MD possibly MD/PhD, ~3.8 sGPA, cGPA, 36 MCAT, but weak ECs

[alexagator]

Basics (these stats/hours are taking into account my senior year, which is still yet to be accomplished) :
-CA resident
-Rising senior
-Top 20 university
-Planning to take at least 1 gap year (currently debating whether I should take 1, or 2)
-Projected cGPA (including future senior year courses): at the very lowest, 3.8
-Projected sGPA (including future senior year courses): at the very lowest, 3.7, but most likely close to 3.8
-MCAT: 36
-Research: by the time I graduate, I will have 3 academic years and 2 summers of research. For 1.5 of these years I will have been completely independent and running my own project
-Publications: one 7th author pub (out of 10 authors... haha better than nothing). Don't forsee publishing anything else during my undergrad career
-Hospital volunteering: ~75 hours, I basically just hang out with patients in the activities room
- Shadowing: so far, I have ~40 hours, not sure if I need more, but I can easily arrange to do so
- Community service: I will admit that this is my weak point. I tutor and mentor high school students, but only during the summers. I started my own mentorship program for disadvantaged high school students this summer and since I have a more relaxed class schedule next fall, I hope to continue it during the school year.


Questions for my general audience:
1) I am really really interested in MD/PhD, since research is my forte as well as my primary interest. However, I don't know if I want to put myself through the 8+ year program due to some personal/family issues. Nevertheless, how competitive am I for MD/PhD?
2) If I end up applying MD only, how competitive am I for CA schools, like UCLA (my top choice), UCSF, UCSD, or UC Davis?
3) What other schools should I look into?
4) I am already taking at least 1 gap year, and planning to do research full time and hopefully squeeze in some more volunteering. Should I take 2 gap years to strengthen my application or is 1 enough?
5) Advice on how to improve my ECs? Anything I should add in or spend more time on?

Thanks all! Looking forward to hearing your suggestions.

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[Lamel]

Strong numbers, great research. You are a very competitive applicant. Your clinical experience is a little light though, so I recommend that you continue volunteering at the hospital this year and do some more shadowing. Also work on your non-clinical community service this year, your mentorship program sounds good so continue it. If you do that you will be good for MD and MD/PhD.


For schools like UCLA, UCSF etc, you want to some leadership (which I assume you do via the mentorship program?) and some unique hobbies/activities/pursuits.

 

[alexagator]

Strong numbers, great research. You are a very competitive applicant. Your clinical experience is a little light though, so I recommend that you continue volunteering at the hospital this year and do some more shadowing. Also work on your non-clinical community service this year, your mentorship program sounds good so continue it. If you do that you will be good for MD and MD/PhD.


For schools like UCLA, UCSF etc, you want to some leadership (which I assume you do via the mentorship program?) and some unique hobbies/activities/pursuits.

Thanks for your input.
I'm unsure whether or not my mentorship program can count as leadership... to be honest it might not even be fair to call it a program, lol.
Basically, I am in contact with a small number of high school students and help them plan out their future path towards college, jobs, internships, etc (all for free and on my own time). So I'm the only mentor and I currently have 3 mentees. It's a really small scale thing right now, but when school starts up again I'm going to try hard to expand the program and reach more students.

 

[Lamel]

Sounds good, keep up the good work, beef up on more clinical experience, and you'll be good to go.

 

[ridethecliche]

I thought MD/PhD applicants should have more pubs when they start applications. Is this incorrect?