Picking schools to apply to

If the average is 36 then some people have to be above and bellow. There are probably more people bellow the average then above, a few very high scores bring the average up while the majority may be bellow this line.

Also with a bellow average MCAT for that school, you need to have something to make up for it, great EC's or research.

 

yeah - you should always apply to some reach schools. funny that you mentioned columbia - it was the toughest school i applied to and i got an interview (my GPA/MCAT are below their average) at least. you can never predict how things are going to work out when you apply to med school. just pick a good range of schools to apply to. best of luck.

 

Yeah I agree with the other posters. With the whole application process, you just never know; it is safest to apply to a wide variety of schools. One aspect of your application won't make or break you. The thing to look at is the "big picture"... overall, does your application come together? As it whole, does it convey the message "wow, this person definitely should be a doctor?" Just make sure that it does that... you'll get accepted somewhere...

 

The question really, is what school should you not apply to?

 

Yo,
Apply to any / every school you are interested in. If you go +30, you're competative- below 30 could be another story. What's the worst that could happen : you get rejected by a school you wouldn't have applied to in the first place. See what I mean. In fact, you can do what my roomates and i did: we hung all of our rejection letters over the fire place as our "Wall of Shame." (it was a whole lot funnier once the acceptances started coming in, too)
Your best bet is to research the curriculums, mission statements, etc. according to what you want from / with med school and then just apply everywhere that fits in with your career and life goals. At least, that's what I did. . .? I think somebody told me the average applicant tries for 12-14 schools- so don't limit your future because any school's posted averages are a few points away from wherever you end up.
Good Luck !