trackstarlegend
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- Mar 24, 2025
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Hi all! I applied this current cycle to about 30 MD schools and only received 1 II at a T20 which has led to a WL. I’m preparing to apply and already am feeling discouraged and anxious about starting a new application so wanted to seek some advice here.
Based on the number of interviews I received and also my school list, I’m really not sure where I went wrong. Majority of the schools I applied to were IS and most of the OOS schools were T50 so I’m thinking I might have went wrong there. My app is really advocacy/community health/education heavy. I have a ton of clinical/teaching experience but not much research (prior to this last application cycle). Would love any advice on how I should approach this new application cycle? Should I wait off another year (I really don’t want to) or should I just put my head down and try to grind everything out for the next couple of weeks? Also confused on what to do about letters of recommendation, I’m worried one of the ones from my science professor may not have been as strong but I don’t really have another professor to reach out to as I’ve been out of undergrad for about 3 years now and did not do any post-bacc programs. Would love any advice/words of wisdom/encouragement/pointers/critiques I can get.
Some background:
3.93 GPA
512 MCAT
3Q Casper
7 PREVIEW
Residency: CA, ethnicity: Asian male
undergrad T15
Clinical experience: 2000 FQHC MA/SW, 250 inpatient volunteer, 1200 care coordination at cancer clinic (T5 hospital/school)
Research: 1000 research administration islet research (diabetes runs through my entirely family which is why I got involved, no pubs/posters, mainly admin work but was involved in prepping manuscripts and figures so feel like I should’ve been included), 200 public health research contributor for COVID awareness project at school. However, soon to become clinical research coordinator at T5 school within same clinic I currently coordinate care at.
Shadowing: 200 including primary care, surgery, oncology, endocrinology
non-clinical volunteering: 600 CPR/first aid instructor at school, 130 teaching assistant at local elementary try school, 600 tutoring at local homeless shelter
Leadership: 300 organizing tutoring program for 2 underfunded schools in hometown, 800 program organizing for educational technology startup in hometown, 400 outreach chair for CPR education program at undergrad
Teaching: full year as a TA in anatomy and physiology at undergrad
Other activities: marathon/triathlon, cooking (sharing recipes I ate growing up on social media)
In my gap year, I worked as a community health worker/medical assistant in a mobile clinic that served the unhoused in my hometown for about a year, I then moved cities and transitioned to a position as a care coordinator at a cancer clinic and am planning on starting a new position soon as a clinical research coordinator if I don’t get off the waitlist soon. Also travelled a bunch during this last year, caught the running bug and got really into marathons/triathlon running. Continued volunteering with the tutoring program I started as well.
My PS really focused on 3 impactful experiences- working with a student through educational advocacy, supporting my dad during his stroke and recovery, and helping a patient I met as a community health worker navigate substance use and transition into housing. I tried to use these stories as stepping stones in my evolving motivation to pursue medicine and I emphasized how they shaped my understanding of holistic care, health equity and the importance of partnership and listening in medicine. I feel like it could use a more overarching theme to connect them but I honestly felt like I wrote this really well and a ton of my mentors have read it and also felt the same. Would love to share it with someone over email if they would like to critique it because I do see how I can now add in some of my newer experiences working in cancer care into a new PS.
Here’s a list of schools I applied to:
TCU
Boston
California University of science and medicine
California Northstate*
Cooper at Rowan*
Hofstra*
Emory*
FIU*
Georgetown
kaiser
Keck USC
UNLV
Temple*
NYU LI*
NYU
OHSU
Rush
Rutgers*
Stanford
UoA Tuscon*
UCD
UCI
UCLA
UCR* (super SoCal leaning, from NorCal so didn’t apply)
UCSD
UCSF
Colorado
Hawaii*
UMiami*
UMich
UNC
VCU*
Wake Forest*
WashU
Cornell
I received secondaries from every school but didn’t complete all of them (I had a lot going on at the time and was pretty burnt out as a result). I tried to submit all my secondaries at max 1 month from receiving them so that also could have been one of my downfalls. Will try to pre-write this cycle. Schools marked with * are the ones I did not submit secondaries for.
Again, I appreciate any words of advice/pointers, thank you all!!
Based on the number of interviews I received and also my school list, I’m really not sure where I went wrong. Majority of the schools I applied to were IS and most of the OOS schools were T50 so I’m thinking I might have went wrong there. My app is really advocacy/community health/education heavy. I have a ton of clinical/teaching experience but not much research (prior to this last application cycle). Would love any advice on how I should approach this new application cycle? Should I wait off another year (I really don’t want to) or should I just put my head down and try to grind everything out for the next couple of weeks? Also confused on what to do about letters of recommendation, I’m worried one of the ones from my science professor may not have been as strong but I don’t really have another professor to reach out to as I’ve been out of undergrad for about 3 years now and did not do any post-bacc programs. Would love any advice/words of wisdom/encouragement/pointers/critiques I can get.
Some background:
3.93 GPA
512 MCAT
3Q Casper
7 PREVIEW
Residency: CA, ethnicity: Asian male
undergrad T15
Clinical experience: 2000 FQHC MA/SW, 250 inpatient volunteer, 1200 care coordination at cancer clinic (T5 hospital/school)
Research: 1000 research administration islet research (diabetes runs through my entirely family which is why I got involved, no pubs/posters, mainly admin work but was involved in prepping manuscripts and figures so feel like I should’ve been included), 200 public health research contributor for COVID awareness project at school. However, soon to become clinical research coordinator at T5 school within same clinic I currently coordinate care at.
Shadowing: 200 including primary care, surgery, oncology, endocrinology
non-clinical volunteering: 600 CPR/first aid instructor at school, 130 teaching assistant at local elementary try school, 600 tutoring at local homeless shelter
Leadership: 300 organizing tutoring program for 2 underfunded schools in hometown, 800 program organizing for educational technology startup in hometown, 400 outreach chair for CPR education program at undergrad
Teaching: full year as a TA in anatomy and physiology at undergrad
Other activities: marathon/triathlon, cooking (sharing recipes I ate growing up on social media)
In my gap year, I worked as a community health worker/medical assistant in a mobile clinic that served the unhoused in my hometown for about a year, I then moved cities and transitioned to a position as a care coordinator at a cancer clinic and am planning on starting a new position soon as a clinical research coordinator if I don’t get off the waitlist soon. Also travelled a bunch during this last year, caught the running bug and got really into marathons/triathlon running. Continued volunteering with the tutoring program I started as well.
My PS really focused on 3 impactful experiences- working with a student through educational advocacy, supporting my dad during his stroke and recovery, and helping a patient I met as a community health worker navigate substance use and transition into housing. I tried to use these stories as stepping stones in my evolving motivation to pursue medicine and I emphasized how they shaped my understanding of holistic care, health equity and the importance of partnership and listening in medicine. I feel like it could use a more overarching theme to connect them but I honestly felt like I wrote this really well and a ton of my mentors have read it and also felt the same. Would love to share it with someone over email if they would like to critique it because I do see how I can now add in some of my newer experiences working in cancer care into a new PS.
Here’s a list of schools I applied to:
TCU
Boston
California University of science and medicine
California Northstate*
Cooper at Rowan*
Hofstra*
Emory*
FIU*
Georgetown
kaiser
Keck USC
UNLV
Temple*
NYU LI*
NYU
OHSU
Rush
Rutgers*
Stanford
UoA Tuscon*
UCD
UCI
UCLA
UCR* (super SoCal leaning, from NorCal so didn’t apply)
UCSD
UCSF
Colorado
Hawaii*
UMiami*
UMich
UNC
VCU*
Wake Forest*
WashU
Cornell
I received secondaries from every school but didn’t complete all of them (I had a lot going on at the time and was pretty burnt out as a result). I tried to submit all my secondaries at max 1 month from receiving them so that also could have been one of my downfalls. Will try to pre-write this cycle. Schools marked with * are the ones I did not submit secondaries for.
Again, I appreciate any words of advice/pointers, thank you all!!
