Reapplicant Advice (PS, Activities, Clinical Hours)

[manman39]

I applied this cycle to about 45ish schools, where I received 8 II's, all ending in WL's. I have already sent out update letters and letters of interest to all schools that accept them. I was able to get on the top 1/3 of WL for one of the schools, but it's been confirmed WL movement is much slower and to expect far less movement than previous years. I'm preparing for a third cycle and wanted to seek out some advice, since I'm feeling a bit unsure of what to do.

It was definitely my interviewing skills that needed work for sure, and one of the schools I reached out to provided a bit of feedback for me. They said that while my written application was strong and my interview was good, that I needed some more clinical hours with a physician.

I have quite a bit of non-clinical experience and luckily have been working part-time as a scribe during the cycle. I would really appreciate any advice on how I should approach the next cycle in terms of my PS and experiences. For my PS, I've updated it with new activities and reworded quite a bit, but I kept the core themes and ideas the same (kept about 25% of the original PS). My activities I kept the same for some that I didn't continue, and updated the ones that I did continue--would that be okay if they don't change too much from the last cycle?

Also confused on what to do about letters of recommendation, I’m worried that reusing them from last cycle would be an instant reject. I had 3 from previous professors and am currently a year out of school. The best I can do is to get 1-2 more new ones from my volunteering, if that would be acceptable?

I came from a low SES background and used these services (ESL, food bank) as a kid if that helps provide context to my activities.

Metrics:
3.99GPA
517 MCAT
4Q Casper
7 PREVIEW
Residency: West Coast, ORM Male

Activities:
I underlined the new experiences I had since my past submission. For context, I'm also paying for my siblings tuition so I had to leave my scribing job recently for the tutoring job within 5 minutes of my home, since the scribe job was about a 3hr round trip and only paid half as much. Would have loved to continue otherwise.

Clinical experience: 1800 caregiving (900 for family), 400 hospital volunteering, 50 hospice, 700 scribing + related work with doctors.
Research: 1100 research with 2nd author publication in major journal (had to stop after graduation since it was only for current students)
Shadowing: 92 including primary care, rheum, ortho
non-clinical volunteering: 200 at organization helping immigrants from my home country with settling in the US and mentorship for students, 480 food bank, 250-300 crisis text line, 300 tax prep + resume help for unhoused, 410 tutoring students in underfunded areas + immigrants in ESL,
Leadership: 180 hrs premed/health related club leader, 300 hours chemistry tutor (founded campus org)
Other activities/hobbies: cooking, tutor work (150-200 hours, paid)

At this point I don't know what I should be doing for my primary app, or just if I need to do anything else in general.

Thank you all so much, any advice would be greatly appreciated!

SCHOOL LIST:
University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine
University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine
Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine
Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California
University of Washington School of Medicine
University of Colorado School of Medicine
Boston University Aram V. Chobanian & Edward Avedisian School of Medicine
Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
University of California, Los Angeles David Geffen School of Medicine
George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences
Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine
University of Florida College of Medicine
University of California, Irvine, School of Medicine
Michigan State University College of Human Medicine
Emory University School of Medicine
Cincinnati
Duke University School of Medicine
The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University
Stanford University School of Medicine
University of Virginia School of Medicine
University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
Washington State University Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine
Ohio state university college of medicine
Wayne state
Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine
Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons
Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University
Drexel
Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine
Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell
Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth
Tulane University School of Medicine
University of Massachusetts T.H. Chan School of Medicine
Weill Cornell Medicine
Georgetown
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Northwestern University The Feinberg School of Medicine
Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson Universit
University of California, San Diego School of Medicine
USF Health Morsani College of Medicine
Yale School of Medicine
Vermont Larner College of Medicine
Tufts University School of Medicine
University of Michigan Medical School
Wake Forest University School of Medicine
Albany Medical College

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[Faha]

Where where your 8 interviews?

 

[Dral]

I get what they said about clinical hours, but to me, that falls more on the side of screening, not post interview. It could be that you landed close to someone else on the line after interviews and the committee discussed and offered an A to the other who had more clinical experience. However, with those stats and your overall app combined with 8 non-converted interviews, I suspect a lot of this is your interview.

Whatever you do between now and next year, a part of it has to be working on interview skills.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Interviewing skills, purpose and mission fit. Just keep working on them. You have enough for people to want to interview you, but not enough to make them see you as someone who would thrive at their school. Many high-metrics candidates don't finish the sale because they're happy as long as a name-brand school takes them. The name-brand schools know this too, so often they may want to wait to see if you go to the first offer. I think they have a sense that's what you would do, and unfortunately that means if everyone's thinking one of their peers will give you an offer and you won't take one that comes "later," you'll stay on a waiting list and perhaps be dropped a little lower on the priority line.

There is a risk of course: if you didn't get accepted, the question about "why did you not get an offer... your metrics and application are spectacular!" will pop up. Have a good answer for this, because you don't want to highlight you had poor interview skills at other places... that might be an orange flag. (If others see the same interviewing problems that we had, should we give them an offer???)

Also, stop tutoring. Get broader experience (more experience outside your home community with whom you identify). Show us you understand how you are adjusting to a future in medicine that is going to be different from the ones they are working in.

Cross our fingers. I hope this will be a moot exercise. Midnight-hour offers are still possible. Even half-past-midnight offers (we already started orientation/classes, can you get here tomorrow?).