MD Help with school list please! cGPA 3.98 MCAT 514

[2electrontransportchainz]

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[gyngyn]

If that is your only MCAT you can apply to any OOS private school that you prefer to your IS schools.

 

[QuestionsAnswers]

Great stats. Some people with more knowledge on school selection should be able to help you with your list, but given your LizzyM of 73 and apparent URM status, I think you could apply to almost any school.

 

[To be MD]

Any help would be appreciated! Just got my MCAT scores back this week and bought the MSAR, so pretty overwhelmed. Trying to balance being realistic along with the whole "if you never try, you never know" attitude

cGPA 3.98
sGPA 3.97
MCAT 514 (129/128/129/128) 92% percentile
Florida Resident
Mexican-American, dad moved to Florida as child of migrant farmworkers, would love to work with this community
Rising senior at the University of Florida
100 hours clinical volunteering at UF Health Hospital
120 hours non-clinical volunteering with American Cancer Society
50 hours volunteering with children with special needs
600 hours research through dept at UF COM, no pubs, but working on independent project this summer/fall
40 hours shadowing, pediatric endocrinology
Tutoring: 1 semester biochemistry supplemental instruction leader
Hobbies: weightlifting

Very rough school list:
University of Florida
University of Miami Miller
Florida Atlantic University
University of South Florida
University of Central Florida
Georgetown
George Washington
Tufts
Emory

Reaches: (even worth it?)
Stanford
Northwestern
Duke
Boston University

Any other OOS friendly school suggestions within my range would be appreciated.

I recommend downloading the WedgeDawg Applicant Rating System to get a better list.

You have the highest chance of getting into schools from your state (regardless of whether they are public or private). Additionally, as a Mexican-American URM, you stand a very good shot at getting into a solid school that serves the Latino community in the US.

You have a solid app, and schools in the US are dying for qualified Hispanic applicants. Please say you speak Spanish. Please. When looking at the MSAR, use a "33" as your MCAT score. Hispanics with your stats had a 93% chance of getting in, so the odds are in your favor.

This list could serve as a start (again, don't leave out any state schools!):

• USF-Morsani
• Miami-Miller
• UCF
• FIU
• Florida
• Florida Atlantic
• Florida State
  
  
• USC-Keck
• UCLA
• UCSF
• BU
• Northwestern
• Howard
• Meharry
• GW
  
  
• Duke & any other top-tier schools that suit your fancy. From Wedge, I'd guess they're going to tell you to apply to 3-6 top schools in total.

 

[2electrontransportchainz]

I recommend downloading the WedgeDawg Applicant Rating System to get a better list.

You have the highest chance of getting into schools from your state (regardless of whether they are public or private). Additionally, as a Mexican-American URM, you stand a very good shot at getting into a solid school that serves the Latino community in the US.

You have a solid app, and schools in the US are dying for qualified Hispanic applicants. Please say you speak Spanish. Please. When looking at the MSAR, use a "33" as your MCAT score. Hispanics with your stats had a 93% chance of getting in, so the odds are in your favor.

This list could serve as a start (again, don't leave out any state schools!):

• USF-Morsani
• Miami-Miller
• UCF
• FIU
• Florida
• Florida Atlantic
• Florida State
  
  
• USC-Keck
• UCLA
• UCSF
• BU
• Northwestern
• Howard
• Meharry
• GW
  
  
• Duke & any other top-tier schools that suit your fancy. From Wedge, I'd guess they're going to tell you to apply to 3-6 top schools in total.

Thank you for your help! I would say I speak very minimal spanish. Do you retract your statement?🙁 My spanish-speaking dad has not been a very active member of my life so unfortunately most exposure is from school.

Also, I would love to attend any of the California schools, but I had removed them from my list when I saw how much they favored in-state applicants. So you think it is worth it to apply to that many of them? Because of the Hispanic community there?

 

[To be MD]

Thank you for your help! I would say I speak very minimal spanish. Do you retract your statement?🙁 My spanish-speaking dad has not been a very active member of my life so unfortunately most exposure is from school.

Also, I would love to attend any of the California schools, but I had removed them from my list when I saw how much they favored in-state applicants. So you think it is worth it to apply to that many of them? Because of the Hispanic community there?

Definitely worth to apply to those Cali schools. They need Hispanic doctors in California. There are enough White and Asian applicants to fill all Californian medical school classes for the next decade, but there are only 4000 or so Hispanic applicants in the entire US. In the US, our Hispanic/Latino population is 17%, but we only have 3% Hispanic physicians. Most of those Hispanic peoples are in California, Florida, Texas (feel free to fill out a TMDAS app too), Arizona (Mayo AZ comes to mind), New Mexico, Illinois, and New York. Focus your apps on those states, and you'll be better off for it.

Read this directly from the AAMC.

I totally do not retract my statement, though. You say you want to work with Latino farm-workers in FL? Awesome. How are you going to do that without Spanish? Learn Spanish. Learn Spanish! Sure, people get better care from doctors that look like them, but there are an overwhelming number of patients in the USA that need physicians that not only look like them/share their culture but also speak their language.

People will tell you various things on this forum as to whether or not you have to speak Spanish as a URM Latino, but the fact is the need is for Latino physicians that speak the language.

If there's one thing you can do over the next year that will help you get into medical school and be an outstanding physician in the US, it is learning Spanish. Doing this will help your app more than a 1000 h playing guitar, becoming a 2nd author, or spending a year saving kittens in Ethiopia.

As you said, your Spanish is "basic" on your app. If you follow my advice, write "Fair" on your app and spend the next 4 months doing everything you can to learn Spanish in your downtime and/or go to a program to learn the language for the next few months, so that in case they taste you on that (which they have every right to do), you'll be ready by the time interviews come around. Duolingo, memrise, whatever. Do it. Seriously.


The AAMC's Diversity Initiative doesn't exist (as many naive people will tell you) to get a bunch of liberal wahoos to pat themselves on the back for having a more colorful workforce. It exists because real patients get real better care from physicians who look like them and speak their language and dialect. By recruiting URM doctors, people's lives get saved. That's the point. That's why we're here.

 

[gyngyn]

Thank you for your help! I would say I speak very minimal spanish. Do you retract your statement?🙁 My spanish-speaking dad has not been a very active member of my life so unfortunately most exposure is from school.

Also, I would love to attend any of the California schools, but I had removed them from my list when I saw how much they favored in-state applicants. So you think it is worth it to apply to that many of them? Because of the Hispanic community there?

I would modify my recommendations. Without language skills, I cannot recommend the CA schools.
You would be doing yourself and those you hope to represent a big favor by learning to communicate with them. You are still a good candidate for FL schools.

 

[2electrontransportchainz]

Definitely worth to apply to those Cali schools. They need Hispanic doctors in California. There are enough White and Asian applicants to fill all Californian medical school classes for the next decade, but there are only 4000 or so Hispanic applicants in the entire US. In the US, our Hispanic/Latino population is 17%, but we only have 3% Hispanic physicians. Most of those Hispanic peoples are in California, Florida, Texas (feel free to fill out a TMDAS app too), Arizona (Mayo AZ comes to mind), New Mexico, Illinois, and New York. Focus your apps on those states, and you'll be better off for it.

Read this directly from the AAMC.

I totally do not retract my statement, though. You say you want to work with Latino farm-workers in FL? Awesome. How are you going to do that without Spanish? Learn Spanish. Learn Spanish! Sure, people get better care from doctors that look like them, but there are an overwhelming number of patients in the USA that need physicians that not only look like them/share their culture but also speak their language.

People will tell you various things on this forum as to whether or not you have to speak Spanish as a URM Latino, but the fact is the need is for Latino physicians that speak the language.

If there's one thing you can do over the next year that will help you get into medical school and be an outstanding physician in the US, it is learning Spanish. Doing this will help your app more than a 1000 h playing guitar, becoming a 2nd author, or spending a year saving kittens in Ethiopia.

As you said, your Spanish is "basic" on your app. If you follow my advice, write "Fair" on your app and spend the next 4 months doing everything you can to learn Spanish in your downtime and/or go to a program to learn the language for the next few months, so that in case they taste you on that (which they have every right to do), you'll be ready by the time interviews come around. Duolingo, memrise, whatever. Do it. Seriously.


The AAMC's Diversity Initiative doesn't exist (as many naive people will tell you) to get a bunch of liberal wahoos to pat themselves on the back for having a more colorful workforce. It exists because real patients get real better care from physicians who look like them and speak their language and dialect. By recruiting URM doctors, people's lives get saved. That's the point. That's why we're here.

I am definitely going to take your advice and focus on increasing my language proficiency. I will be graduating in the fall so I should have even more time after that for improvement. However, my primary application has already been submitted (to one FL school, to start verification while awaiting mcat scores), so I am unable to edit my language proficiency which I have entered as basic. Would it be an issue that it does not say fair? I know I could have the chance to update schools on my application via secondary applications as well.

 

[To be MD]

I am definitely going to take your advice and focus on increasing my language proficiency. I will be graduating in the fall so I should have even more time after that for improvement. However, my primary application has already been submitted (to one FL school, to start verification while awaiting mcat scores), so I am unable to edit my language proficiency which I have entered as basic. Would it be an issue that it does not say fair? I know I could have the chance to update schools on my application via secondary applications as well.

I think you'll be okay. You said basic on the app, and if they ask about it, impress them with more than basic proficiency.

I believe you'll be able to update schools on your Spanish skills/progress throughout the year, not just on secondaries.

Just remember, there's a big difference between saying "I want to help out Latino farm workers and use my ethnicity to radically change, for the better, US healthcare" and doing things that show your commitment to that goal (e.g., speaking Spanish, volunteering in Latino communities).