MD School List Advice

[gmianosi]

Maine Resident, White female, foreign born and fluent in an Eastern European language (does that even matter?)
School: Large, public research uni in New England
Major: Biochem and Molecular Bio
Minor: French, Chem
cGPA: 4.0
sGPA: 4.0
MCAT: First try (Jan of this year): 128,128,128,127--511
Second try (April of this year): 132,128,132,130--522

I really hope the fact that I got a 511 on the first try doesn't look too bad/raise any flags...

ECs
Math summer tutor (100 hours over the course of a few summers)
Health care screening assistant- collecting vitals and biometrics for a healthcare screening, patient contact (400 hours)
Phlebotomy- 900 hours, strong LOR about phlebotomy and screening assistant (got my phleb job because my boss was really pleased with how I did as a screening assistant)
Adult Education classroom TA- 40 hours of volunteering in a classroom teaching adults English
One on One English tutoring- 40 hours of individual tutoring of one of the students from the class
Cell phone repair technician- 250 hours of fixing cell phones, interacting with customers, etc
Molecular Biology TA- been doing it for a year, will continue next year
Shadowing-120 hours of shadowing (a nurse practitioner and a pathologist)
Reseach- plant bio lab my freshman year, switched over to a synthetic orgo lab at the end of my freshman year. Did that sophomore, junior, and will do it my senior year (honors thesis) for about 20 hours/week. Was also there the summer between sophomore and junior year working about 50-60 hour weeks. Am in a different lab for the summer on scholarship. No publications yet, unfortunately...

Awards: Phi Beta Kappa junior year, Dean's List, some scholarships for my school, and a research scholarship at another uni (I'm doing that right now. didn't know where else in the application to put this)

LoRs from the pathologist (been shadowing her for years, she has helped me with everything), my lab PI, biochem prof, French prof, company director where I did screening/phlebotomy

Potential list:
I plan on sending my primary to about more schools than I'll send my secondary to because I won't have time to make a really informed decision of the schools I want to apply to by tomorrow... I haven't looked into this nearly as much as I would have liked to. I will only be sending my secondary to about 20-25 schools. Just let me know which ones on this list I should apply to, or any other schools that I haven't thought about!

I'm not sure if the fact that I'm from Maine helps or hurts me... I have no geographic restrictions on where I apply, and I've noticed that most of these schools don't have any matriculants from Maine

Thanks 😀

Harvard
Johns Hopkins
Columbia
Mount Sinai
McGill
Mayo
NYU
Northwestern
UPenn
UPitts
Stanford
Boston Uni
UChicago
Vanderbilt
WashU St Louis
UCSF
UNC
UWisconsin
USC
UCSD
UCLA

Albany
Tufts (Maine track-- Maine doesn't have an instate med school, so this is sort of our "state" school)
Emory
Tulane (low yield, but I used to live in New Orleans and my mother worked at Tulane-- might accept me because of my history with the school?)
LSU New Orleans
UIllinois
Drexel
Brown
Dartmouth
Einstein
UC David
UMass Worcester

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[NeuroSoph75]

Your GPA is great, your ECs are strong. Keep in mind that schools differ in how they interpret multiple MCATs. The safest way to approach this situation is to average your two scores. So essentially you should base your list off of a 516 MCAT.

For your list, do you have ties to California? If not, I would delete all CA schools except USC (no in-state preference) and possibly UCLA and UCSF if those are dream schools for you. You have some schools that don't accept many OOS students (U of I, LSU). I'd add more mid-tiers instead. Some that come to mind:

Jefferson
Case Western
SLU

With your stats, the top OOS publics will be worthwhile (consider UMich, UVA).

Wash U, Vandy, Northwestern, NYU will like your high stats.

Good luck!

 

[gmianosi]

Your GPA is great, your ECs are strong. Keep in mind that schools differ in how they interpret multiple MCATs. The safest way to approach this situation is to average your two scores. So essentially you should base your list off of a 516 MCAT.

For your list, do you have ties to California? If not, I would delete all CA schools except USC (no in-state preference) and possibly UCLA and UCSF if those are dream schools for you. You have some schools that don't accept many OOS students (U of I, LSU). I'd add more mid-tiers instead. Some that come to mind:

Jefferson
Case Western
SLU

With your stats, the top OOS publics will be worthwhile (consider UMich, UVA).

Wash U, Vandy, Northwestern, NYU will like your high stats.

Good luck!

Unfortunately, I have no ties to Cali... But it's always been a dream of mine to live there. Guess it is a longshot, then. I do have ties to Illinois and Louisiana, so hopefully, that can help. I'll definitely do research and what different schools do in terms of MCATs (averaging, highest score, etc), and then apply accordingly. Do you have any other recommendations of mid-tiers I could apply to? I really don't want to make the mistake of making my application too top heavy

 

[NeuroSoph75]

Unfortunately, I have no ties to Cali... But it's always been a dream of mine to live there. Guess it is a longshot, then. I do have ties to Illinois and Louisiana, so hopefully, that can help. I'll definitely do research and what different schools do in terms of MCATs (averaging, highest score, etc), and then apply accordingly. Do you have any other recommendations of mid-tiers I could apply to? I really don't want to make the mistake of making my application too top heavy

Well then I'd leave UCSF and UCLA since they do take some OOS applicants and USC is a good mid-tier to have on the list anyway. But UC Davis matriculated 3 OOS students last year according to MSAR, so I say waste of money. Same with UNC -- they only interview ~2% of OOS students because they are committed to producing physicians for NC.

Mid-tiers:
Emory
Case Western
BU - gets ~10,000 apps
UVA
Dartmouth
Cincinnati
Miami
Rochester
OSU
Colorado
Einstein
Jefferson - gets ~10,000 apps
Maryland
Georgetown - gets ~15,000 apps
GWU - gets ~15,000 apps

You already have Albany, Drexel, Tufts, Tulane which are low-tier and low-yield for someone with your stats so I wouldn't add any more of those. Right now you have about 16-17 top-tier schools (Top 25ish) so I would add more mid-tiers.

I'm not an expert; however, to be safe you should target schools where you are 1-2 points above the average. Assuming a 516 that makes you a great candidate for any mid-tier while still having a good shot at the top schools you already picked.