MCAT Released...Another one of those "what are my chances?"

[nystargate]

Hello everyone, I've been lurking around the MD/PhD forum for a few months now reading up all the comments and the advice. First of all thanks for all the info. that has been posted, it's been a great help. I've decided that I only want to apply MD/PhD since medicine seems a bit mundane without the scientific inquiry aspect. I have posted my stats below and would appreciate any honest criticism.

The Important Numbers
- Overall GPA is 3.908
- Biological Sciences GPA is 4.0 and Physical Sciences is 3.97
- MCAT of 32R (PS 11, VR 9, BS 12)

Miscellaneous
- Campuswide Honors Program since time of entry and served for a year as Peer Mentor Coordinator
- Specializing in Developmental and Cell Biology
- Participated in study abroad program (England)
- Two separate internships my first year for the associate student body
- Couple of clubs (medical and Indian)
- Working to start a new fraternity at school (BXO)
- About 100 hours volunteering at hospital (this was before college) ... I joined a volunteering program near my college but it was a complete waste of time so I withdrew after like one month
- Volunteer every winter to help build the Rose Parade Floats
- Tutor for the learning and academic resource center at school
- Awards include Dean's List, one scholarship, possible graduation with honors

Research
- Summer before Freshman Year: Intern at City of Hope Research Center. Basically worked with a post-doc and learned about how to carry out experiments and analyze results.
- Sophomore Year: Atmospheric Chemistry (got a publication out of it but was 8th author since it was a fairly large collaboration)
- Summer: Selected to work at the Los Alamos National Laboratory through the NASA-USRP program (made poster and presented at symposium, also won award for poster and wrote abstract on project)
- Junior Year: Protein Folding in Membranes (no results yet)
- Summer: Awarded summer fellowship to continue working on project ... hopefully will get paper if this new model proves successful

I fell good about my GPA and research experience. My only concern is that my work focused on computational and biophysical chemistry, now I want to pursue a PhD focused towards physiology.

I'm wondering how much the "lack" of volunteering will hurt me. My hospital volunteering in high school was great and inspired me to pursue medicine, but the volunteering I did at a hospital close to school was horrible. Basically walked around for 4 hours handing out blankets or getting food orders.

Lastly, I know my MCAT isn't exception for the program. I was hoping for 35 but somehow my physics went bad. In all honesty, my goal is to go to UCLA, USC, or UCSD. I'm not looking for THE top program, just a good school.

Any and all comments welcomed. Sorry for the long post, will made a profile soon. Thanks in advance.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[jdeng87]

i have a friend who applied with 32 (but with some good first author papers) toa few places and interviewed at some decent ones like mt sinai and emory but he did not get the green light for the medical committee because his volunteering was not enough. i dont think that mstp committees are particularly concerned... but you just need to have enough to sound sincere and make the md committee happy. i have also been in contact with a dean at hopkins admissions and she says that when she does the md interview for mstp she is most unhappy when mstp applicants feel that clinical volunteering is not important and therefore do not dedicate time to it. im not saying that this is how you perceive it.... im just saying that beware that this is how it may be interpreted.

last but certainly not least.... best of luck in the cycle. many directors have comforted me saying that they do look at applications holistically with special emphasis on research experience and LOR so i am just going to apply broadly and hope for the best!

 

[Neuronix]

In the FAQ you fit as the two excellents and a not good. You'll probably do ok if you keep up the GPA and research. In situations like this I wonder if it's useful to retake the MCAT to bump you into the 3 excellents catagory. Always remember you can try for California but that's a tricky proposition even for the best of applicants.

It might be a good thing to get some shadowing/volunteering as an undergrad. I'm not sure how much med schools care about what you did before college.

Good luck!