Just got MCAT, where should I start as far as school selections goes?

[spyderracing32]

Ok guys, applying next cycle and I'm curious about what kinds of schools I should be looking to apply to.

Currently I have a 3.6 cGPA and a 3.5 sGPA with a 36R MCAT (14P/11V/11B). I'm a philosophy and neuroscience dual major at UMich (in-state resident), and I may take the honors route with philosophy and write an honors thesis. I've been a member of my schools club rugby team for going on three years now (started as a freshman, huge time commitment, raised $1500 for the team, helped the team to a national play-off birth last year, in the running to be captain/president next year), co-founder of a student political organization, currently participating in research with the dept. of anesthesiology here, and a current hospital volunteer for several hours a week.

As far as clinical experience goes I have 40 hours shadowing in the ER, 36 hours shadowing in chronic wound care, and 160 hours volunteering in an endoscopy clinic (have some training as a tech and have worked as one on several procedures, and will hopefully go back to work here over christmas/summer). I'm currently hoping to bring my GPA up to a 3.7 before applying, and I'm a little concerned about my extra-currics (I am dedicated to what I have, but I see a lot of people on here with 1000000000 different things and wonder where people find the time...).

I'm just curious about where I can start looking into as far as places I may want to go (that may actually want me to go there!). Thanks for any help!

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[Mobius1985]

Congratulations on a terrific MCAT score.

I'll assume you'll have two semesters of research and hospital volunteerism by the time you apply next June 09, will have started your leadership of the Rugby team (and also have presumably a leadership position with the political organization you founded), but don't have much else to mention as far as humanitarian work is concerned. Your shadowing is fine, but if you helped with procedures, you might want to put that into clinical experience/volunteer category to give that area more substance. Your sports involvement is a nice EC, but won't give you any forgiveness for lackings in your application, as you know. You are right to be concerned about your ECs, but have seven months to repair the problem. You mentioned training as a tech. Is it possible there is more you can say on your application about that since you worked as one? Or is it too minimal in nature?

If your hospital volunteerism comes to a good number of hours by June, that's good. Is there any other general volunteering you can list, like soup kitchen, Habitat for Humanity, etc?

If your research is substantive and maybe could lead to publication in the near future, and you repair the lacks as mentioned (which I grant will be very time consuming and could potentially endanger your GPA), I'd say you could aim fairly high in terms of selectivity in your applications, and succeed somewhere. If you spent an additional year buffing your application in the same areas, you'd have a great chance of success nearly anywhere you'd like to go (maybe not Wash U, though).

 

[spyderracing32]

The tech work was substantial (polypectomies, biopsies, taking vitals, clean-up...). I was doing essentially everything other than guiding the scope and making decisions as to what should be removed (although at this point I've seen so many colonoscopies/gastroscopies that I could point out a polyp, esophageal stricture, Barrett's esophagus, colitis/gastritis no problem, still wouldn't feel ok making the final decision myself though haha). I was in some way involved in roughly 300 procedures. Some were simply my observing and applying abdominal pressure when asked to do so or holding someones head for anaesthesiology when their pulseox started dropping, and others were full on tech work. (Note: the shadowing was in the ER and a chronic wound care clinic, what I did at the endoscopy clinic is described above and a lot more involved.)

The rugby team does some work with Habitat every spring break when we go on tour (humanitarian work in Argentina freshman year and rebuilding homes in New Orleans last year). It's a couple full days of work every trip.

I will have two semesters of research by next june, however I don't think the hospital volunteering will be anything incredibly substantial by then (only allowed 3 hours a week), but it will be more than I have now.

 

[Mobius1985]

With the additional details about your degree of involvement in the endoscopy lab (great experience BTW, and good fodder for the Personal Statement)) and the non-medical humanitarian work, I think the volunteer component of your application will be good to go, even though the current hospital volunteer time is only 3 hours/week. Wow, 300 procedures in 160 hours; that's really cranking them out.

What is your opinion of the research you're involved in. Is there going to be any WOW! factor?

 

[spyderracing32]

Yea the gastroenterologists I've worked with are very efficient, and I'm hoping to go back there for more. As far as wow factor with the research goes, if you mean curing cancer then unfortunately no. If you simply mean the possibility of my going to presentations/being published then that is possible. My PI has been published in the journal of neuroscience and has about 3 more papers planned for the project I'm working on.

 

[Mobius1985]

Sounds like the research has good potential if all goes well then. If you stick with it during your application year, you'll likely have interesting things to say in update letters and at interviews.

 

[pianola]

PMing you.

 

[mmmcdowe]

Ok guys, applying next cycle and I'm curious about what kinds of schools I should be looking to apply to.

Currently I have a 3.6 cGPA and a 3.5 sGPA with a 36R MCAT (14P/11V/11B). I'm a philosophy and neuroscience dual major at UMich (in-state resident), and I may take the honors route with philosophy and write an honors thesis. I've been a member of my schools club rugby team for going on three years now (started as a freshman, huge time commitment, raised $1500 for the team, helped the team to a national play-off birth last year, in the running to be captain/president next year), co-founder of a student political organization, currently participating in research with the dept. of anesthesiology here, and a current hospital volunteer for several hours a week.

As far as clinical experience goes I have 40 hours shadowing in the ER, 36 hours shadowing in chronic wound care, and 160 hours volunteering in an endoscopy clinic (have some training as a tech and have worked as one on several procedures, and will hopefully go back to work here over christmas/summer). I'm currently hoping to bring my GPA up to a 3.7 before applying, and I'm a little concerned about my extra-currics (I am dedicated to what I have, but I see a lot of people on here with 1000000000 different things and wonder where people find the time...).

I'm just curious about where I can start looking into as far as places I may want to go (that may actually want me to go there!). Thanks for any help!

So you're a pretty strong candidate anywhere. Your GPA is a tad low, but I wouldn't be surprised if you got interviews at at least some of the top ranked schools. I'd apply to a range of schools, and definitely Wayne (you're basically garunteed there). I'd focus on the better schools though, and just keep a couple lower end guys as safeties. If you have the cash, apply to all of the top schools. Otherwise maybe something like:

Harvard
Yale
Duke
Columbia
U of M
Stanford/UCSD
Baylor

as your ultra-prestigous ones and

Pittsburgh
NYU
Case Western
Other Ivy Leagues like Brown/Dartmouth
Pritzker
Feinburg

As your "just as good but not as famous" ones

And then maybe the wisconsins and Michigans as fillers. My list, of course, is assuming that you want to go to a prestigous school more than a school you like when you interview and that you are interested in the top research focused schools.