Pls help-school list advice (ORM 3.93, 517)

[HauntingDevil_0776]

I was looking at some of the schools through MSAR and got kinda lost...and slowly started to feel that I'm getting nowhere. I am wondering if someone can give me a list of schools as a place to start searching? Right now I'm only have all the NJ schools, Eastern VA medical school, VA Commonwealth. I really like Drexel but I heard it's low yield?? I was also looking into U Cincinnati but their description that "applicants' course selections are reviewed in detail" scares me. What is that supposed to mean?

State/Country of Residence: NJ
Ties to other States/Regions: none
URM? (Y/N): N, ORM
Year in School: Senior, graduating this year 2022
Ties to other states: undergrad university in VA
Undergraduate Major(s)/Minor(s): BS degree in biochemistry
Gap year: will do research at NIH for 1 year
Cumulative GPA: 3.93
Science GPA: 3.88
MCAT Score(s): 517 (129,127,130,131)

Clinical Experience:
~500 hrs scribe/technician (I was doing a bit of both, clinic is in an underserved area)

Shadowing (I wish I could shadow in more specialties...COVID sucks)
~ 40 hrs dermatology
~ 30 hrs of primary care
~ 20 hrs of ophthalmology (this is also at the clinic that I worked in, not sure if some of my work hours will also count)

Clinical Volunteering (not a lot of these. The summer I planned to work on them COVID hit):
~ 24 hrs ER volunteering
~36 hrs vaccine clinic volunteering
~50 hrs transporting Chinese elders to medical offices and translating for them

Non-Clinical Volunteering:
~ 250 hrs hotline/domestic violence shelter volunteer
~140 hrs crisis text line volunteer

Leadership:
~ President of Pre-health club
~ Event planning chair for Active Minds club
~ 400 hrs Biology/Genetics TA (4 semesters)
~RA for a year

Research (no pubs)
~ 688 hrs one summer + working during school year in the same biochem lab
~ 240 hrs one other summer at an oncological lab (virtual because of COVID)
~80 hrs one summer before freshman year in a neurological lab (didn't do much there...mostly observed and helped take care of rats and stuff)

Immediate family members in medicine? (Y/N): Y
Specialty of Interest (if applicable): not really sure yet, since I haven't shadowed a lot of specialties. Maybe ophthalmology? My gap year research is also on eye diseases.
Interest in Primary Care (Y/N): Y (I'm not opposed to being in primary care--there are aspects that attracts me. But I'd like to see more specialties before I decide).
Interest in Rural Health (Y/N): Y (shelter volunteering and vaccine is in rural area)

Thank you so much!

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[Mr.Smile12]

I assure you that the course selection review won't happen at screening. I have my list of "bad schools" whose faculty/registrar deliberately don't follow standard conventions when naming their prehealth prerequisites.

Don't feel compelled to pick a specialty now, but it may be worth thinking about how you want to be supported when it comes to specialties you may be interested in. I do want to get a sense of how you figure on fitting your NIH postbac IRTA research experience with "your story," but that will come after you really begin your project. That said, what are thinking about doing regarding community service while you are doing your gap year?

 

[Faha]

I suggest these schools with your stats:
Your 3 NJ state public schools
Seton Hall
Jefferson
Drexel
Temple
Pittsburgh
Hofstra
Einstein
Mount Sinai
Columbia
Cornell
NYU
Rochester
Dartmouth
Brown
Yale
Boston University
George Washington
Georgetown
Duke
Miami
USF Morsani
Tulane
St. Louis
Western Michigan
Case Western
Ohio State
Cincinnati

 

[HauntingDevil_0776]

I assure you that the course selection review won't happen at screening. I have my list of "bad schools" whose faculty/registrar deliberately don't follow standard conventions when naming their prehealth prerequisites.

Don't feel compelled to pick a specialty now, but it may be worth thinking about how you want to be supported when it comes to specialties you may be interested in. I do want to get a sense of how you figure on fitting your NIH postbac IRTA research experience with "your story," but that will come after you really begin your project. That said, what are thinking about doing regarding community service while you are doing your gap year?

Thank you for your suggestions! For the NIH gap year project, you're right that I still don't know what project I'll be working on, but the lab focuses on studying genetic factors behind eye diseases. I got interested in that because of my experience working as a scribe in the ophthalmology place, where I got to learn a lot of the diseases. All of my research experience in the past has been very basic science stuff, so I would like to apply those skills and learn/explore more about diseases I've seen in a clinical setting.
As for community service, I plan to continue my crisis text line volunteering during the year. Also I forgot to put it on there but I've also been doing virtual hospice (not really clinical, just calling and talking to caretaker (family member) of Alzheimer patients once a week), so I'll probably continue that as well. I also really hope to do some more hospital volunteering (if COVID allows), but if that's not possible I'll see about what other opportunities I can find in Maryland (I've never been to that area before).

 

[HauntingDevil_0776]

I suggest these schools with your stats:
Your 3 NJ state public schools
Seton Hall
Jefferson
Drexel
Temple
Pittsburgh
Hofstra
Einstein
Mount Sinai
Columbia
Cornell
NYU
Rochester
Dartmouth
Brown
Yale
Boston University
George Washington
Georgetown
Duke
Miami
USF Morsani
Tulane
St. Louis
Western Michigan
Case Western
Ohio State
Cincinnati

Thank you so much for your list! Although wow, NYU, Cornell and Columbia....you indeed are a lot more confident in my profile than I am lol!

 

[chzsux]

I think with your stats there really aren't any schools that are truly off limits to you. If I were you, I would just focus on bulking up the nonclinical volunteering, especially in-person volunteering. The list that Faha gave is already very comprehensive but it depends on how many schools you want to apply to - there are plenty of OOS-friendly schools that you would be more than qualified for