Non-Trad unsure of whether to bet high, low, or both

[jkPleaseTellMeTheOdds]

I've listed my stats below, but there's one big hiccup I wanted to ask about, because I'm not sure how it should affect my school list. Long story short, I had a single semester of college when I was a kid that failed on account of family troubles, and led me into industry work instead. That failed semester is still on my record, but I went back to college almost 15 years later. I have a 3.90 since returning to school, and have nearly finished my degree. I've been told that the committee letter will reflect the 3.90 GPA, but my AMCAS GPA will be 3.71 and I'm uncertain if I should apply based on the higher number, the lower, or both since it could be seen either way.

I wrote up a tentative school list based on a couple assumptions. First, I assume that if I apply to 10 of the T20 programs I might have a dark-horse shot at one of them. Next, I assume around 20 schools that match my stats well on a worst-case read should be sufficient to maximize my probability of success. Finally, I assume I need to add a few DO programs for safety's sake. Do these assumptions sound reasonable, and does the following tentative list seem reasonable, based on those assumptions?

Tentative School List:
UCSF, Mayo, Harvard, UPenn, Cornell (Weill), UCLA (David Geffen), Yale, U of Chicago Pritzker, Georgetown, Dartmouth, Case Western, Tufts, Carle Illinois, Boston U, Icahn Mount Sinai, Hofstra, Rochester, Albert Einstein, George Washington, UMass, Penn State, SUNY Stony Brook, Rush, Rutgers NJ, Rutgers RWJ, Temple, Drexel, SUNY Upstate, Rosalind Franklin, Albany, SUNY Downstate, NYMC, Ohio Uni (DO), Oklahoma State (DO), NYIT (DO), Philadelphia COM (DO)

1. cGPA and sGPA as calculated by AMCAS or AACOMAS: cGPA/sGPA = 3.71 (or 3.90 if you don't count an outlying semester from 13 years ago)
2. MCAT score(s) and breakdown: 517 (130/130/130/127)
3. State of residence or country of citizenship (if non-US): New York
4. Ethnicity and/or race: White
5. Undergraduate institution or category: State School
6. Clinical experience (volunteer and non-volunteer): 2+ years employed in healthcare (direct care of disabled adults)
7. Research experience and productivity: 1+ year in organic synthesis, project related to nanomedicine, no pubs but I'm up for a paid summer fellowship
8. Shadowing experience and specialties represented: 12 hours in IM, trying to get hours in psychiatry and EM before applying. Will at least get above 25 in general before applying.
9. Non-clinical volunteering: I currently cook meals for, and help out around, a homeless shelter on Long Island. I'll have a couple hundred hours there as of application time, and will log a good deal more over the coming summer. I'm a nontrad, and getting hours at anything outside of obligations like going to school and paying bills is impossibly difficult. I have some more hours in homeless outreach from several years ago, but I'm not sure if those are too old to include, and they would only add a couple hundred to the total anyhow.
10. Other extracurricular activities (including athletics, military service, gap year activities, leadership, teaching, etc): I've spent the last year as the House Leader of a co-op house full of grad students and med students, acting as the liaison between the residents and the landlord.
11. Relevant honors or awards: Outstanding Academic Achievement Award, from my school, for multiple 4.0 semesters.
12. Anything else not listed you think might be important: My degree program is a science major/engineering minor, which is fairly rare. I was hoping to be competitive in applying to Carle Illinois because I'm super interested in their program, and I plan to fill out my gap year with any general engineering prereqs I might have missed. Does anyone know if that should be competitive for them, or any prereqs and markers they'll be looking for specificially?

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[Faha]

You should receive several interviews from your list. You do not need to apply to DO schools.

 

[Walter Raleigh]

You failed that semester thirteen years ago. In addition, a 3.7 GPA doesn't hold you back from the likes of Harvard and NYU. Apply like you have a 3.85. It might also be helpful to include those homeless outreach hours from several years ago; it shows that you've been involved in helping others for several years. Adcoms like this. It also boosts the number of hours you've got from ~200 to ~400. Bust out @Goro's rockstar list! Aim high: have about a dozen top-10 schools, your NY schools, and any midtiers that appeal to you. Good luck!

 

[jkPleaseTellMeTheOdds]

You should receive several interviews from your list. You do not need to apply to DO schools.

Are there a few schools you would recommend I replace the DO choices with? I'm trying to stay in one of the larger urban areas, and I think I got a good sample of target schools for my stats in those areas, but are there any obvious ones I'm missing?

 

[Walter Raleigh]

You could add a couple more top-20s in areas you like instead of the DO schools.

 

[Faha]

I suggest adding these schools:
NYU (they also opened a new school on Long Island this month)
Jefferson
Miami
Loyola
St. Louis
Tulane
Duke

 

[Goro]

I've listed my stats below, but there's one big hiccup I wanted to ask about, because I'm not sure how it should affect my school list. Long story short, I had a single semester of college when I was a kid that failed on account of family troubles, and led me into industry work instead. That failed semester is still on my record, but I went back to college almost 15 years later. I have a 3.90 since returning to school, and have nearly finished my degree. I've been told that the committee letter will reflect the 3.90 GPA, but my AMCAS GPA will be 3.71 and I'm uncertain if I should apply based on the higher number, the lower, or both since it could be seen either way.

I wrote up a tentative school list based on a couple assumptions. First, I assume that if I apply to 10 of the T20 programs I might have a dark-horse shot at one of them. Next, I assume around 20 schools that match my stats well on a worst-case read should be sufficient to maximize my probability of success. Finally, I assume I need to add a few DO programs for safety's sake. Do these assumptions sound reasonable, and does the following tentative list seem reasonable, based on those assumptions?

Tentative School List:
Mayo, Harvard, , Cornell (Weill), Dartmouth, Case Western, Carle Illinois, Boston U, Icahn Mount Sinai, Hofstra, Rochester, Albert Einstein, SUNY Stony Brook, SUNY Upstate, SUNY Downstate,


ADD
Pitt
Duke
Emory
Columbia
Rochester
U VM
U VA
U MI
Miami
Keck
Stanford
Wake
Jefferson
USF Morsani
U Cinci
OH State
SUNY BUFFALO

 

[Walter Raleigh]

@jkPleaseTellMeTheOdds, that's Goro's rock star list. Two adcoms have suggested a rockstar-tier school list. Here, have this.

 

[jkPleaseTellMeTheOdds]

After scratching the DO selections, should I include all of the schools you listed? Is there an optimal list length, given that I'll have to take out student loans to cover my application expenses?

 

[Goro]

After scratching the DO selections, should I include all of the schools you listed? Is there an optimal list length, given that I'll have to take out student loans to cover my application expenses?

I recommend applying to 20-30 schools. Be sure to include all SUNYs, Hofstra and Einstein.

 

[jkPleaseTellMeTheOdds]

Gotcha, thank you!