Hey guys, My stats are as follows, 30M with 10 in each section so very balanced. 3.5sgpa and 3.6 nonscience. over 1000 hours of pure ER physician shadowing, 1000 hours of research and 100 hours of er volunteer, plus whole bunch of other ECs. Can you guys help me with a school list that is suitable for my low stats? No DO schools, just MD. OH and Im a Virginia Resident and a reapp. Thank you so much everyone, and Catalyst I'm waiting for you response too 🙂)
I really need help with school list, IM LOST HEHE
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I thought your cGPA was 3.7 when we last talked. What is it now? If you have a downward grade trend, you need to do something about that. You also mentioned that you might make a case for being URM; perhaps you might explain as it would make a difference in schools I'd suggest.
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I wouldn't say that being a medical scribe is "1000 hours of pure ER physician shadowing" but that's just me. Am I correctly assuming that being a medical scribe is the source of your shadowing? Do you have any more, er, "pure" shadowing experiences that don't involve the ER? It seems like you should probably get an idea of what doctors do outside of the emergency room to me.
Anyway, your GPAs are about 0.1 below average and your MCAT is 2 below average for MD. Why the hangup about "no DO" schools when you are already a reapplicant?
For MD schools, focus on your state schools and mid to lower-tiers.
Also, are there any potential red flags? Did you have anyone knowledgeable about medical school admissions read your PS (like a premed advisor or someone off the readers list)? Any questionable LORs? Any felonies/misdemeanors/institutional actions?
Did you ask any of the schools you were rejected from for advice about why you didn't get in? From your other thread you posted a couple of days ago, it looks like you applied to 22 schools. Were you only interviewed at one? I saw quite a few reaches for someone with below-average stats on that list.
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This "1,000 hour ER shadowing" sounds suspicious to me, especially if it's really just a medical scribe. And if on top of that it was a job, it's not all that impressive or altruistic. I have a feeling that the OP is the type of guy that injected his/her application with exaggerations and thus got rejected.
Also, 1000 hours or research? How about instead you put that in terms of weeks/months/years you spent and what you accomplished with that research?
Also, 1000 hours or research? How about instead you put that in terms of weeks/months/years you spent and what you accomplished with that research?
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Yeah on 6/28/2011 in his WAMC thread that he started he said
so in 3 days he got 300 additional hours of "shadowing."
Of course, at 40 hours a week, it should have taken him 7 1/2 weeks to get 300 additional hours, but surely everyone fudges their numbers for AMCAS that bad
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Of course, at 40 hours a week, it should have taken him 7 1/2 weeks to get 300 additional hours, but surely everyone fudges their numbers for AMCAS that bad
holy crap Guys, here is the explanation so I don't come off as an idiot, My cum gpa is 3.7 in UMD but I went to comm college, when I looked at amcas gpa calculation it was 3.5 scgpa, but last semester I took 21 credits which is 7 classes got straight As so that should do something to my grade but i haven't submitted my amcas so it's not calculated. as for the scribe, what I meant was I just follow the doc around and document patient history among other things, I think this is what shadowing means if I'm not mistaken. Yes, last time I put 700 plus hours as my exp but Im working 40 hours a week as a scribe so itll be over 1000 in couple of months so I just put the 1000 to make things easier. I'm currently on waitlist for VCU and Vtech, the reason I didn't get in was because I had NO MEDICAL EXPERIENCE and applied to 4 or 5 shcools just to try my luck, and my first amcas was submitted very late, around late october. I was lucky to get a interviews. Thus Im working 40 hours at the hospital as a medical scribe to get exp. I did research about a year with one poster on Neuro, but Im not big on research so I didn't publish anything. Im only working in ER because I want to be an ER doc. I do consider my self URM but too long to talk about. I just wrote up the short parag to just get a school list not to get bombarded. (pardon any spelling errors or grammer mistakes, i typed this fast.
p.S I just wanted to get a list of schools that I would have a shot at, the 22 schools I listed are the schools I picked for this cycle, last time i only applied to 4 or 5 schools. I just hoping to get a list of schools that might not be so heavy on picking istaters only. so basically last post was my exact sts and ECs but since i didn't get a response to that one, I just wrote up this little parag and no I don't fudge numbers on amcas, if i wanted to I would've just put 1000 hours of shadowing during my last app, so please dont insult since we are all pre-meds
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Well medical scribing =/= shadowing exactly, but close enough. You would list medical scribe under employment-not military. Shadowing is something done merely for experience and to observe. You don't get paid to shadow. I would think it might be better to scribe, but as triage said, it's not as "altruistic". It doesn't show the same exact inquisitive nature into medicine, and some adcomm's might still expect you to have real shadowing.
Also, working in the ER is kind of close to being primary care, but I still think you should get more of an exposure to other specialties. If I was an adcom, I would laugh if you said you wanted to go into EM since you have no exposure to anything besides EM. How can you make up your mind without experiencing other physicians?
Consider using this spreadsheet to come up with some good schools to apply to
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=831618
My graph puts your chance at an MD acceptance at about 54%. That number would be much higher if you really are a URM, but I'm still not convinced that you could be classified that way. You're either classified with "Blacks, Mexican-Americans, Native Americans (that is, American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians), and mainland Puerto Ricans" or you're not. Admissions committees also like to see that you are committed to serving that community. I don't understand the long debate.
You didn't answer why you won't consider DO schools, since that is a 54 is a decent percentage but not the greatest
BTW, nice job overcoming a lot of the obstacles that prevented you from getting an acceptance last cycle.
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Schools where a ~3.5/30 might give you a shot that have at least a 15% OOS matriculation rate:
UIllinois, Wayne, Buffalo, Toledo, UNebraska, Drexel, Temple, Vermont, VCU, Virginia Tech Carilion (newer), Arizona,
GWU, FIU, Louisville, Tulane, UNevada (if from E Sierra Nevadas or [W]WAMI), NYMC, MUSC, SCarolina, EVMS, Florida Atlantic University (new),
Rush, Michigan State, Oakland (new),
Commonwealth MC in Pa, Cooper (new in NJ)
If you have a lot of community service to the poor, you might add Howard, Meharry, and/or Morehouse. If you are fluent in Spanish, you could check out the Puerto Rican schools.
UIllinois, Wayne, Buffalo, Toledo, UNebraska, Drexel, Temple, Vermont, VCU, Virginia Tech Carilion (newer), Arizona,
GWU, FIU, Louisville, Tulane, UNevada (if from E Sierra Nevadas or [W]WAMI), NYMC, MUSC, SCarolina, EVMS, Florida Atlantic University (new),
Rush, Michigan State, Oakland (new),
Commonwealth MC in Pa, Cooper (new in NJ)
If you have a lot of community service to the poor, you might add Howard, Meharry, and/or Morehouse. If you are fluent in Spanish, you could check out the Puerto Rican schools.
I agree that Wayne would be an excellent place for you to apply to. However, you will have to get over the out of state tuition. I am also a scribe, in MI. Many of my co-workers received admission this past cycle and Wayne takes people with much worse stats than you!
Can someone please explain to me how shadowing is altruistic? It's not like you are actually helping people, or doing anything for that matter, hence the term shadowing. In my opinion its rather selfish, unnecessarily exposing PHI to further one's own scholastic agenda.
I do agree with the advice of former posters however. You really should consider obtaining shadowing experience elsewhere. Additionally, I suspect your ER volunteering will hold little weight other than it being "altruistic".
Can someone please explain to me how shadowing is altruistic? It's not like you are actually helping people, or doing anything for that matter, hence the term shadowing. In my opinion its rather selfish, unnecessarily exposing PHI to further one's own scholastic agenda.
I do agree with the advice of former posters however. You really should consider obtaining shadowing experience elsewhere. Additionally, I suspect your ER volunteering will hold little weight other than it being "altruistic".
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I agree that shadowing is not really altruistic, which is why I put it in quotes. I personally like my explanation better, which is that shadowing shows a curiosity and interest into medicine. Pre-meds usually shadow 3 or more different specialties so they can get an idea of the time demands, patient load, billing, etc for different departments. Some of us really like shadowing because it's exciting to see our future career in practice.
I think traige's point was that there's a difference between getting paid to follow a doctor around and following a doctor around just for the experience. So out of shadowing, scribing, and volunteering in the ER, I guess that scribing is the least altruistic out of the three, with shadowing in the middle, and volunteering the most altruistic.
Maybe triage can stop by and explain better.
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I agree with your statement entirely. For the OP, shadowing was just a job duty. It's not something he went out of his way to inquire about. He's shadowed no other specialty because he wants to bank on this experience looking impressive. While it may be impressive, it also doesn't show a well rounded interest in medicine. For example, I have no interest at all in going to Orthopedic Surgery, but I would still shadow one if the opportunity came because a) I will have colleagues that do this, b) might find out I like, but more realistically, c) because my patients might need an Orthopedic procedure and it's good to be able to tell them what to expect or because the patient was referred to me after a procedure and I can understand something about it. Of course, the counter-argument is that the student will never learn as much just shadowing, but it's the intent and acknowledgment that medicine is beyond one's specific interest that shows.
On hindsight, "altruistic" was a poor word of choice.
Thanks for the input guys, you think its too late to shawdow other fields of medicine. I think ER is an over all experience of different medical fields because it requires a general knowledge of all specialities, plus patients with life threatning conditions are admitted to other special physicans which I also observe from time to time. I already sumitted my amcas so maybe I can just shadow another physician and add that in at some point. I'm 28 and really don't wanna become any older waiting another cycle, medicine is my passion and will always pursue it. I also apologize for any confusion on my part. I also think I've done some community work that shows my altruistic side hehe.
