant uptick in grades in senior year and onward is due to going from working 40+ hours/week to working less than 20; I got married and finally qualified for financial aid, and not having to work in addition to taking classes really helped.
My masters is from my alma-mater, and is intended as a special master's type program, and the post-bacc is a certificate offered by my alma mater's med school: all the first year med classes, taken with med students, and graded the same as their exams/classes are. I did okay (I got a B in Histology, and a B+ in Gross Anatomy Lab, but As in the rest). The below screenshot is from the AMCAS September verification from before I finished that; the postbacc is now a 3.75 GPA, with 16 hours. I'm not in a place to move and do another SMP/other post-bacc, so I need to work with what I have.
GPA:
MCAT:
Current job: R&D Lead Scientist, at a gene therapy company. Not really any patient contact with that. Basically, 3 years as an R&D scientist, including 1 year at Thermo Fisher doing AAV work.
Paid Clinical: 900 hours as a medical assistant/surgical assistant from 2017-2018.
Unpaid Clinical: I'm waiting to start as a Hopsice volunteer in the coming months. I've been approved and everything, but need a vaccine, and they're only doing 2 hour shifts each week, on alternating weeks, so this will likely look like ~50 hours by May.
Volunteering (non-clinical): 300 hours mentoring kids/helping with reading in lower-income schools, 100 hours of free college-prep/SAT/ACT tutoring, 200 hours of free grocery delivery to seniors during COVID (at a local independent living community for the elderly).
Teaching: TA for Human Physiology senior year. The prof wrote me a pretty strong LoR.
Research: 2500 hours as an undergrad/grad student (unpaid). 3 years in biotech from 2018-now. 1 paper in JPET, 1 in review for Cell.
Patents: 1-Cdiff vaccine for human and swine targets. 2-TiLV vaccine for fish target.
Leadership: Student Senate president for a year. Student VP for the honor society chapter at my university (senior year).
School List (past year):
I need help with crafting a school list of MD schools I actually have a shot at. My dream school is UF (alma mater), as it's somewhere I know really well, have already taken classes at with the current M1s (and loved the community), and have a strong support system (my husband's entire family lives here). I'd like to stay in FL, ideally, and only Mercer is a no-go as my father is a professor there and on the admissions committee--and is very against me going there because he thinks it's "not good enough." My aunt-in-law teaches at UCF (not in COM), and I have more family in the area, so UCF is also a great choice. So far, I've really only got those (UF, UCF, FSU, USF, UMiami) on the list. I'd appreciate any advice/help.
Also, how much does it hurt my chances to have a family (as a female applicant) during the cycle? Is it something I should avoid mentioning at all costs (as seems to be the general female MD advice given to hopeful female MDs)?
Thank you in advance!
