One Year Left Until Application - Any suggestions?

[sviola]

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Hi,

I'm a senior in college and I'm planning to take a gap year + start applying Spring/Summer 2013. I'm looking for:
1. suggestions to improve my application during the next year
2. ideas for things to do during my gap year that will strengthen some weak areas
3. some med schools in my reach - hoping for a UC school
4. advice if I should retake my MCAT (background: I only studied 2 weeks and my bio score was 2 below average AAMC score)

Thank you so much! 🙂



Stats: Female, Asian/Pacific Islander
School: Ivy
State: CA
Major: Applied Mathematics and Biology
GPA: 3.73c/3.70s (projected, >3.6ish current); strong upward trend - 4.0 during final 2 years!
MCAT: 36R

Special circumstance: During the year of my worse grades (sophomore), I was working 3 part-time jobs! I quit 2 of them and took on a rigorous courseload (max courseload for my uni and full of sciences), which I excelled in. Don't worry - I didn't get any C's.

Extracurriculars:
- Residential Assistant (RA) for 1 year (I had to move out of the dorms bc it's cheaper off-campus or else I would've probably continued)
- Acapella for 1 year
- Ballroom dance for 1 year
- Sunday school teacher 3 years
- EMT skills instructor for 1 year (current)
- CPR instructor for 2 years (current)
- Leadership role among university EMS corps (current)
- Teacher's aide (current)
- English tutor for adult ESOL (current)

International Experience:
- (after Jan 2010 earthquake): Volunteered alongside Haitian doctors and nurses in a rural clinic setting

Clinical experience:
- EMT-Basic: paid and volunteer, 750+ hours of service by the time I graduate (current)
- Helped open a walk-in program at a local free clinic and also help staff the clinic last summer; soon promoted to volunteer coordinator for the walk-in clinic at my university --> this is really cool. i get to learn more about my community and talk to patients in Spanish, take pt Hx, BP, temp, etc. (current)
- Haiti again... talking to Haitian patients in Creole about taking their temp, BP, etc.

Shadowing:
- Emergency Room: 20+ hours
- International Medicine: 70+ hours (2 weeks in Haiti, appx 8 hours a day)

Research: (not my favorite thing)
- Harvard summer research program for URM
- literature research (for fun) about modern women's rights in Asia; nothing became of this... I'm wondering if I should even mention it.
- my university's summer research grant
- going to do a senior honors thesis on reproductive immunology
- no publications, but I am acknowledged in a paper submitted to a big-name journal

Once again, thanks for any and all recommendations.

 

[Catalystik]

Hi,

I'm a senior in college and I'm planning to take a gap year + start applying Spring/Summer 2013. I'm looking for:
1. suggestions to improve my application during the next year
2. ideas for things to do during my gap year that will strengthen some weak areas
3. some med schools in my reach - hoping for a UC school
4. advice if I should retake my MCAT (background: I only studied 2 weeks and my bio score was 2 below average AAMC score)

Stats: Female, Asian/Pacific Islander
School: Ivy
State: CA
Major: Applied Mathematics and Biology
GPA: 3.73c/3.70s (projected, >3.6ish current); strong upward trend - 4.0 during final 2 years!
MCAT: 36R

Special circumstance: During the year of my worse grades (sophomore), I was working 3 part-time jobs! I quit 2 of them and took on a rigorous courseload (max courseload for my uni and full of sciences), which I excelled in. Don't worry - I didn't get any C's.

Extracurriculars:
- Residential Assistant (RA) for 1 year (I had to move out of the dorms bc it's cheaper off-campus or else I would've probably continued)
- Acapella for 1 year
- Ballroom dance for 1 year
- Sunday school teacher 3 years
- EMT skills instructor for 1 year (current)
- CPR instructor for 2 years (current)
- Leadership role among university EMS corps (current)
- Teacher's aide (current)
- English tutor for adult ESOL (current)

International Experience:
- (after Jan 2010 earthquake): Volunteered alongside Haitian doctors and nurses in a rural clinic setting

Clinical experience:
- EMT-Basic: paid and volunteer, 750+ hours of service by the time I graduate (current)
- Helped open a walk-in program at a local free clinic and also help staff the clinic last summer; soon promoted to volunteer coordinator for the walk-in clinic at my university --> this is really cool. i get to learn more about my community and talk to patients in Spanish, take pt Hx, BP, temp, etc. (current)
- Haiti again... talking to Haitian patients in Creole about taking their temp, BP, etc.

Shadowing:
- Emergency Room: 20+ hours
- International Medicine: 70+ hours (2 weeks in Haiti, appx 8 hours a day)

Research: (not my favorite thing)
- Harvard summer research program for URM
- literature research (for fun) about modern women's rights in Asia; nothing became of this... I'm wondering if I should even mention it.
- my university's summer research grant
- going to do a senior honors thesis on reproductive immunology
- no publications, but I am acknowledged in a paper submitted to a big-name journal

Once again, thanks for any and all recommendations.

1) I'd like to see more US-based physician shadowing, including a primary care doc. I'm hoping ou'll be engaged in an original, hypothesis-based research project upon which your senior honors thesis will be based (rather than a lit review). I'm not clear what your nonmedical community service consists of as you didn't specify paid or volunteer for some possible activities, or intensity of involvement, so I can't comment on adequacy of this category. Leadership and active clinical experience look terrific. Teaching is good. Hobbies are fine. You didn't specify your jobs.

4) No.

 

[maestrohuang]

-_______________________________________-

 

[sviola]

1) I'd like to see more US-based physician shadowing, including a primary care doc. I'm hoping ou'll be engaged in an original, hypothesis-based research project upon which your senior honors thesis will be based (rather than a lit review). I'm not clear what your nonmedical community service consists of as you didn't specify paid or volunteer for some possible activities, or intensity of involvement, so I can't comment on adequacy of this category. Leadership and active clinical experience look terrific. Teaching is good. Hobbies are fine. You didn't specify your jobs.

4) No.

Clarifications:
Shadowing:
Hmm, I also regularly shadow doctors at the free clinic (mentioned above as the walk-in clinic). Not sure how many hours I did there - maybe 20?

Research:
Also, my university doesn't let literature reviews count as a senior thesis (in my department, at least, because it's not rigorous and not in the least mathematical). I've been doing bench research for over a year now, and I have an independent project. I have dabbled with public health/database research in the past and I actually think I like it better. It's something I will definitely explore, but not now (because I have my senior thesis to develop, to gather data on, to analyze, and to write.)

Nonmedical community service:
- ESOL Instructor: Making lesson plans and teaching to a non-native English speaker at her house; not fluent in English and not even literate in her native language -> had to teach literacy and writing and the whole shebang (weekly)
- Sunday school teacher: working with toddlers on a regular basis, though not just babysitting; I have to come up with ways to convey complex concepts (e.g. selflessness, love, Jesus having a Father God and Joseph as his "father", etc.) to little kids with song, stories, and art. (monthly)
- RA position: This one has nonmedical community service too, that I'm sure you can imagine. We have to educate our residents, connect them with resources, be aware of the safety of individuals + the community, etc. In addition to small community events, we also had to plan campus-wide events.

Medical:
- The free clinic -> I had to write protocols for care, develop a survey to track efficacy of the newly implemented walk-in clinic, inform local emergency health agencies of the new walk-in clinic (in case of emergency, of course), recruit people to staff the walk-in hours, staff the walk-in hours myself a few hours each week...

Though, how important is non-clinical community service?

Jobs:
- RA: Sure, it was part-time but it's not a job you can leave at work. I was constantly trying to do this to the best of my ability, which was a time sink.

- Administrative assistant for a nonprofit: Quit because it was irrelevant to my future goals, and because I knew my supervisors beforehand, there was a messy line about when I was a student in the nonprofit and when I was the admin asst. It was a time-sink because my superiors asked really tedious things of me (handwrite and address 200 invitations in 1 week) and at inappropriate times (texting me past midnight for a password to a company account). Yeah, this wasn't a job I could really leave at work either.

- Per diem EMT work (includes CPR instructor) - basically I am hired under special conditions but the 750+ hours were completely voluntary. I worked 105+ hired hours as an EMT instructor and I probably worked 100+ hours as a hired EMT. I'm not sure if volunteer EMT vs. hired EMT really matters because it was the same work, I was just paid during the shifts with low/no availability or for special events (commencement, football games, etc.)




Anyway, your advice is excellent and I'll look at improving those areas. Any more responses? (especially for the unanswered questions)

 

[gmcguitar4]

Party, have fun, travel, and enjoy the last real year of your 20's!! Seriously.

As your app stands..you will no doubt get into med school..unless you are some sort of weirdo and can't talk to people in real life and ruin your interview. I doubt that is the case though.

 

[maestrohuang]

.

 

[Catalystik]

Clarifications:
1) Shadowing:
Hmm, I also regularly shadow doctors at the free clinic (mentioned above as the walk-in clinic). Not sure how many hours I did there - maybe 20?

2) Research:
Also, my university doesn't let literature reviews count as a senior thesis (in my department, at least, because it's not rigorous and not in the least mathematical). I've been doing bench research for over a year now, and I have an independent project. I have dabbled with public health/database research in the past and I actually think I like it better. It's something I will definitely explore, but not now (because I have my senior thesis to develop, to gather data on, to analyze, and to write.)

3) Nonmedical community service:
- ESOL Instructor: Making lesson plans and teaching to a non-native English speaker at her house; not fluent in English and not even literate in her native language -> had to teach literacy and writing and the whole shebang (weekly)
- Sunday school teacher: working with toddlers on a regular basis, though not just babysitting; I have to come up with ways to convey complex concepts (e.g. selflessness, love, Jesus having a Father God and Joseph as his "father", etc.) to little kids with song, stories, and art. (monthly)
- RA position: This one has nonmedical community service too, that I'm sure you can imagine. We have to educate our residents, connect them with resources, be aware of the safety of individuals + the community, etc. In addition to small community events, we also had to plan campus-wide events.

Medical:
- The free clinic -> I had to write protocols for care, develop a survey to track efficacy of the newly implemented walk-in clinic, inform local emergency health agencies of the new walk-in clinic (in case of emergency, of course), recruit people to staff the walk-in hours, staff the walk-in hours myself a few hours each week...

4) Though, how important is non-clinical community service?

Jobs:
- RA: Sure, it was part-time but it's not a job you can leave at work. I was constantly trying to do this to the best of my ability, which was a time sink.

- Administrative assistant for a nonprofit: Quit because it was irrelevant to my future goals, and because I knew my supervisors beforehand, there was a messy line about when I was a student in the nonprofit and when I was the admin asst. It was a time-sink because my superiors asked really tedious things of me (handwrite and address 200 invitations in 1 week) and at inappropriate times (texting me past midnight for a password to a company account). Yeah, this wasn't a job I could really leave at work either.

5) - Per diem EMT work (includes CPR instructor) - basically I am hired under special conditions but the 750+ hours were completely voluntary. I worked 105+ hired hours as an EMT instructor and I probably worked 100+ hours as a hired EMT. I'm not sure if volunteer EMT vs. hired EMT really matters because it was the same work, I was just paid during the shifts with low/no availability or for special events (commencement, football games, etc.)

Comments:

1) That helps. You have the choice of carving it out of the clinic experience and listing it with the rest of your shadowing under "Other", or mentioning the shadowing with the affiliated activity, and taking the chance it would be missed. One must be careful not to double count hours on the application. You can do the same with the international shadowing experience.

2) Is the senior thesis based on the research you've been involved in for the last year? If so, and if you're interested in appealing to "top research-oriented schools," then that is good, as longevity with a PI counts and generally results in a stronger LOR. Two plus years of research is a good amount of time to have on an application, considering that about a year is the average listed for all schools.

3) This is an area that you might consider engaging in during your gap year, particularly if you are providing hands-on service to the poor.

4) It depends on the school, but EC strength across the board gives you the broadest appeal and the best chance of attending a school you'd love to atttend.

5) You can list it together under one category or the other, and make clear in the description the paid vs nonpaid mix.
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From your original questions:

2. ideas for things to do during my gap year that will strengthen some weak areas
3. some med schools in my reach - hoping for a UC school

2) Nonmedical community service to the poor, possibly a research job (if top twenties are your goal) or a clinical job (though this isn't a weakness), or any job requiring people skills and responsibility that earns a salary, travel, enjoy downtime from academia and recharge your engines.

3) All schools will be within your reach.