Looking for school list help (3.97 GPA / 512 MCAT / New York resident)

[premedlovesbread]

After a year of working full time and enjoying a break from being a full-time student, I'm feeling rested, refreshed, and ready to get started on applications. I'm working on compiling my school list, and I'd appreciate any feedback you might have to offer.

1. cGPA: 3.97
2. MCAT score(s) and breakdown: 512 (125 / 130 / 127 / 130)
3. State of residence: New York
4. Ethnicity and/or race: white
5. Undergraduate institution or category: small liberal arts college in Michigan
6. Clinical experience (volunteer and non-volunteer):
   • 1440 current and up to 3000 hours projected as a patient care tech in a variety of outpatient clinics associated with the same hospital (I float to a different clinical area every 8-16 weeks, which has given me a great chance to get exposure to many specialties)
   • 230 hours as a personal caregiver for a woman with cerebral palsy (I might reclassify this as non-clinical employment, although I did help her with medication administration and catheter care in addition to helping out with basic ADLs)
7. Research experience and productivity:
   • 300 hours in a biochemistry lab, no publications
   • 300 hours of political science research on the effect of local zoning restrictions on housing affordability from back when I thought I might major in poli sci
8. Shadowing experience and specialties represented: 8 hours shadowing a family medicine physician, 8 hours shadowing an infectious disease specialist who works mostly with HIV/AIDS patients, and some more shadow opportunities in family medicine that I'm working on getting lined up for this month
9. Non-clinical volunteering: 130 hours at a nonprofit hospice (I'm not positive this was clinical volunteering because a lot of what I do is providing simple personal care for residents and supporting visiting families, but however it's supposed to be classified, I love it and it's been a rich experience for me--I know the hours are low, though!)
10. Other extracurricular activities (including athletics, military service, gap year activities, leadership, teaching, etc)
    • Co-Editor-in-Chief of my college's student newspaper
    • Tutor at my college's writing center
    • Radio show host
    • Member of a community choir
    • Writer (I was published in my college's literary journal and I've continued to write poetry but I don't know yet if this is something I'll talk about on apps since it's really just something I do for my own enjoyment)
11. Relevant honors or awards: Dean's List all semesters, member of Phi Beta Kappa national honor society, recipient of top English Department senior award, winner of a couple of departmental creative writing prizes
12. Anything else not listed you think might be important: I was an English major so a lot of my activities, especially early in college, are centered around that department and those interests. I hope that my year of working in a clinical setting might help offset the impression that I'm not interested enough in medicine, and it's certainly been helpful for me as I clarify my reasons for wanting to become a physician. I would like to stay in the Northeast if possible, but I'm also trying to be realistic about my chances for getting an acceptance anywhere and happy to attend any US MD school that will take me.

School list:

Albany Medical College
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Chicago Medical School at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine & Science
Drexel University College of Medicine
Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth
Georgetown University School of Medicine
Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine
Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo
Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University
New York Medical College
Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine
Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University
Rush Medical College of Rush University Medical Center
The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University
State University of New York Upstate Medical University Alan and Marlene Norton College of Medicine
SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University College of Medicine
University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry
Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University
Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University
Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine
Western Michigan University Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine

Thank you for any advice you might be able give!

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[Mr.Smile12]

Maybe a little bit more community service (50 hours). Traditional forms would work such as food distribution, shelter work, job placement services, or housing rehabilitation. That way I know you won't get dinged for lack of service orientation/community service.

Why is medicine your calling, and what is your purpose as a physician?

 

[premedlovesbread]

Maybe a little bit more community service (50 hours). Traditional forms would work such as food distribution, shelter work, job placement services, or housing rehabilitation. That way I know you won't get dinged for lack of service orientation/community service.

Why is medicine your calling, and what is your purpose as a physician?

Thank you; getting a little more traditional community service definitely makes sense. My "why medicine" boils down my experience that tending to people's medical and social needs is humbling, grounding, and satisfying work as well as my desire to be in a profession where I'll always be learning. I'm especially interested in delivering good care to elderly and end-of-life patients. Hospice has given me a glimpse into how hard and important it can be to consider the whole breadth of a person's priorities, medical needs, wants, and fears and to help them move toward the best choices for their individual situation. I feel like I've gotten a more honest perspective about what it might mean to commit to medicine from my year of working full time in healthcare (and also from conversations with my mom, who was a burned-out nurse and now is an overwhelmed NP), but I still think this is a field where I can build a career that aligns with my values and serves my community.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Thank you; getting a little more traditional community service definitely makes sense. My "why medicine" boils down my experience that tending to people's medical and social needs is humbling, grounding, and satisfying work as well as my desire to be in a profession where I'll always be learning. I'm especially interested in delivering good care to elderly and end-of-life patients. Hospice has given me a glimpse into how hard and important it can be to consider the whole breadth of a person's priorities, medical needs, wants, and fears and to help them move toward the best choices for their individual situation. I feel like I've gotten a more honest perspective about what it might mean to commit to medicine from my year of working full time in healthcare (and also from conversations with my mom, who was a burned-out nurse and now is an overwhelmed NP), but I still think this is a field where I can build a career that aligns with my values and serves my community.

That's completely understandable and admirable. But that said, are there that many doctors running around at the hospice where you worked? Why not an NP? I'm just wondering because human connection is needed everywhere.

 

[chilly_md]

Georgetown and Rush will expect significantly more non-clinical volunteering (several hundred to over a thousand for the latter).

Remove Brown and Geisinger too.

Add:
Vermont
George Washington
Tufts
Belmont (when it opens)
MCW
Wayne State
Oakland
Nova MD

 

[premedlovesbread]

That's completely understandable and admirable. But that said, are there that many doctors running around at the hospice where you worked? Why not an NP? I'm just wondering because human connection is needed everywhere.

I hear you, and I have definitely thought about the nurse to NP route. My concern, having seen my mom do this path, is being in a position where I'm expected to practice pretty independently but don't have the depth of knowledge and training that a physician would have. Also, nursing has (at least in my area) become such a difficult and demoralizing profession due to chronic understaffing and lack of institutional support from the major hospital systems in my area, and while I have a lot of respect for those who have stuck with it, I don't know if it's the best fit for me. To be fair, though, that might be true of medicine in general.

 

[premedlovesbread]

Georgetown and Rush will expect significantly more non-clinical volunteering (several hundred to over a thousand for the latter).

Remove Brown and Geisinger too.

Add:
Vermont
George Washington
Tufts
Belmont (when it opens)
MCW
Wayne State
Oakland
Nova MD

Thank you! That's very helpful to know.