Preparing for my second application cycle - WAMC/Advice building my school list

[KeepAustinWeird]

Hi y'all,

I am a Texas resident currently preparing to reapply this cycle after a difficult first cycle where I did not match. For context, I had 5 IIs in-state from Baylor, UTSW, McGovern, TTUHSC, and UTMB. I am currently on the waitlist for all 5 schools. I think the main reasons why things didn't go well were that I submitted my secondary applications extremely late (wasn't complete until early-mid September), and my interview skills were not the best, although I didn't think any of them went extremely poorly. I also did not apply broadly, as I only applied to 12 schools with 9 of them being in-state TX MD schools. I've been told by nearly everyone to apply more broadly out-of-state to increase my chances this time around, so any advice on specific schools I should be targeting would be greatly appreciated.

Here are my stats and ECS below:

Stats:
cGPA: 3.98
sGPA: 3.98
MCAT: 515

ECs:

Clinical experience:
-Hospital Volunteer (transported patients, answered patient call lights, cleaned patient beds, organized patient charts): 900+ hours
-Medical assistant/scribe at urology clinic: 20 hours, 2000+ hours planned (this is my gap-year job I just started)

Shadowing:
-Around 80 hours; shadowed a internal med physician, ortho surgeon, and neurosurgeon

Research experience:
-Conservation biology research assistant (no posters or publications): 500 hours

Leadership experience:
-I train college students to volunteer at our local hospital, have been doing this for ~3.5 years
-I served as a camp counselor at a health sciences/medical summer camp for kids, roughly ~40-50 hours
-I served on the leadership committee for a charity softball tournament my student org held this past Spring, where all proceeds went to Special Olympics TX. This mostly consisted of contacting different companies for potential sponsors, contributing in outreach and awareness campaigns, etc.

Volunteer experience:
-Served as a camp counselor at a camp for kids with disabilities at various points over the last year; ~150 hours
-Volunteered at local food bank through my student org: 50 hours
-Food pantry volunteer: 50 hours
- Volunteered at local recreation center reading to at-risk kids: 12 hours
- During COVID, joined a grassroots advocacy group to help push extension of eviction moratoriums during the peak of the pandemic: 25 hours

Other ECs:
-I am part of a student org that is the official student org of the university men's basebal team.
-I enjoy working out regularly, playing intramurals (2x champ in softball), and watching sports

Rec letters from:
Physics professor, ecology professor, non-science professor, research PI, doctor I am currently working with at my clinic, and volunteer coordinator from the hospital I volunteer at

I already have my gap year planned out, as I will be working full-time as a medical assistant/scribe at a urology clinic, and will continue to to volunteer at my local food pantry when I can.

As mentioned in the intro, I would love some advice and recommendations for building my school list, specifically for out-of-state schools. I will be applying to all MD schools in-state. Additionally, should I apply DO as well, just to boost my chances as much as I can? Any thoughts or opinions are greatly appreciated. Thank y'all!

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[wysdoc]

In Texas, as you probably learned the hard way, a late submission to TMDSAS limits your time for interviews.
That said, you still managed to get 5 interviews- meaning your application was pretty strong.
WL offers in TX go out mainly in May and first half of June, coming up soon.

Submit early this year to all the MD and DO TMDSAS schools.
If there are 5-10 OOS MD schools that fit your stats and that you would go to even though they cost 2-3 times as much as a TX school, you can add an AMCAS app as well.
if you submit your application in the last half of May and then get in from one of your TMDSAS WLs, you can easily withdraw the 2024-2025 app.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

I agree... five interviews is awesome, and I think with a properly timed (early) application with some modest updating, you will hopefully get an early match/pre-match next cycle. Of course, who knows what will happen to get off the waitlists.

 

[AJS59]

Agree with the above; you might stand to accumulate a bit more in the non-clinical hours but everything else looks great. Get your app in earlier and you should be set. Be sure to identify any new areas of improvement

Given you got 5 interviews how did they go? It may be worth brushing up on some interview prep as necessary.

 

[KeepAustinWeird]

Agree with the above; you might stand to accumulate a bit more in the non-clinical hours but everything else looks great. Get your app in earlier and you should be set. Be sure to identify any new areas of improvement

Given you got 5 interviews how did they go? It may be worth brushing up on some interview prep as necessary.

Thank you for the feedback! I think for the most part, they were ok to solid. Like I said, none of them went poorly IMO, but maybe I failed to show any real stand-out qualities that would have differentiated me. For context, I tried to limit my interview prep last cycle in an effort to avoid being over-prepared and sounding robotic, but I will definitely change that this time around, and do as much prep as I can.