Narrowing down the list

[Caveman7]

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Hi, I'm a California resident attending a UC school and i'm trying to compile a list of 25-30 schools. Also, I am a 4th year bio major going to graduate a quarter early. I was wondering if you guys can critique my list of schools and my EC's.

cGPA: 3.81
sGPA: 3.83
MCAT: 34Q 10v/12b/12p

EC's:
Research:
-Brain Cancer Research for 2.5+ years, one publication (not first author) submitted, multiple posters/presentations/papers within the school. I was going to get published earlier for a gene my PI has been working on for nearly a decade, but didn't because the gene of interest was a dead end. The woes of science! 🙁
-Psychiatry Research for 3 months at affiliated school hospital.

Clinicals:
-Volunteered 300+ hours for a little over 1.5 years at private hospital as a CCE
-Volunteered 50+ hours at a different hospital prior to CCE program

Miscellaneous:
-Tutored for local high school program for a quarter,planning to return for another quarter
-Multiple leadership positions in pre-med fraternity over the last 2+ years
-Helped start up a international medical missions club at school, was co-president for a year, went overseas for a surgical/medical camp
-Mentoring 3 young disadvantaged children for a little over a year
-Helped organized a summer camp for disadvantaged children last summer
-Volunteered at OT clinic that teaches martial arts to young children for 6 months so far
-Shadowed a neurosurgeon for 20+ hours

Future relevant endeavors:
-Going to volunteer at a free clinic on weekends with the same doctor that helps my club out with our medical missions. Also going to shadow him heavily after I graduate winter.
-Going to try to pick up a job during spring quarter relevant to medicine (medical lab assistant, MCAT tutor, etc)

My tentative list:
UCSF (reach)
Stanford (reach)
UCLA
UCSD
USC
UCI
UCR
UCD
Georgetown
Emory
Loyola-Stritch
Chicago-Med Franklin
Rush
U of Illinois
Boston
Maryland (High IS%,should I drop?)
Mayo
St. Louis
Dartmouth
Einstein
Columbia (reach)
Cornell(reach)
Mount Sinai (reach)
NY Medical
NYU
Stony Brook (high IS%, should I drop?)
Ohio State
Case Western
Cincinnati
Drexel
Jefferson
Pittsburgh (reach)
Temple
Brown-Alpert

So far 34 schools and a good handful of them reaches. I thought that because top 20 schools are rather unpredictable I thought it wouldn't hurt to try to apply. Are there any other specific schools that I should consider? My main concern with my EC's is that I don't really have too much of a teaching aspect to it. Thank you SDN for your time!

 

[Flash7]

Yay a fellow UCer! You have pretty good stats and a mostly balanced MCAT. Nice ECs. Maybe you should shadow a 2-3 more doctors in your spare time to get some diversity. If you can TA a introductory science lab or two or work as a peer tutor at your college that would be great. Other than that your good to go. 34 schools might be a little too many though, but it's a good list.

 

[Caveman7]

I'm shooting for no more than 30 schools. I wonder if working with a psychiatrist very closely in my psychiatry research counts as shadowing. From time to time I go down and watch them round. I think I will look into peer tutoring tomorrow when school starts. Thanks Flash7.

 

[MedPR]

I'm shooting for no more than 30 schools. I wonder if working with a psychiatrist very closely in my psychiatry research counts as shadowing. From time to time I go down and watch them round. I think I will look into peer tutoring tomorrow when school starts. Thanks Flash7.

I would cut Drexel and NYMC. Your stats are high enough to not need those two safeties.

 

[Flash7]

I'm shooting for no more than 30 schools. I wonder if working with a psychiatrist very closely in my psychiatry research counts as shadowing. From time to time I go down and watch them round. I think I will look into peer tutoring tomorrow when school starts. Thanks Flash7.

I'm pretty sure and many others would most likely agree that "shadowing" a psychiatrist in that sense would still count as shadowing. 😀