MD My chances for top schools

[Butterfingers-87]

I have a balance MCAT score, 511 (85%), my cGPA is 3.87, sGPA is 3.9, I have 200 hours of hospital experience interacting with patients, 2 years plus of volunteering, worked with 5 different labs in different faculties (mechanical, biomedical engineering; neuroscience, and Public Administration (Health)). Doing my honours in Neuroscience now. I also have 4 publications; I was first author for two of them.

Will I have a good chance for the top schools? Let's say top 20? What are some good saftey schools?

Nitty Gritty: Traditional Applicant, didn't take a year off, Canadian citizen so out of state and out of country, Immigrated to Canada as a child so I was able to put in a lot of info for my diversity essays, very good recommendations.

Schools suggestions? I have already applied for a bunch, but looking to see if any other good suggestions are out there.

I appreciate your help guys!!! I'm just very stressed and don't know how I stack up. I feel like my portfolio is pretty average

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[Butterfingers-87]

Anyone?!

 

[•Syzygy•]

are you URM? if you aren't, your MCAT will be an issue since i think its probably below the 10th percentile at the top schools

i don't think there is such a thing as a safety medical school lol

 

[Butterfingers-87]

are you URM? if you aren't, your MCAT will be an issue since i think its probably below the 10th percentile at the top schools

i don't think there is such a thing as a safety medical school lol

Hey thanks for the reply. I am URM, if the definition of URM includes being a visible minority... I'm not exactly sure tho...

 

[•Syzygy•]

Hey thanks for the reply. I am URM, if the definition of URM includes being a visible minority... I'm not exactly sure tho...

well that would be african american, hispanic etc

in that case, you definitely have a chance at the top schools but you should not apply top heavy as in focus only on those schools

make sure to sprinkle some mid and lower tiers in there along with state schools but a URM with your stats will do well.

others will chime in as well im sure

 

[•Syzygy•]

i didnt see that you were canadian. as you probably know, being out of country makes things a bit more difficult but i do not know how that plays out combined with your URM status. in any case, you are a solid applicant. what i said goes double because you are canadian..avoid a top heavy list

 

[Butterfingers-87]

well that would be african american, hispanic etc

in that case, you definitely have a chance at the top schools but you should not apply top heavy as in focus only on those schools

make sure to sprinkle some mid and lower tiers in there along with state schools but a URM with your stats will do well.

others will chime in as well im sure

So I've also applied to Canadian schools, which will be easier for me to get in. and also some med tier schools as well since I don't want to go through this whole process again...

See I'm a mix between middle eastern and Fijian... so I'm not sure were I end up on the URM spectrum.. having said that, as I have reported in my essays I mostly talked about my immigration and the poverty the first few years ...

 

[Butterfingers-87]

i didnt see that you were canadian. as you probably know, being out of country makes things a bit more difficult but i do not know how that plays out combined with your URM status. in any case, you are a solid applicant. what i said goes double because you are canadian..avoid a top heavy list

Yeah.. so it largely depends on the schools. All the university of California schools seem biased towards their own people within state...

 

[Butterfingers-87]

anyone else have any input?

 

[Goro]

International applicants need to be Harvard/Stanford caliber. You're fine for the ~14 DO schools that take internationals, especially UNECOM or MSUCOM.

 

[Butterfingers-87]

I think your evaluation is low
I only applied to US schools that considered Canadian Students on the same basis as Americans. And there is more than a handful of those.
Based on the fact that AAMC claims that Canadian MED Schools are affiliated with AAMC, I don't see why I would need to be that much better to get in. In any case, I specifically looked for schools that considered Canadian and Americans as the same (see pic). Assuming that is the case, what are my chances?

 

[Butterfingers-87]

See the pic for the Canadian School affiliations I am talking about.

 

[Willy38]

See the pic for the Canadian School affiliations I am talking about.View attachment 224132

URM helps tremendously but I agree with @Goro , accepted Canadians are typically very very strong applicants. Yale takes a lot of Canadians but I would say that all my classmates who are international are extremely strong candidates. If you are set on applying US, I would add Yale to list since they do take a ton of internationals but would certainly apply to Canadian schools as well.

Secondly, why not shoot for a top Canadian program like Toronto/McGill? My understanding is the tuition is drastically cheaper and you still receive a quality education. I know its easier to match to US residency from US programs but I know of multiple faculty at Yale who were educated and trained internationally before coming here.

 

[Goro]

URM helps tremendously but I agree with @Goro , accepted Canadians are typically very very strong applicants. Yale takes a lot of Canadians but I would say that all my classmates who are international are extremely strong candidates. If you are set on applying US, I would add Yale to list since they do take a ton of internationals but would certainly apply to Canadian schools as well.

Secondly, why not shoot for a top Canadian program like Toronto/McGill? My understanding is the tuition is drastically cheaper and you still receive a quality education. I know its easier to match to US residency from US programs but I know of multiple faculty at Yale who were educated and trained internationally before coming here.

OP's MCAT will rule out Yale. Their median is 518, and his score is < their 10th %ile.

 

[Walter Raleigh]

International applicants need to be Harvard/Stanford caliber. You're fine for the ~14 DO schools that take internationals, especially UNECOM or MSUCOM.

His URM status doesn't help him any as an international applicant?

 

[Goro]

His URM status doesn't help him any as an international applicant?

OP is not URM.

 

[workaholic181]

I have a balance MCAT score, 511 (85%), my cGPA is 3.87, sGPA is 3.9, I have 200 hours of hospital experience interacting with patients, 2 years plus of volunteering, worked with 5 different labs in different faculties (mechanical, biomedical engineering; neuroscience, and Public Administration (Health)). Doing my honours in Neuroscience now. I also have 4 publications; I was first author for two of them.

Will I have a good chance for the top schools? Let's say top 20? What are some good saftey schools?

Nitty Gritty: Traditional Applicant, didn't take a year off, Canadian citizen so out of state and out of country, Immigrated to Canada as a child so I was able to put in a lot of info for my diversity essays, very good recommendations.

Schools suggestions? I have already applied for a bunch, but looking to see if any other good suggestions are out there.

I appreciate your help guys!!! I'm just very stressed and don't know how I stack up. I feel like my portfolio is pretty average

I'm no expert but I do think that the combination of your "pedestrian" MCAT and non citizen status pretty much precludes you from most top 20 schools. Your MCAT is significantly lower than the average for all top 20 schools, frankly it is about average for schools of the Temple, Drexel, Miami variety. By all means apply to top schools, but if it were me I would send out a broad app targeting "mid tier" MD and DO programs. As mentioned above, MSUCOM is an excellent medical school with an institutionalized policy of reserving a number of their seats to canadians. If you apply wisely, I'd be surprised if you don't land somewhere.

 

[seren1051]

I applied two years ago with MCAT slightly higher than yours (34 - that'd be ~515 on the new scale), GPA ~3.75, ~200 hrs of clinical volunteering, few pubs. Graduated with honors and had extensive research experience. I did my undergrad in the US in Ivies. I applied to ~20 low to mid tier MDs (including all the schools listed on your screenshot except Yale), received 2 IIs, and ultimately didn't make it. Since competition's getting more and more fierce, bars are going to be a bit higher this year.

You're within range for GW, Einstein, Penn State and MCW. But also keep in mind that GW gets 15k+ / Penn State gets 10k+ / Einstein/MCW gets ~8k+ apps a year. These schools matriculated 1, 2, 5, 4 internationals each year. As an international applicant, your app will probably have to be much stronger than school's average stats. I can bet that there are Canadians with 3.8+/520+ who submitted apps to these exact schools. It's tough being international.

I really hope you take Goro's and hiei's advice and expand your selection.

 

[gyngyn]

View attachment 224131 I think your evaluation is low
I only applied to US schools that considered Canadian Students on the same basis as Americans. And there is more than a handful of those.
Based on the fact that AAMC claims that Canadian MED Schools are affiliated with AAMC, I don't see why I would need to be that much better to get in. In any case, I specifically looked for schools that considered Canadian and Americans as the same (see pic). Assuming that is the case, what are my chances?

Einstein interviewed 11% of their OOS applicants (671/5950). They only interviewed 3% of the Canadian applicants (21/660) and matriculated 5.

GW interviewed 7% of OOS applicants (1021/14,846). The MSAR indicates that non-Canadian internationals are only considered on a case by case basis. Thus one could presume that the large majority of their 730 international applicants are Canadian. They only interviewed 12 and matriculated 2! Unless we presume that the Canadian applicants to these schools are much much weaker, we must conclude that Canadians have a far smaller chance than OOS applicants.