Looking for some followup advice

[neuroj93]

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Hi all!

I posted a thread a couple months ago (link: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/gap-year-advice.1181783/#post-17381019) about advice for a gap year. Details are in that about what happened during the last application cycle (tl;dr: no clinical experience+applying late=no II's). Began planning for my gap year and have some updates. First of all, here are my credentials thus far:

cGPA/sGPA: between 3.6-3.7, subject to change after my last semester in college.
MCAT: 35 (January 2015)
1500+ hours of research with award, poster presentations, and authorship in an extremely prestigious journal. At least one more publication+poster presentation before June 1.
President of collegiate a Cappella group with numerous volunteering and philanthropic opportunities (1000+ hours)
Shadowing in various specialties totaling 200 hours.
Volunteering at local Spanish immersion daycare, weekly throughout semester and post-graduation.
Medical Scribe, will have 200 hours of experience by June 1st, full time job post graduation.

Bolded are the experiences that I have worked on throughout the past few months. The shadowing, volunteering, and scribing have genuinely given me new reasons and vigor to go to medical school. I have begun working on my statements and can already see a vast improvement in their quality and focus due to these new experiences. That being said, I have many concerns that I hope people can help me with:

1) I want to be as confident as possible going into my next application cycle that I will have some success (low degree of confidence for almost anyone, I know). Will my experiences be different enough to apply this coming cycle?

2) If taking a second year off is the "safer" option as far as getting enough experience goes, how should I tackle the problem of taking the MCAT again (in terms of expiring)? I would hate to do worse, but if getting an extra year of experience at the expense of a couple of points on the MCAT is what would get me in to medical school, I'd definitely be willing to consider the option.

Please feel free to point out gaps in my application, other opportunities I could consider, and any general advice at all. Doing this wrong once was not fun, so I want to make sure (as best as possible) that I'm doing my best this time around.

 

[CyrilFiggis]

Your grades and MCAT are strong enough to get you noticed in initial reviews, but your ECs were what hurt you. It looks like you improved them enough to help fill the gaps. When you write your PS and experiences in your primary, make sure you can speak eloquently about the experiences and how they have furthered your desire to be a physician. You never discussed your LORs, but make sure you have strong letters from professors, one from your current employer and one from your shadowing or scribing.

If you don't have it done already, your PS should be ready - or at least ready for someone to review. Ask a pre-health counselor or one of your letter writers if they will look it over. Also, make sure you apply broadly and early as suggested in the other thread.

As far as retaking the MCAT, don't. If you don't get next year, you'd have to retake it again regardless. No need to do it now.

Good luck.

 

[GrapesofRath]

This is a tough case for several reasons. Thought about it for a bit, here's my 2 cents on how Id approach this.

1) I would lean against reapplying this cycle. Something is rather off here if a 3.7/35 applicant cant get a single II with a broad list. Yes the lack of clinical experience is a big thing but plenty of high stat people still get at least a II or two. The fact VCU or EVMS isnt showing any interest is revealing.

So what have you done to address your issues?
3-4 weeks of scribing before your reapp and more non clinical volunteering when you already had tons. In other words, not that much. The rushed scribing 3-4 weeks before submitting your app in particular doesnt come across that great. For a reapp who didnt get a single II, reapplying this fast is just asking for problems. And you dont want to be a 3rd time applicant with stats this high, you really dont.

So now if you dont reapply this year........

3) https://www.aamc.org/students/download/398586/data/mcatexampolicy.pdf

The link above I posted tells you who will take your MCAT score for the 2017-18 app cycle. UVA and EVMS will probably accept it.

4) The biggest problem perhaps here is that you are a reapplicant at so many schools. I briefly went through that link and only found 3 schools you arent a reapp at in Vermont, Oakland and SUNY Downstate that I think are realistic. That UVA and EVMS is hardly a list.

5) Your goal as a reapp is to have a list of 15-20 rather realistic schools. You have 4 above. You will have to reapply to some schools but youll be at a disadvantage there. For this game, to get to 20 I personally would only count OOS reapp schools as at most 0.5 towards that(and to be blunt that's probably too generous, top 20's in particular are likely just donations as a reapp).

6) So I think you have to consider retaking. The reapply to all the same schools strategy IMHO is probably too risky(VA isnt a great state for admission). If you do retake and hit close to 35 again I think youll be ok: retaking expired scores is different than unexpired. Key here is fix your deficits which might be more than lack of clinical exp. Call schools to try to get feedback and see if there is more to it than lack of clinical exp.

7) If you can fix your deficits and have an eligible MCAT score, there are plenty of schools you arent a reapp at which you can be rather competitive like MCW, Temple, Ohio State, Cincinnati etc. Do all this I think youll be fine. Easier said than done in many ways, but I think that's at least a clear plan.


.

 

[neuroj93]

This is a tough case for several reasons. Thought about it for a bit, here's my 2 cents on how Id approach this.

1) I would lean against reapplying this cycle. Something is rather off here if a 3.7/35 applicant cant get a single II with a broad list. Yes the lack of clinical experience is a big thing but plenty of high stat people still get at least a II or two. The fact VCU or EVMS isnt showing any interest is revealing.

So what have you done to address your issues?
3-4 weeks of scribing before your reapp and more non clinical volunteering when you already had tons. In other words, not that much. The rushed scribing 3-4 weeks before submitting your app in particular doesnt come across that great. For a reapp who didnt get a single II, reapplying this fast is just asking for problems. And you dont want to be a 3rd time applicant with stats this high, you really dont.

So now if you dont reapply this year........

3) https://www.aamc.org/students/download/398586/data/mcatexampolicy.pdf

The link above I posted tells you who will take your MCAT score for the 2017-18 app cycle. UVA and EVMS will probably accept it.

4) The biggest problem perhaps here is that you are a reapplicant at so many schools. I briefly went through that link and only found 3 schools you arent a reapp at in Vermont, Oakland and SUNY Downstate that I think are realistic. That UVA and EVMS is hardly a list.

5) Your goal as a reapp is to have a list of 15-20 rather realistic schools. You have 4 above. You will have to reapply to some schools but youll be at a disadvantage there. For this game, to get to 20 I personally would only count OOS reapp schools as at most 0.5 towards that(and to be blunt that's probably too generous, top 20's in particular are likely just donations as a reapp).

6) So I think you have to consider retaking. The reapply to all the same schools strategy IMHO is probably too risky(VA isnt a great state for admission). If you do retake and hit close to 35 again I think youll be ok: retaking expired scores is different than unexpired. Key here is fix your deficits which might be more than lack of clinical exp. Call schools to try to get feedback and see if there is more to it than lack of clinical exp.

7) If you can fix your deficits and have an eligible MCAT score, there are plenty of schools you arent a reapp at which you can be rather competitive like MCW, Temple, Ohio State, Cincinnati etc. Do all this I think youll be fine. Easier said than done in many ways, but I think that's at least a clear plan.


.

Thanks for the advice! I do want to clarify that the 1000+ hours spent in a cappella were not all service hours. I'd say maybe 75 hours at most, so that was a big reason as to why I chose new volunteering options. Also wanted to clarify that I have already started scribing, and that it is a full time job after I graduate. Sorry, I can see how those bullets were misleading.

As far as to the point about my stats and receiving no interviews, I was definitely confused during the cycle. However, after reflecting on it, my essays were truly not indicative of my desire to go into medicine. I wrote my essays to highlight my strengths (research, music), but failed to address the questions. That same problem occurred in many of my secondaries. I'm not surprised that I was so widely rejected because, frankly, I did not properly articulate my desire to go into medicine. Those essays coupled with a pretty severe lack of clinical experience is what led to my poor cycle. I definitely thought I'd have some success with my stats and my research, but seeing as I didn't, I can only really attribute it to the problems I just detailed.

Again, thanks for the advice! I'll be talking to an adcom dean soon for feedback on my application, so I'll update this thread when I get some feedback.

 

[italiancowgirl]

A think you have got some really solid advice and I just want to re-emphasize that the plan to wait 1 year, really dive into volunteering/service (both clinical and in underserved communities in a non-clinical way) and retake your mcat (try to match what you had before) is a great plan. It sounds like you are aware of the deficits in your app and your essays, so dig in, improve, get feedback from more sources (admissions committees, mentors, professors, etc), and GL! For volunteering I would recommend both breadth and depth (or as much depth as you can get in 1 yr).