Looking for MD/PhD school suggestions

[VioletAdventuring]

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[TheJooce]

You can aim as high as your want with those stats and 3.5 years in the same lab. Nothing is guaranteed at any single program, but assuming that your essays are on the same caliber as your stats, and that you can perform well in interviews explaining research and acting like a nice human, then you'll definitely have options among the schools you've already listed, and likely among some even higher-ranked.

I would get in a lab during your gap year—you might raise red flags if you don't.

Congrats on everything it took to get this far. You'll be a very serious applicant!

 

[Lucca]

Academics are excellent.

Non research ECs are sufficient.

Research looks sparse...perhaps I’m misreading, but it appears that your only research experiences are from HS and summers during UG? Exactly how much and what kind of experience do you have?

If you have the equivalent of 1.5 yrs full-time working on longitudinal projects (AFTER HS) which you either led or helped lead then you can get away with applying to 12-15 schools.

I wouldn’t bother with UCLA-Caltech and just apply to UCLA’s MD/PhD. Cal tech is a very hardcore basic science institution and based on your other choices it doesn’t seem like the best research fit for you.

If you’re interested in ID, UWisconsin-Madison has a top 5 microbio dept IIRC and hits most of your preferences. If you’re interested in cancer bio then you should include the other major research cancer centers in addition to Sloan Kettering and the Hutch: McGovern/UT Houston (MD Anderson), Harvard (Dana Farber), Stanford, UCSF, Hopkins.

The exclusion of WashU is odd given you don’t have a location preference and want a big, established program. WashU is one of the two largest Md/PhD programs, has excellent research in virtually every biomedical category, and a big UG associated with it.

Overall a top-heavy list but whether or not that’s a negative depends on your research CV as that is by far the most important component of your app.

 

[ClimbsRox]

Glad to see another person working in harm reduction here.

Like others have said, nothing on your app is keeping you out of any school you wish to apply.

Schools to check out:

UCSD/Scripps - large school, seems to have a good community, lots of resources, lots of faculty in all fields of biomedical research, strong biochemistry between both Scripps and UCSD, strong student run free clinic with connections to harm reduction programs

Duke - large school, undergrad/med campus combined, strong biochemistry research, lots of overlap between biochem/micro/ID faculty, definitely has a physician-scientist community

Vanderbilt - felt very similar to Duke in structure and research community, but Nashville is arguably a cooler place to live than Durham

Stanford - large school, tons of research in all those areas, combined campus

I interviewed at all these places, liked them, and think they fit your criteria quite well. Other schools that might be worth looking into are Hopkins, UAB, Harvard/MIT, and WashU off the top of my head. Good luck, not that you will need it.

P.S. Word of warning about UCLA/Caltech: They seem to only invite physics/engineering majors for Caltech interviews. You can backdoor it into Caltech if you get accepted to UCLA and decide to attend, but the PhD at Caltech takes an average of 5-6 years on its own. I interviewed at USC/Caltech after being invited to interview at UCLA only and spoke to some of the UCLA students at Caltech during that interview.

 

[vaticrunner]

I will comment as someone going through this past cycle. Even if you have good stats and really like those schools you mentioned, it would be beneficial to at least apply to 10. I had higher stats and only summer research. I applied to 7 MSTP all in locations I liked and they were T20. If I could go back and do it again, I would definitely apply to more. I got 3 ii and 1 A so far but to buy myself some more peace of mind, I should have applied to more.

 

[VioletAdventuring]

Academics are excellent.
Research looks sparse...perhaps I’m misreading, but it appears that your only research experiences are from HS and summers during UG? Exactly how much and what kind of experience do you have?

I spent the last 3.5 years working in the same lab. Probably 3500+ hours total, which is where I have the manuscript in progress and is the research I received the award for. Sorry if that wasn't clear above! I honestly have not looked into WashU much yet... I definitely will as per everyone's suggestions.

Thanks for all the feedback!

 

[VioletAdventuring]

Glad to see another person working in harm reduction here.

Like others have said, nothing on your app is keeping you out of any school you wish to apply.

Glad to hear there are others working in harm reduction on this platform, and thank you so much for all the suggestions! That is good to know about UCLA/Caltech. I listed it because I know a couple researchers there are connected with my current PI, but I don't know if the environment is actually a good fit, and I would appreciate getting out of a PhD in less than 5-6. It's definitely something to think about.

 

[Lucca]

I spent the last 3.5 years working in the same lab. Probably 3500+ hours total, which is where I have the manuscript in progress and is the research I received the award for. Sorry if that wasn't clear above! I honestly have not looked into WashU much yet... I definitely will as per everyone's suggestions.

Thanks for all the feedback!

Your research experience is great then, sorry if I missed this from the first post. You should aim to apply to 10-15 schools total IMO, 6-10 "top" programs, and 4-8 programs where your research is a great fit for their strengths but the medical school is comparatively not as competitive as those programs with MCAT/GPA medians in the stratosphere. I suspect you will have several options.