Possible Re-applicant with 0 II's Seeking Advice

[zjdub3]

Hi everybody, I applied to 35 schools this cycle and am waiting to hear back from around 30 of them. This cycle unfortunately did not go as I hoped and I was hoping to get some feedback for next cycle. I submitted everything by mid to late August except for a couple of schools whose secondaries I received later (I submitted a number of schools by mid-late July).

23 yo CA ORM

514, 3.75 cGPA, 3.65 sGPA

Clinical ~1000 hrs broken down into the following:

- 650 hours (paid role + leadership) : Lead Medication Technician at hospice/memory care and elderly living facility

- 50 hours (volunteer) : homeless medical clinic

- 100 hours (volunteer) : COVID-19 vaccination clinic

- 150 hours (volunteer) : hospital emergency room volunteer

- 50 hours physician shadowing

Non-Clinical Volunteer >1500 hrs

- founded and ran/coached a competitive travel basketball club for low income kids

- high school basketball coach (in a low-income school district where I also help tutor kids who struggle to stay above the 2.0 GPA cut-off)

- animal hospital: volunteered here the summer after my freshman year before I knew I wanted to pursue human medicine

Non-Clinical Paid

- basketball trainer for elementary aged kids

Research

- 500 hours in a plant pathogen lab (basic bench research, have one publication in the works hopefully coming out later this year)

Random stuff

- I speak Mandarin and Spanish (use Spanish a decent amount in my clinical experiences)

School List:

California:

1. UC Davis (from NorCal)
2. UC Riverside (have ties to the area)
3. UC Irvine
4. UC San Diego (H)
5. California University of Science and Medicine
6. UC Los Angeles
7. Kaiser Permanente
8. UCSF (R)
9. USC

OOS:

1. Rush Medical College
2. University of Arizona College of Medicine - Phoenix
3. Emory University School of Medicine
4. Albany Medical College
5. New York Medical College (H)
6. Miami Miller
7. Chicago Med Franklin
8. George Washington (R)
9. VCU
10. University of Rochester
11. Drexel
12. Temple
13. Sidney Kimmel
14. St. Louis University School of Medicine (R)
15. Wake Forest
16. Oakland Beaumont
17. Hackensack
18. Creighton
19. Georgetown (R)
20. Colorado
21. Eastern Virginia
22. Quinnipiac
23. Tufts
24. Medical College of Wisconsin
25. Geisel at Dartmouth (R)
26. University of Vermont

Possible Red Flags:
- After speaking to an advisor, she noted that I had a few B+'s in my pre-req courses and that I would benefit from doing a post-bacc. Do you guys suggest that I pursue a post-bacc? My hesitation with going through with this is the financial aspect, and that I took my MCAT in 2022. If I am not mistaken, next cycle would be the last year my MCAT score would be valid for many schools.
- No physician letter of rec? Unfortunately, the physician I had the closest relationship to (I shadowed her) passed away.

During this application cycle, I have continued to do research, volunteer in the hospital, and coach high school basketball. Additionally, I am volunteering at the food bank and volunteering as a photographer for the food bank's events and for animal shelters, where I take portraits of pets hoping to get adopted.

Is there anything I should start to work on now to improve my chances for next cycle? I am thinking about quitting my research lab and picking up a clinical job. I am reaching out to some more physicians to shadow in my area as well. To my understanding, I need to improve my application by a substantial amount to hopefully find success as a re-applicant and I am not sure if what I am doing is enough or the "right" things to be doing. Next cycle I will be sure to apply to less reach schools and more target schools and have everything submitted as early as possible.

Thank you for taking the time to read my post!

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[theoceanman]

Is your 50 hours of shadowing in primary care? Most medical schools highly prefer to see at least 50 hours of shadowing in primary care before you go shadow a random subspecialty.

From your stats given, CA schools are worth applying to but unlikely due to how insanely competitive they have become over the past few years, with many of these schools regarding applicants of your stats "below average" unfortunately. Emory is also too much of a reach unfortunately with your stats as well. Having a few B+'s, but still having a good sGPA and cGPA means that they aren't red flags. Red flags would be failures, withdrawals, and academic integrity issues but you do not appear to have any of those or so I have read.

Your main issue here may one of two things: 1. Your lack of community service through Salvation Army/Food Bank/Food Drives, etc. and 2. Your writing. Given your stats and the schools you applied to, I would have expected (albeit not guaranteed) II's from places like Drexel, Temple , WF, Quinnipaic, MCW, and a few other schools at the very least. This implies to me that your writing is an issue and you may have written your primary and secondary applications in a way that does not prove mission-fit to these schools. There's great resources on SDN to help you improve your writing and if you have any potential friends around you that have had a successful cycle, I would ask them if they could share some of their writing to see how well tailored their theme and mission-fit appear in their writing.

 

[Faha]

You do not need a post-bacc. Your main weakness was your lack of non clinical volunteering (unrelated to basketball). You mention you are volunteering at a food bank. Try and accumulate 200+ hours with that activity before you reapply.
When you reapply in June I suggest these schools:
Vermont
Quinnipiac
Albany
New York Medical College
Rochester
Hackensack
Penn State
Drexel
Temple
Jefferson
George Washington
Eastern Virginia
Virginia Commonwealth
Wake Forest
NOVA MD
Belmont
TCU
Creighton
Rosalind Franklin
Medical College Wisconsin
Western Michigan
Oakland Beaumont
Wayne State
California University
Kaiser
The UCs
Any new school that opens for 2025 (Alice Walton, American University, Roseman,Methodist University)
Also apply to DO schools and I suggest these:
WESTERN
TUCOM-CA
TUNCOM
AZCOM
KCU-COM
ATSU-KCOM
DMU-COM
CUSOM
PCOM
NYITCOM
Touro-NY
LECOM
WVSOM

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Welcome to the forums.

More detail in your WAMC profile above will help us tease out the likely issues from our perspective.

1) What your advisor noticed

After speaking to an advisor, she noted that I had a few B+'s in my pre-req courses and that I would benefit from doing a post-bacc. Do you guys suggest that I pursue a post-bacc? My hesitation with going through with this is the financial aspect, and that I took my MCAT in 2022. If I am not mistaken, next cycle would be the last year my MCAT score would be valid for many schools.

Your B's are fine. Your GPA in general is fine. I'll let others comment on whether your list was top-heavy. We'd have to see your transcript to tell you if you need a postbac, but on the surface, that doesn't seem like the issue unless schools say you should.

2) Lack of a commitment/orientation to serving others in need
As noted above, you don't have service orientation activities, such as food distribution, shelter volunteering, job/tax preparation, transportation services, or housing rehabilitation. You have coaching basketball... which is okay, but it doesn't alleviate others' distress. You also seem very comfortable in playing and coaching basketball, so it doesn't show me you can be comfortable outside your comfort zone.

50 hours (volunteer) : homeless medical clinic
100 hours (volunteer) : COVID-19 vaccination clinic

These may be more non-clinical.thant were your responsibilities in these roles? Did you just take pictures (as it seems photography is a hobby/side vocation) for marketing/promotion/fundraising?

I'm okay with animal shelter work, but that also doesn't fit "service orientation" here either.

You don't have enough hours for service-oriented schools unless you count the 150 hours above under that category (depending on your responsibilities). Even so, Rush is notorious for wanting 800-1000 hours, and you would be competing in a pool where others have spent at least a year in Americorps projects.

Get to 150 hours of food bank volunteering before you apply, at least to balance the 150 hours you have above.

3) Clinical experience

- 650 hours (paid role + leadership) : Lead Medication Technician at hospice/memory care and elderly living facility
- 150 hours (volunteer) : hospital emergency room volunteer
- 50 hours physician shadowing

Again, roles and responsibilities will help you here. What specific physician specialties are represented?

4) California schools
Riverside favors students from that area, so the fact you didn't get any response from them suggests that maybe your tie is not as strong as you think. Please clarify your link.

The lack of response from other California schools also suggests your initial pitches through your application and secondaries did not pique their interest to interview you.

5) Mission fit (I don't know what you wrote)
Aside from reviewing your writing, I suggest considering carefully your motivation to pursue medicine. I only see that you play basketball with underserved kids after going off-shift in your hospice care position. You cover the ends of life but in this profile, I don't see much with people in the middle (general adults) in your community (especially in the Valley) who experience real challenges. Most medical schools want people who care for your generic adult population (20s to 70s) with all the chronic illnesses therein.

 

[zjdub3]

Is your 50 hours of shadowing in primary care? Most medical schools highly prefer to see at least 50 hours of shadowing in primary care before you go shadow a random subspecialty.

From your stats given, CA schools are worth applying to but unlikely due to how insanely competitive they have become over the past few years, with many of these schools regarding applicants of your stats "below average" unfortunately. Emory is also too much of a reach unfortunately with your stats as well. Having a few B+'s, but still having a good sGPA and cGPA means that they aren't red flags. Red flags would be failures, withdrawals, and academic integrity issues but you do not appear to have any of those or so I have read.

Your main issue here may one of two things: 1. Your lack of community service through Salvation Army/Food Bank/Food Drives, etc. and 2. Your writing. Given your stats and the schools you applied to, I would have expected (albeit not guaranteed) II's from places like Drexel, Temple , WF, Quinnipaic, MCW, and a few other schools at the very least. This implies to me that your writing is an issue and you may have written your primary and secondary applications in a way that does not prove mission-fit to these schools. There's great resources on SDN to help you improve your writing and if you have any potential friends around you that have had a successful cycle, I would ask them if they could share some of their writing to see how well tailored their theme and mission-fit appear in their writing.

Thanks for taking the time to read and respond to my post! Yes, my 50 hours of shadowing was in primary care. Next time around, I will be sure to apply to less reach schools and use some of the resources here to improve my writing. I had multiple people read my primaries and some of my secondaries but for a majority of them I probably could have written better and submitted everything earlier. In the mean time, I will beef up my community service hours.
Do you have a recommendation for how many hours I should try to get before reapplying?

 

[zjdub3]

You do not need a post-bacc. Your main weakness was your lack of non clinical volunteering (unrelated to basketball). You mention you are volunteering at a food bank. Try and accumulate 200+ hours with that activity before you reapply.
When you reapply in June I suggest these schools:
Vermont
Quinnipiac
Albany
New York Medical College
Rochester
Hackensack
Penn State
Drexel
Temple
Jefferson
George Washington
Eastern Virginia
Virginia Commonwealth
Wake Forest
NOVA MD
Belmont
TCU
Creighton
Rosalind Franklin
Medical College Wisconsin
Western Michigan
Oakland Beaumont
Wayne State
California University
Kaiser
The UCs
Any new school that opens for 2025 (Alice Walton, American University, Roseman,Methodist University)
Also apply to DO schools and I suggest these:
WESTERN
TUCOM-CA
TUNCOM
AZCOM
KCU-COM
ATSU-KCOM
DMU-COM
CUSOM
PCOM
NYITCOM
Touro-NY
LECOM
WVSOM

Thanks for your response! Yeah the lack of community service seems to be the consensus and definitely a focus of mine now. Thank you for the school list as well! I recognize that my school list was in no way ideal :/

 

[zjdub3]

Welcome to the forums.

More detail in your WAMC profile above will help us tease out the likely issues from our perspective.

1) What your advisor noticed

Your B's are fine. Your GPA in general is fine. I'll let others comment on whether your list was top-heavy. We'd have to see your transcript to tell you if you need a postbac, but on the surface, that doesn't seem like the issue unless schools say you should.

2) Lack of a commitment/orientation to serving others in need
As noted above, you don't have service orientation activities, such as food distribution, shelter volunteering, job/tax preparation, transportation services, or housing rehabilitation. You have coaching basketball... which is okay, but it doesn't alleviate others' distress. You also seem very comfortable in playing and coaching basketball, so it doesn't show me you can be comfortable outside your comfort zone.

These may be more non-clinical.thant were your responsibilities in these roles? Did you just take pictures (as it seems photography is a hobby/side vocation) for marketing/promotion/fundraising?

I'm okay with animal shelter work, but that also doesn't fit "service orientation" here either.

You don't have enough hours for service-oriented schools unless you count the 150 hours above under that category (depending on your responsibilities). Even so, Rush is notorious for wanting 800-1000 hours, and you would be competing in a pool where others have spent at least a year in Americorps projects.

Get to 150 hours of food bank volunteering before you apply, at least to balance the 150 hours you have above.

3) Clinical experience

Again, roles and responsibilities will help you here. What specific physician specialties are represented?

4) California schools
Riverside favors students from that area, so the fact you didn't get any response from them suggests that maybe your tie is not as strong as you think. Please clarify your link.

The lack of response from other California schools also suggests your initial pitches through your application and secondaries did not pique their interest to interview you.

5) Mission fit (I don't know what you wrote)
Aside from reviewing your writing, I suggest considering carefully your motivation to pursue medicine. I only see that you play basketball with underserved kids after going off-shift in your hospice care position. You cover the ends of life but in this profile, I don't see much with people in the middle (general adults) in your community (especially in the Valley) who experience real challenges. Most medical schools want people who care for your generic adult population (20s to 70s) with all the chronic illnesses therein.

Thanks for your in-depth response! I realize that I could use some more detail in explaining certain aspects of my application to better help you guys help me haha:
2.) I see what you mean by my lack of community service. In both the team that I founded and the high school I coach at now, an element that might explain why I wrote about them was that many of the kids I coach/ed come from low income backgrounds and live in areas of high crime. I act as a mentor to them to help keep them off the streets and stay on top of their studies so they can attend college. I understand that this does not make these activities service-oriented by any means and I will definitely place an emphasis on my volunteer work with the food bank before my next application cycle.
For the homeless clinic, I did the initial patient intake/consultation before the physician entered the room. For the COVID Clinic, I helped patients fill out vaccination cards, explain possible side-effects of the vaccine, and in general comforted them when they received their vaccinations.
3.) All of my experiences are based around primary care. I explained my roles in the homeless and COVID Clinic above. As an Emergency Department volunteer, I escort patients to exam and imaging rooms, and translate for Spanish speaking patients. For my job as medication technician, I managed medications for the residents, conducted wellness checks (like checking vitals), in the case of a fall or accident, I notified the resident's physician and their families, and I oversaw a team of caregivers and took on some of the caregiving roles (not sure if this is clinical, have seen conflicting things online).
4.) Yeah, I will definitely take a hard look at my writing and links to each school. As for UCR, I currently live in the Inland Empire and a number of my activities are based here (research lab, food bank, hospital volunteering, HS basketball coach). But given the fact I did not hear back from UCR likely means that my ties aren't as strong as I hoped.
5.) This was super helpful and thanks for your honesty. I will work on expanding my experience with the generic adult population who are experiencing real hardships.

 

[zjdub3]

Super stupid of me but I forgot to include that I also volunteered at a day-care for special needs kids but this might also be more so nonclinical volunteering than community service

 

[theoceanman]

Thanks for taking the time to read and respond to my post! Yes, my 50 hours of shadowing was in primary care. Next time around, I will be sure to apply to less reach schools and use some of the resources here to improve my writing. I had multiple people read my primaries and some of my secondaries but for a majority of them I probably could have written better and submitted everything earlier. In the mean time, I will beef up my community service hours.
Do you have a recommendation for how many hours I should try to get before reapplying?

Getting in 150+ hours of community service really helps. One of my former peers, who I advised, also got 150+ hours of community service with similar stats to yours (same MCAT, slightly lower GPA) was accepted into multiple schools this cycle.

Rewriting your secondaries to display your mission-fit and purpose to the main drive and mission behind each medical school is key to having a successful cycle. Make sure you tailor each secondary application to portray a consistent theme and explain everything well within the word limit. They are not looking for anything extravagant, they are looking to gauge who you are and how well in-line you could stand within their medical school community. Best of luck!

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Super stupid of me but I forgot to include that I also volunteered at a day-care for special needs kids but this might also be more so nonclinical volunteering than community service

Forgot to include on your application, or in the WAMC? Compared to your basketball coaching, was it more hours?

You spend the most time where you are most passionate. It doesn't help you that you claim more hours in "nonclinical" activities than clinical, especially if most involve basketball.

 

[zjdub3]

Forgot to include on your application, or in the WAMC? Compared to your basketball coaching, was it more hours?

You spend the most time where you are most passionate. It doesn't help you that you claim more hours in "nonclinical" activities than clinical, especially if most involve basketball.

Sorry for being unclear! Forgot to include in my WAMC. It was about the same hours so I definitely see your point. Thank you!

 

[6'0 OGFLYERCI]

I am a reapplicant this cycle and recieved 11 interviews so far. My biggest advice is to work on your writing. From what I can tell, you look like a very competitive applicant, but did you clearly illustrate why you want to be a physician and who you are as a person? Remember, if you didn't write it, it didn't happen. My advice is reflect on why you want to be a physician and find your narrative. For me, that was advocating for people with disabilities, improving care for underserved populations, and using research to improve care. Show them how your experiences align with your narrative and that you have substantial experiences and perspectives to bring to medicine that will benefit patients in the future.

Also, you MUST SHOW THAT YOU ARE DOING THIS TO SERVE OTHERS. Also, it sucks, but apply earlier. 9/11 interviews came from schools in submitted in July. August is honestly a little late now if you aren't URM or have something that will expedite your review. Feel free to PM me for help or just to rant to. You will get in!

 

[zjdub3]

I am a reapplicant this cycle and recieved 11 interviews so far. My biggest advice is to work on your writing. From what I can tell, you look like a very competitive applicant, but did you clearly illustrate why you want to be a physician and who you are as a person? Remember, if you didn't write it, it didn't happen. My advice is reflect on why you want to be a physician and find your narrative. For me, that was advocating for people with disabilities, improving care for underserved populations, and using research to improve care. Show them how your experiences align with your narrative and that you have substantial experiences and perspectives to bring to medicine that will benefit patients in the future.

Also, you MUST SHOW THAT YOU ARE DOING THIS TO SERVE OTHERS. Also, it sucks, but apply earlier. 9/11 interviews came from schools in submitted in July. August is honestly a little late now if you aren't URM or have something that will expedite your review. Feel free to PM me for help or just to rant to. You will get in!

thanks so much for your reply im sorry I got back to this kinda late I actually received two iis surprisingly! congrats on all the success in your cycle! I will def look into my writing as I think that could be improved for sure and applying later did not do me any favors

 

[6'0 OGFLYERCI]

thanks so much for your reply im sorry I got back to this kinda late I actually received two iis surprisingly! congrats on all the success in your cycle! I will def look into my writing as I think that could be improved for sure and applying later did not do me any favors

This is awesome!!! Kill those interviews! Looks like you won't need the advice after all!!

 

[zjdub3]

This is awesome!!! Kill those interviews! Looks like you won't need the advice after all!!

Thanks so much! Gonna put my best foot forward and hope for the best!

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Just do it! Prepare for it like you would any job interview.

 

[zjdub3]

Just do it! Prepare for it like you would any job interview.

thank you! will do!! 🫡