PA Resident looking to only apply to PA MD schools

[shawks13]

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I'm starting this thread because I would like to know what my chances are to get into PA medical schools, MD preferred but DO also fine. I am PA resident who goes to a small liberal arts college. I am a full-time DII student athlete, an Honors student, VAMC volunteer, and am in my Jr. year. I applied for a summer orthopaedics internship and am still waiting to here back. Next year, I will begin my senior thesis examining any correlation between cardiovascular fitness and cognitive performance. I am studying currently for the MCAT and am aiming for a 30. I have 6 weeks til my exam and at the moment I am scoring around 27. I am applying everywhere in PA, should i apply out of state as well? I really want to stay close to home, but if i have to I will move. My credentials are listed below.



EDUCATION

Anticipated Graduation: May 2013
Bachelor of Science in Biology
GPA: 3.71
Major GPA: 3.75

WORK EXPERIENCE
Server June 2010-Present


ACTIVITIES
Student Athletic Advisory Board Member 2009-Present
· Vice President, 2011-Present
Beta Beta Beta (National Biology Honors Society) 2009-Present
· Treasurer, 2012-Present
D II Women's Soccer Team 2009-Present
Student Tutor 2011-Present

HONORS
Academic Scholarship 2009-Present
Women's Soccer Scholarship 2009-Present
Honors Scholar 2009-Present
Dean's List 2009-Present
Scholar Athlete 2009, 2010, 2011
Alpha Epsilon Delta Inducted 2011
Phi Eta Sigma Inducted 2010
Beta Beta Beta Inducted 2010

VOLUNTEER WORK
VA Medical Center January 2011-Present

 

[TheMightySmiter]

Your app looks good to me. 🙂 If you're aiming for a 30, try to take the MCAT only when you are consistently getting 31-33 on practice exams. PA schools accept a lot more OOS students than most state schools, but there are a lot of them so you should have a very good chance if you do well on the MCAT.

 

[Mountaineer12]

I'm a PA resident too, unfortunately PA isn't as nice to IS students as many other states. If you can get a 30 you'll be good. That was my goal, but I fell short with a 28 and getting into a school in PA may be tough.

 

[Mazdave]

The good news is that PA has a ton of med schools. The bad news is that there's not much IS preference going on at any of them. A 3.75/30 probably isn't going to get you anywhere at Penn or Pitt, but would be reasonable for Jeff, Temple, Drexel, Penn State or TCMC. I don't know much about DO admissions but I assume it would be reasonable for PCOM or LECOM as well. What I don't know is if either one of those requires a DO letter -- will you have one (it doesn't look like you have any shadowing at all)?

One other school you might look into is USF's SELECT MD program, where you spend your first two years at USF and then do your clinicals at Lehigh Valley Hospital Network in PA. Even counting USF, applying to 8 MD and 2 DO is not a very long list. You might want to pick a couple of schools in neighboring states if you want to up your chances of not having to reapply.

 

[shawks13]

The good news is that PA has a ton of med schools. The bad news is that there's not much IS preference going on at any of them. A 3.75/30 probably isn't going to get you anywhere at Penn or Pitt, but would be reasonable for Jeff, Temple, Drexel, Penn State or TCMC. I don't know much about DO admissions but I assume it would be reasonable for PCOM or LECOM as well. What I don't know is if either one of those requires a DO letter -- will you have one (it doesn't look like you have any shadowing at all)?

One other school you might look into is USF's SELECT MD program, where you spend your first two years at USF and then do your clinicals at Lehigh Valley Hospital Network in PA. Even counting USF, applying to 8 MD and 2 DO is not a very long list. You might want to pick a couple of schools in neighboring states if you want to up your chances of not having to reapply.

I plan on shadowing this summer at Geisinger Danville or my local hospital. I am looking to apply to neighboring states and want to come to around 15 apps. I am taking my mcat on May 31st. I also was thinking about delaying taking until Jun 21st. This term has been hectic and I havent been able to study quite as much as id hoped. My top schools are TCMC and Penn State because they are closest to home, but I will look into USF.

 

[shawks13]

Also I know i can score over a 30 I just have not had sufficient time to study hard. What should I aim for to get me into PA schools?

 

[Mazdave]

A 31 would put you in good shape for the non-top-20 PA schools.

I think it's LECOM that requires a DO letter so you would have to make sure you shadowed a DO and got an LOR if you wanted to apply there.

A June 21st MCAT would prevent you from being complete anywhere until at least mid-August, which is getting pretty late. Shoot for earlier if you can.

 

[shawks13]

Thanks for the advice. I will stick to the May 31st date. Is there any other advice you could give me that would give me an edge? I really want this.

 

[xanthomondo]

Any reason with being so focused on PA schools? From the looks of the part of the CV that you copy and pasted it seems like your ugrad is much closer to Akron/Cleveland than it is to Philly.

Also you might want to make your activities/awards much more anonymous. I'm sure your soccer team has you listed on their roster and it would be really easy to identify you.

 

[Pretzel12]

Also I know i can score over a 30 I just have not had sufficient time to study hard. What should I aim for to get me into PA schools?

 

[Mazdave]

^^^I'm not sure where these numbers are from -- Temple, Drexel and Jeff all get way more apps than that.

A 31 will give OP a LizzyM of 68, which is reasonable for most of the schools she is looking at.

A 5/31 MCAT is still not going to let you be complete too early so make sure you get your primary submitted and verified as early as possible and prewrite your secondaries as much as you can so that when your MCAT score comes out you'll be set.

 

[Pretzel12]

^^^I'm not sure where these numbers are from -- Temple, Drexel and Jeff all get way more apps than that.

A 31 will give OP a LizzyM of 68, which is reasonable for most of the schools she is looking at.

A 5/31 MCAT is still not going to let you be complete too early so make sure you get your primary submitted and verified as early as possible and prewrite your secondaries as much as you can so that when your MCAT score comes out you'll be set.

I wish I could remember the site I got it from. I thought I saved it, but can't find it in my bookmarks.
I probably found the link on here.

 

[xanthomondo]

I wish I could remember the site I got it from. I thought I saved it, but can't find it in my bookmarks.
I probably found the link on here.

http://www.usnews.com/education/bes...2012/04/17/10-most-applied-to-medical-schools

Drexel - 12,545
Temple - 10,318
Jefferson - 9,912

The site doesn't give the average MCAT/GPA, though.