Help with SMP List

[futureortho]

Hey guys, I would greatly appreciate feedback on if it is worth applying to all these schools for Post-Bacc/SMP. Graduating in Spring from a Top-15 University with a 3.2 GPA and 26R MCAT. LOR, Personal Statement, EC's are all superb. Also an URM student.

Here is my list (in no order of preference):
1. USC MS in Global Medicine
2. Columbia University MS
3. EVMS MBS
4. Tufts MBS
5. George Mason MB
6. Georgetown SMP
7. Boston U MAMS
8. Loyola Chicago MAMS
9. Cincinnati SMP
10. NYMC
11. Toledo MS
12. Georgetown GEMS
13. Temple ACMS
14. USF SMP
15. Drexel DPMS
16. Drexel IMS
17. Charles Drew Post-Bacc
18. UC Consortium Post-Bacc
19. Keck Graduate Institute Post-Bacc
20. Rosalind Franklin

Is applying to 20 schools over-kill? Some of these programs are incredibly enticing since they have conditional acceptances into their respective medical schools.

Any and all input would be greatly appreciated.

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[akim6890]

Instead of evaluating these individually, you need to ask yourself the broader question of: What do I attend to accomplish by going to this program?

1) Is it simply an improvement in my GPA? (Another important one along with this is: how much will my GPA actually improve even if I 4.0 all these classes?)

2) Is it to prove to medical schools that I am able to do well in med school classes competing against med school students?

3) Does this program offer MCAT preparation as well as other perks of preparing for med school applications such as letters to update schools you're applying to, interview practice, and personal statement advising?

4) How strong is the "linkage" if there is any at all? I define linkage as either: a defined standard of what you need to get an interview or an automatic interview.

5) Do I have the minimum GPA/MCAT score required (subjective)?

See which of these questions apply to you and then begin the process of elimination. If you have a science degree, you're going to want to do a real SMP since you're grades won't improve much by retaking those science classes at a different school. You're also going to need to improve your MCAT score by a couple points (~28) for some of those programs like UCinci and Georgetown as well as improve it even further for your application to medical school (assuming MD). All those details can be found throughout the post-bacc forums.

Personally, I'm applying to 5 programs and I thought that was too many.

 

[RubicStorm]

Wow... that's a lot. I applied to 9 and I thought that was a lot, but only because I applied in May. Assuming money's not a problem or you have waivers, why not apply to the category 5 programs out of your list. I assume you took them from http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=640302.

I'm pretty sure most (all?) of the category 5 programs are better than any of the category 1 as far as getting you into a medical school and a lot of them seem to offer way better linkages. Given that, I see 0 reason for you to consider even great SMPs like Cincinnati, Tufts, BU or Georgetown. I guess you can apply to these as well just in case, but I think you'll get into one of the others.