I think that people need to realize that, as reflected by mdapplicants.com, that there are tons of other people with good stats and decent EC's, so don't get too cockey and take this admissions game lightly. Competition is fierce.
I have met people who think that just because they have 3.6 from Stanford or some Ivy League schools along with 33-34 MCAT scores they should be interviewed by all top 10 med schools and accepted by a couple of them. Realistically, unless you have 3.8 and 36 MCAT, it is hard to argue that you have a "good" chance of getting into a top 10 schools (just browse medapplicants.com more carefully). The bottomline is all med schools (especially the top ones) will try to tell you that they look at the whole applications and see applicants as individuals, so you should always apply and never rule them out. Come to think of it, it is similar to undergraduate admissions (how do you think that harvard manages to push its admissions rate to below 10%? do you think that any harvard admissions person will tell an applicant that he or she is not good enough for harvard? No! they will always tell the applicants the same crap you hear right now... "we look at the whole application so even though your class rank is top 15% only and your SAT is 1350, please do apply and give it a shot....and pay that application fees too...). All decent applicants to Harvard or Hopkins med have at least 3.6 and 33 MCAT. So unless you open a health clinic for the needed in Africa or vaccinate a whole city in some third world country single handedly, don't expect to use your "all-around" applications to impress the admissions committee because quite frankly, everyone has a little bit of research and has volunteered in the local hospital to some extent. In the end, when everyone's EC's and essays are similar, what do they look for? Well, the higher the GPA and the higher the MCAT, the better. This is not hard to figure out.
However, you certainly don't need 3.8 and 36 MCAT to get into "a" med school. People here and on mdapplicants.com are a little too into name brand. There is nothing wrong with 3.6 GPA and 31 MCAT from Stanford or some Ivy League schools because it is almost a certainty that if you apply to enough med schools with that stat and have no hidden skeleton in your closet, you will get into a medical school and be a doctor! Be proud of your application but just be careful not to think that you are unique and deserve to be begged by Hopkins to attend their med school.
