High Stat Reapplicant

[zorcandpals]

Hello Everyone,



I am finalizing my primary applications and would like to solicit some input on potential schools I should apply to. I had previously applied in the 2015 cycle and received several interviews that resulted in many waitlists but ultimately no acceptance. At the time, I had a LizzyM of 75-77 and my school’s premed committee ranked me in the highest tier. Clinical experience included volunteering at an ER and doing free clinic interpreting. Research experience included work in pathology and the social sciences with a handful of middle author pubs in pathology. I am an Asian male who graduated from a large research university and was a CA resident.

During that cycle, I previously applied to most schools in NYC, Boston, Chicago, California, as well as a few other places. I was eventually waitlisted at UCSF, UCSD, Northwestern, Chicago, Pitt, and Sinai. I was also rejected at UCD and Cornell post interview. Clearly, my interview performance was lacking then and have been working on that as best I can.



Since then, I have explored other potential career paths but keep coming back to Medicine. I retook the MCAT and scored a 522. Below is a brief summary of my activities. An asterisk implies that the bulk of the activity was on my first application.



Clinical Hours:

~200 hours of free clinic interpreting*

~60 hours of shadowing across various specialties*

~500 hours of ER volunteering*

Research Experience:

~600 hours of undergrad pathology research (several publications)*

~1500 hours of infectious diseases research, (no pubs)

~400 hours of undergrad social science research (no pubs)*

~2500 hours of policy research, was a full time job, (several pubs)

~700 hours of social science research from a research fellowship abroad (one publication under review)

Non clinical volunteering

~150 hours of volunteering at a legal asylum clinic. I interpret and help people write their affidavits

Other Stuff

~600 hours of teaching for the red cross*

~700 hours of teaching English abroad

~100 hours as an editor of an undergrad publication*



Currently, I am putting together a school list. I will probably be applying as a CA resident again. I used the WedgeDawg spreadsheet but feel like I might be coming up with a too top heavy of a list based on that. So far I have

Harvard

Stanford

UCSF

UCLA

UCSD

UCD

Vanderbilt

NYU

USC

Columbia

Cornell

BU

Chicago

Northwestern

Penn

Hopkins

Yale

Pitt

UCI

SUNY Downstate

Michigan

Mayo MN

Sinai

I would greatly appreciate any thoughts or suggestions.

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[Faha]

What are your cGPA and sGPA ?

 

[Grapesurgery]

How much of an increase was there between your mcat scores?
Your ECs seem solid. Would have been great if you could’ve amped up clinical hours in lieu of research hours, since you already had a large amount. But, still very solid overall.
I would remove SUNY downstate since they favor instate, and your stats seem high enough to potentially lead to yield protection. Also suggest adding more mid-tiers for the best shot of getting in somewhere, your list of ~24 schools is comprised of most (all?) the t20.
I’m honestly surprised you didn’t get pulled off a WL that cycle. Best of luck! I hope you’ve come far on the interview skills improvement.

 

[appropriatepeanut]

I was accepted this cycle in TX (TX resident) and I met several people on the interview trail who were from OOS and received acceptances to TX schools. If you look through the school specific threads (Baylor, UTSW, McGovern, Long SOM), you can see the OOS applicants that were successful. If you are interested in applying to schools in TX, especially UTSW /Baylor with your MCAT and research. You have to apply through the TMDSAS system.

 

[zorcandpals]

What are your cGPA and sGPA ?

cGPA and sGPA are both around 3.9

How much of an increase was there between your mcat scores?
Your ECs seem solid. Would have been great if you could’ve amped up clinical hours in lieu of research hours, since you already had a large amount. But, still very solid overall.
I would remove SUNY downstate since they favor instate, and your stats seem high enough to potentially lead to yield protection. Also suggest adding more mid-tiers for the best shot of getting in somewhere, your list of ~24 schools is comprised of most (all?) the t20.
I’m honestly surprised you didn’t get pulled off a WL that cycle. Best of luck! I hope you’ve come far on the interview skills improvement.

I had a 36 on the old MCAT so I suppose it is an improvement of ~2 or so percentile points?

I should add that I have been living in NYC for the past few years though perhaps not long enough to establish residency for applications.

 

[Faha]

I suggest adding these schools:
Dartmouth
Brown
Hofstra
Einstein
Rochester
Case Western
Cincinnati
Ohio State
Washington University (almost a guaranteed interview with your stats)
Duke
Miami

 

[zorcandpals]

Update:

I would like to solicit advice if I have to reapply next year. So far I have gotten 5 interviews, 4 of which I am waiting to hear back from and one I received a waitlist. I think the main thing I should think about is getting more clinical experiences but would like any other feedback.

My interviews whose results I'm still waiting for have been at Columbia, WashU Stl, Rochester, and Pittsburgh and was waitlisted at Stanford.

 

[mvsrocks]

Your application is great, and I'd sit tight because you haven't heard back from 4 schools yet. And honestly, getting WL'd at Stanford is an accomplishment considering how competitive it is.

Did you do anything to improve your interview skills? How did you feel like your interviews went this cycle compared to last? Are you a good writer?

In the case that you do need to reapply, I'd recommend getting more recent clinical and non-clinical volunteering. You have plenty of research already. Also, your school list is quite competitive and I'd add schools like Tufts and Iowa.

Good luck!

 

[zorcandpals]

To improve interviewing, I defintiely practiced and recorded alot of practice interviews. I think they went as well as they were going to go and I could defintiely see an improvement over the cycle of how I interviewed over time with practice.

I did get a lot more non clinical volunteering over the past year but not much clinical given covid and my work schedule .


Thanks

 

[Dral]

Hopefully you get an acceptance from one of those 4.

If not, I'd be willing to bet this is an interview skills thing. You are addressing that, which is good.

Clinical experience is good and can help you talk about experiences during the interview, but clinical experience seems like more of a check box to get an interview invite.

Really, most of your app is about getting the interview. Once you get that, it's your personality/interview that likely matters more. It's not the only thing that matters at that point, but it matters a lot more obviously.

It could be your letters or PS, but probably less likely.

I was in the same boat as you. I had 3.9 and 37 on old (220 equiv or so now). I applied to about 15 schools and got a decent number of interviews but got waitlisted at most and rejected at a few. I finally did get an acceptance near the end of the cycle (straight up, no waitlist). It was odd because the day I interviewed at that school, it had snowed and only 2 of us made it there (out of 10 or so probably). So my interview may have seemed like it went better to them. I dunno. Interestingly, both of us who were there that day got acceptances and ended up going there.

Anyway, I think the problem plagued me again for residency interviews. I got 15 interviews (competitive specialty) but didn't match. Luckily I scrambled into a spot.

Hopefully you get in with one of those four or so you are waiting on. Either way, keep working on those interview skills. It's tough now with the pandemic, but look into toastmasters. I heard that is a good resource to gain some practice.

I'm luckily past that part of my life where actual interview performance matters as much, but damn, it was something I just couldn't figure it out back in the day. It seems like something that is so hard to change. I have no problem interacting with patients and have actually won patient care awards based on Press Ganey scores...I guess I wasn't good at self-promotion and presenting myself as a great candidate verbally in the interview setting. I think I came off as probably too nervous and serious.

I think with practice, improving interview performance can be done successfully though. Good luck!

 

[zorcandpals]

Update:

Got the axe at Columbia.

I'm probably looking at another cycle; damn this is going to be the 4th cycle unless the waitlist gods smile upon me this time around.

I'm currently waitlisted at Stanford, Pitt, and Rochester; waiting to hear back from WashU and Kaiser (got an early march interview last minute) but I'm not exactly holding my breath there.

This was the ultimate list of schools that I finished applications to during the 2020-2021 cycle:

Sinai UCD NYU UCLA UCSD Stanford Chicago Pitt Rochester Baylor Penn Harvard Cornell UCSF Michigan Columbia UCI Yale WUSTL Hopkins Kaiser USC Northwestern Boston Brown

Since the last cycle, I anticipate on getting 3-5 more publications on my CV and ~100 more hours of non clinical volunteering from the legal asylum clinic. I also started taking some courses this spring semester and will have completed a machine learning and abstract linear algebra course by the time I would have to reapply through AMCAS this summer. Hopefully I can get some clinical volunteering/shadowing before the next cycle.

I'm honestly at a loss. Having done and recorded over dozens of practice interviews at this point, the feedback I've gotten has been quite good. My plan is to rewrite my personal statement and more or less change the story of what brought me to medicine. Not that the story I had written isn't true but it was an old story from almost 10 years ago and while my motivations haven't changed, the relative importance of those events has certainly diminished. My concern there is that the story from 10 years ago is much more unique than my current motivations.

I do think I could have turned in my secondaries sooner, although everything was complete by labor day. My time to completion ranged from 0.8 weeks to 10 weeks (although the schools on the upper end were delayed because I was waiting for CASPer scores to arrive, with a few exceptions) and my lateness doesn't seem to have affected my ability to get interviews (turned WashU in ~7 weeks after recieving early september and that was my first II).

Any feedback would be appreciated. Looking to see which schools I should keep on the list and which ones I should remove and which schools to add. I plan on removing Harvard, Northwestern, UCSF, UCLA, UC Davis. Also looking for things I should do to strengthen my application. I've been living in NYC for 2.5 years now, so I think it would also be worth it to apply as an NY resident.

 

[Goro]

Your mistake was aiming way too high. You should have had some Keck/Einstein class schools to balance out the super heavies. PLUS, as this was your third cycle, you have now potentially lost three years of a clinician's salary, and you should have had some DO schools on the list.

For starters, work on interview skills!

Consider:
U CO
U VM
U Cincy
OH State
SUNY-SB
Jefferson
Emory
Tufts
Einstein
SLU
WEestern MI
Dartmouth
USF/Morsani

 

[DoctorFate]

I've started to get some higher tier school interviews and was pretty happy... then this thread definitely scared me...

 

[treeclimbingmonkey]

Hello Everyone,



I am finalizing my primary applications and would like to solicit some input on potential schools I should apply to. I had previously applied in the 2015 cycle and received several interviews that resulted in many waitlists but ultimately no acceptance. At the time, I had a LizzyM of 75-77 and my school’s premed committee ranked me in the highest tier. Clinical experience included volunteering at an ER and doing free clinic interpreting. Research experience included work in pathology and the social sciences with a handful of middle author pubs in pathology. I am an Asian male who graduated from a large research university and was a CA resident.

During that cycle, I previously applied to most schools in NYC, Boston, Chicago, California, as well as a few other places. I was eventually waitlisted at UCSF, UCSD, Northwestern, Chicago, Pitt, and Sinai. I was also rejected at UCD and Cornell post interview. Clearly, my interview performance was lacking then and have been working on that as best I can.



Since then, I have explored other potential career paths but keep coming back to Medicine. I retook the MCAT and scored a 522. Below is a brief summary of my activities. An asterisk implies that the bulk of the activity was on my first application.



Clinical Hours:

~200 hours of free clinic interpreting*

~60 hours of shadowing across various specialties*

~500 hours of ER volunteering*

Research Experience:

~600 hours of undergrad pathology research (several publications)*

~1500 hours of infectious diseases research, (no pubs)

~400 hours of undergrad social science research (no pubs)*

~2500 hours of policy research, was a full time job, (several pubs)

~700 hours of social science research from a research fellowship abroad (one publication under review)

Non clinical volunteering

~150 hours of volunteering at a legal asylum clinic. I interpret and help people write their affidavits

Other Stuff

~600 hours of teaching for the red cross*

~700 hours of teaching English abroad

~100 hours as an editor of an undergrad publication*



Currently, I am putting together a school list. I will probably be applying as a CA resident again. I used the WedgeDawg spreadsheet but feel like I might be coming up with a too top heavy of a list based on that. So far I have

Harvard

Stanford

UCSF

UCLA

UCSD

UCD

Vanderbilt

NYU

USC

Columbia

Cornell

BU

Chicago

Northwestern

Penn

Hopkins

Yale

Pitt

UCI

SUNY Downstate

Michigan

Mayo MN

Sinai

I would greatly appreciate any thoughts or suggestions.

Yes, this seems pretty top-heavy. Although you are a high-stats applicant, I would have suggested applying to a few additional mid-tier schools and a couple of safeties.

 

[LindaAccepted]

Hello Everyone,



I am finalizing my primary applications and would like to solicit some input on potential schools I should apply to. I had previously applied in the 2015 cycle and received several interviews that resulted in many waitlists but ultimately no acceptance. At the time, I had a LizzyM of 75-77 and my school’s premed committee ranked me in the highest tier. Clinical experience included volunteering at an ER and doing free clinic interpreting. Research experience included work in pathology and the social sciences with a handful of middle author pubs in pathology. I am an Asian male who graduated from a large research university and was a CA resident.

During that cycle, I previously applied to most schools in NYC, Boston, Chicago, California, as well as a few other places. I was eventually waitlisted at UCSF, UCSD, Northwestern, Chicago, Pitt, and Sinai. I was also rejected at UCD and Cornell post interview. Clearly, my interview performance was lacking then and have been working on that as best I can.



Since then, I have explored other potential career paths but keep coming back to Medicine. I retook the MCAT and scored a 522. Below is a brief summary of my activities. An asterisk implies that the bulk of the activity was on my first application.



Clinical Hours:

~200 hours of free clinic interpreting*

~60 hours of shadowing across various specialties*

~500 hours of ER volunteering*

Research Experience:

~600 hours of undergrad pathology research (several publications)*

~1500 hours of infectious diseases research, (no pubs)

~400 hours of undergrad social science research (no pubs)*

~2500 hours of policy research, was a full time job, (several pubs)

~700 hours of social science research from a research fellowship abroad (one publication under review)

Non clinical volunteering

~150 hours of volunteering at a legal asylum clinic. I interpret and help people write their affidavits

Other Stuff

~600 hours of teaching for the red cross*

~700 hours of teaching English abroad

~100 hours as an editor of an undergrad publication*



Currently, I am putting together a school list. I will probably be applying as a CA resident again. I used the WedgeDawg spreadsheet but feel like I might be coming up with a too top heavy of a list based on that. So far I have

Harvard

Stanford

UCSF

UCLA

UCSD

UCD

Vanderbilt

NYU

USC

Columbia

Cornell

BU

Chicago

Northwestern

Penn

Hopkins

Yale

Pitt

UCI

SUNY Downstate

Michigan

Mayo MN

Sinai

I would greatly appreciate any thoughts or suggestions.

I'd also say that your list is top heavy. And if you got "several" interviews and only WL, which led to rejections, unless you aimed too high last time, I'd also be concerned about your interview skills. Finally, where your experience is very impressive, you don't indicate when you did what. I'm hoping that some of your clinical experience is recent, and not just from before your last application.