MI Reapplicant School List Advice

[foodieventures]

Edit: removed activities/identifiers
Appreciate any and all feedback for what to add/change/remove!

• State/Country of Residence: Michigan
• Ties to other States/Regions: --
• URM? (Y/N): No
• Year in School: Graduated 2021
• Undergraduate Major(s)/Minor(s): Engineering
• Graduate Degrees (if applicable): Engineering
• Cumulative GPA: 3.9
• Science GPA: 3.8
• MCAT Score(s): 512 (7/2019), 515 (1/2022) (130, 127, 129, 129) Retook because 2019 one expires for some schools this cycle. CARS score remained the same
• Research Experience: 600 hours ----
• Publications/Abstracts/Posters (include how you were credited e.g. first author, second author, etc.): presentation at university symposium; no pubs
• Clinical Experience (paid or volunteer): All volunteer experiences. 600 hours
• Physician Shadowing: Around 60 hours
• Non-Clinical Volunteering: 500
• Other Extracurricular Activities:
  • -----
• Other Employment History: ---
• Immediate family members in medicine? (Y/N): ---
• Specialty of Interest (if applicable): ----
• Interest in Primary Care (Y/N): Yes
• Interest in Rural Health (Y/N): Kind of… but no experiences or personal background to fully commit or say no
• Other comments: ---
• Medical School List (I applied to the following last cycle; I'll also add MSUCOM this round)
  • UMich
  • OUWB
  • Wayne
  • Albany
  • Carle
  • Central Michigan
  • Rosalind Franklin
  • Drexel
  • Netter at Quinnipiac
  • GW
  • Georgetown
  • Lewis Katz
  • MSU CHM
  • OSU
  • Rush
  • Toledo
  • Tufts
  • Iowa Carver
  • VCU
  • Wake Forest
  • Western Michigan

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[chilly_md]

There is still a possibility you get off the WL. If not, you had potential donations on your list with Iowa and Ohio State given your MCAT at the time, even if you were from a neighboring state. Rush expects many more volunteering and clinical hours than you have. Part of Wayne State and Oakland’s missions are to help the surrounding communities. Your non-clinical volunteering, while commendable, is not out of your comfort zone and is very common among applicants. Settings such as a homeless shelter, soup kitchen, food bank, more personal work with foster youth are more impactful than tutoring at local schools in Detroit. You should immediately begin something like this.

If you write about your interest in primary care in your personal statement or secondaries, you should have prior shadowing in that area.

Admissions had commented that your PS and secondaries could use improvement. It is likely that you did not gain enough insight from the clinical experiences you had when you applied, especially if you were relying on your mother’s job as a physician as a reason for why you want to pursue medicine. Another aspect is that you are in engineering and need a strong explanation for why you want to change careers.

The schools you are reapplying to may see that you have not done much to improve your application. Currently, only about 100 new hours as an MA and 100 for tutoring over the past year.

Apply to the following:
UMich
OUWB
Wayne
Albany
Carle
Central Michigan
Rosalind Franklin
Drexel
Jefferson
Netter at Quinnipiac
GW
Lewis Katz
MSU CHM
Tufts
EVMS
VCU
Wake Forest
Western Michigan
NOVA MD
Saint Louis
Creighton
Medical College Wisconsin
Hackensack
Hofstra
New York Medical College
Einstein
Vermont
Rochester
IU (maybe)

For DO, you are competitive to all of them and I suggest:
MSU
PCOM
DMU
Marian
NYITCOM
Touro NY
KCOM
KCU
LECOM

 

[foodieventures]

Thank you for your feedback!

I volunteered at a couple homeless shelters and one or two soup kitchens throughout college (once or twice a month for two hours depending on volunteer slot opening), and one right now for 2 hours biweekly (started in Feb 2022). I expect by 2023 I will have around 100 hours total across all of these. I didn't bring it up because I worry about a few things:
1. On paper, this experience stretches from 2019 to 2023, but only around 100-150 hours, which seems really low for a 3-4 year experience. Though, I do recall a few memorable experiences with the patrons that I could talk about.
2. I volunteered with different establishments based on their openings, so I worry about it coming across as trying to check off the box and not really committing to one organization.

Am I overthinking this or should I find 2 or 3 other shelters/soup kitchens nearby?

For the clinical experiences, frankly it was my mistake and naïveté to not look for other opportunities during 2020 -2021 when the pandemic ended the hospital one and defaulting on my hope that I will get in. So I started again in August 2021 after getting the training and when I realized I needed to reapply. Each clinic only has 2 or 3 clinic nights (2-3 hours each) per month, which is the reason for the low total hours currently, despite going to every single clinic night. Is this something I should point out in the activities description?

 

[chilly_md]

You should find a soup kitchen and/or homeless shelter you feel you can dedicate yourself to and volunteer there. There is no need to spread yourself across 2-3, the same place would appreciate it if you can commit to more than one shift. You can include the cumulative hours dating back to 2019.

You should not explain the reason for your low clinical hours as all applicants have a period where COVID shut down traditional clinical volunteering opportunities. However, much time has passed and you should have been able to find some (as well as non-clinical, which there were and still are abundant opportunities).

It will be hard for admissions to give you leniency given you could have worked as an MA for more hours at other facilities and you spent time getting a masters in engineering instead of pursuing medicine. It comes across as a significant change from the time you dedicated to engineering internships and now a full time job in that field.