Reapplicant - cGPA 3.5 sGPA 3.3 31 MCAT Also RED flags.

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GatsbyK

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Hey guys retook my MCAT last cycle and scored a 31 (12PS, 8VR, 11BS). I scored a 29 the first time (11 PS, 6 VR, 12 BS). After scoring a 31 I was thinking about applying for 2015 but I caved in to stupid pressure from friends and family to applying late in the 2014 cycle (september / october). I knew fair well that I was probably not going to make it that late into the cycle with my scores but with constantly nagging from my gf, family, and friends I eventually applied ><.

I graduated with a cGPA of 3.5, sGPA is around 3.3. I majored in Health Sciences with a concentration in Emergency and Critical Care where I am also EMT-B certified until Jan 2015.

EC:
I was a Orgo TA for my junior year averaging 10-16 HRS per week to help students for the entire school year.

I was in my schools Handball club for 4 years. Freshman and sophomore year I was an active participant, Junior year I became secretary of the E-Board and senior year I was elected Vice-President. I learned to manage the club, funds associated with the club. We ran lots of practices for our annual collegiate competition in various states such as Arizona, Florida, etc. The team won national recognition and brought back medals and awards to various places (1st place womens, 2nd place mens singles, 1st place mens, etc) Our club also ran a school wide handball tournament at the end of each semester.
Clinical Experience:
I volunteered at my schools hospital in a general nursing floor. I probably have around 100 hours. My school does not allow us to do anything TO patients but we are allowed to help nurses, etc. I generally ran to stock, get items, and deliver anything the patients needed/wanted.

I also had 20 hours of experience riding in an ambulance for my EMT training. I had hands on patient-to-patient care. Each ride averaging 1 call per hour so I had a couple of cases each time.

Last cycle
I applied to all the NYU MD schools (minus NYU, Columbia, Upstate), BU, Rutgers, Drexel, Jefferson, and Temple. I also applied to PCOM, and NYCOM for DO schools. All of these resulted in no interviews and all rejections (as I suspected).

Also to mention that I do have some red flags, which I suspect made it even worse for applying late. I was told by AAMC / School advisors to mention my institutional actions regardless of guilty or not guilty because that would be the best option and again under pressure everyone told me to write it down, so I did.

My first red flag was being found guilty for a party I had during my sophomore year (Spring 2010). I was celebrating my birthday and my two friends birthdays (around same time) with our group. A friend of ours brought his friend (well call him Sam). Sam gets drunk and starts to feel sick. My friend tries to help him into his car and leave but he passes out in the hallway of my building. Eventually the RA finds the two of them outside and Sam is sent to the hospital. My friend tells the RA that he was over my place which prompts the RA to come into my room and that is when I got written up for noise complaint & underage alcohol.

My second red flag was that I was accused of plagiarism for a lab report during my Biology Lab. However, I was found not guilty. Backstory - our school requires us to send the reports online and it checks for matches / paraphrases. It linked my to another student (who took it a year ago) for a match in the BIBLIOGRAPHY page to a source I used. I was told by the TA that the system thought I was cheating and when that happens a whole formal accusation has to be done. I appealed it because it wasn't true and I showed a committee of my peers (students + judiciary) that not I was not guilty. They found me not guilty and the charges were dropped with no further action taken against me. Since the case can be found if they asked for my record, both the AAMC / my advisors said that I still need to put it on my AAMC application. Did stating this last cycle hurt my chances? Did it damage my application to the point where I will never be accepted?

This cycle
I recently (last half year) got a job as a medical assistant / medical technician at a clinic with an ophthalmologist who specializes in retina surgery. He has taught me a lot about the eye and triaging for emergencies regarding the eye. I have accumulated about 1000 hours of patient care with this doctor. Under his supervision I learned to help him screen patients (checking visual acuity, iop, and rapd's), operate imaging systems ( such as the fundus camera, oct, visual fields), and assisted with office procedures (such as setting up shots, cryo, laser). He is also writing a LOR for me as well.

I am thinking about completing everything EARLY this cycle. I know with my schools it was suicidal to apply that late but I caved into pressure. For this cycle I want to reapply to all the NYC schools and add more east coast schools. I can also now apply to more DO schools compared to last cycle since a lot of them required a LOR from a physician.

What are my chances for this cycle?

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Hey guys retook my MCAT last cycle and scored a 31 (12PS, 8VR, 11BS). I scored a 29 the first time (11 PS, 6 VR, 12 BS). After scoring a 31 I was thinking about applying for 2015 but I caved in to stupid pressure from friends and family to applying late in the 2014 cycle (september / october). I knew fair well that I was probably not going to make it that late into the cycle with my scores but with constantly nagging from my gf, family, and friends I eventually applied ><.

I graduated with a cGPA of 3.5, sGPA is around 3.3. I majored in Health Sciences with a concentration in Emergency and Critical Care where I am also EMT-B certified until Jan 2015.

EC:
I was a Orgo TA for my junior year averaging 10-16 HRS per week to help students for the entire school year.

I was in my schools Handball club for 4 years. Freshman and sophomore year I was an active participant, Junior year I became secretary of the E-Board and senior year I was elected Vice-President. I learned to manage the club, funds associated with the club. We ran lots of practices for our annual collegiate competition in various states such as Arizona, Florida, etc. The team won national recognition and brought back medals and awards to various places (1st place womens, 2nd place mens singles, 1st place mens, etc) Our club also ran a school wide handball tournament at the end of each semester.
Clinical Experience:
I volunteered at my schools hospital in a general nursing floor. I probably have around 100 hours. My school does not allow us to do anything TO patients but we are allowed to help nurses, etc. I generally ran to stock, get items, and deliver anything the patients needed/wanted.

I also had 20 hours of experience riding in an ambulance for my EMT training. I had hands on patient-to-patient care. Each ride averaging 1 call per hour so I had a couple of cases each time.

Last cycle
I applied to all the NYU MD schools (minus NYU, Columbia, Upstate), BU, Rutgers, Drexel, Jefferson, and Temple. I also applied to PCOM, and NYCOM for DO schools. All of these resulted in no interviews and all rejections (as I suspected).

Also to mention that I do have some red flags, which I suspect made it even worse for applying late. I was told by AAMC / School advisors to mention my institutional actions regardless of guilty or not guilty because that would be the best option and again under pressure everyone told me to write it down, so I did.

My first red flag was being found guilty for a party I had during my sophomore year (Spring 2010). I was celebrating my birthday and my two friends birthdays (around same time) with our group. A friend of ours brought his friend (well call him Sam). Sam gets drunk and starts to feel sick. My friend tries to help him into his car and leave but he passes out in the hallway of my building. Eventually the RA finds the two of them outside and Sam is sent to the hospital. My friend tells the RA that he was over my place which prompts the RA to come into my room and that is when I got written up for noise complaint & underage alcohol.

My second red flag was that I was accused of plagiarism for a lab report during my Biology Lab. However, I was found not guilty. Backstory - our school requires us to send the reports online and it checks for matches / paraphrases. It linked my to another student (who took it a year ago) for a match in the BIBLIOGRAPHY page to a source I used. I was told by the TA that the system thought I was cheating and when that happens a whole formal accusation has to be done. I appealed it because it wasn't true and I showed a committee of my peers (students + judiciary) that not I was not guilty. They found me not guilty and the charges were dropped with no further action taken against me. Since the case can be found if they asked for my record, both the AAMC / my advisors said that I still need to put it on my AAMC application. Did stating this last cycle hurt my chances? Did it damage my application to the point where I will never be accepted?

This cycle
I recently (last half year) got a job as a medical assistant / medical technician at a clinic with an ophthalmologist who specializes in retina surgery. He has taught me a lot about the eye and triaging for emergencies regarding the eye. I have accumulated about 1000 hours of patient care with this doctor. Under his supervision I learned to help him screen patients (checking visual acuity, iop, and rapd's), operate imaging systems ( such as the fundus camera, oct, visual fields), and assisted with office procedures (such as setting up shots, cryo, laser). He is also writing a LOR for me as well.

I am thinking about completing everything EARLY this cycle. I know with my schools it was suicidal to apply that late but I caved into pressure. For this cycle I want to reapply to all the NYC schools and add more east coast schools. I can also now apply to more DO schools compared to last cycle since a lot of them required a LOR from a physician.

What are my chances for this cycle?

This sounds like serious bollocks. If you were found not responsible/guilty, there is no way you should disclose it!
 
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Agree with Sean Lee, and it's not even like this case was ambiguous. You got nailed for citing the same source as someone else? I hope the school is really getting its nickle's worth out of that terrible software. :bored:
 
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I am surprised that AAMC would tell you to report this. You were never in any wrongdoing of any sort.
 
Concur as well. The cheating charge was bogus. The first one write up and wexplain well. Make sure to own it and do NOT make excuses.

Despite the < avg GPAs and MCAT, I think that this go arund you should get some love from some of the low-tier MD schools, plus any DO school.

Agree with Sean Lee, and it's not even like this case was ambiguous. You got nailed for citing the same source as someone else? I hope the school is really getting its nickle's worth out of that terrible software. :bored:
 
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Hey guys retook my MCAT last cycle and scored a 31 (12PS, 8VR, 11BS). I scored a 29 the first time (11 PS, 6 VR, 12 BS). After scoring a 31 I was thinking about applying for 2015 but I caved in to stupid pressure from friends and family to applying late in the 2014 cycle (september / october). I knew fair well that I was probably not going to make it that late into the cycle with my scores but with constantly nagging from my gf, family, and friends I eventually applied ><.

I graduated with a cGPA of 3.5, sGPA is around 3.3. I majored in Health Sciences with a concentration in Emergency and Critical Care where I am also EMT-B certified until Jan 2015.

EC:
I was a Orgo TA for my junior year averaging 10-16 HRS per week to help students for the entire school year.

I was in my schools Handball club for 4 years. Freshman and sophomore year I was an active participant, Junior year I became secretary of the E-Board and senior year I was elected Vice-President. I learned to manage the club, funds associated with the club. We ran lots of practices for our annual collegiate competition in various states such as Arizona, Florida, etc. The team won national recognition and brought back medals and awards to various places (1st place womens, 2nd place mens singles, 1st place mens, etc) Our club also ran a school wide handball tournament at the end of each semester.
Clinical Experience:
I volunteered at my schools hospital in a general nursing floor. I probably have around 100 hours. My school does not allow us to do anything TO patients but we are allowed to help nurses, etc. I generally ran to stock, get items, and deliver anything the patients needed/wanted.

I also had 20 hours of experience riding in an ambulance for my EMT training. I had hands on patient-to-patient care. Each ride averaging 1 call per hour so I had a couple of cases each time.

Last cycle
I applied to all the NYU MD schools (minus NYU, Columbia, Upstate), BU, Rutgers, Drexel, Jefferson, and Temple. I also applied to PCOM, and NYCOM for DO schools. All of these resulted in no interviews and all rejections (as I suspected).

Also to mention that I do have some red flags, which I suspect made it even worse for applying late. I was told by AAMC / School advisors to mention my institutional actions regardless of guilty or not guilty because that would be the best option and again under pressure everyone told me to write it down, so I did.

My first red flag was being found guilty for a party I had during my sophomore year (Spring 2010). I was celebrating my birthday and my two friends birthdays (around same time) with our group. A friend of ours brought his friend (well call him Sam). Sam gets drunk and starts to feel sick. My friend tries to help him into his car and leave but he passes out in the hallway of my building. Eventually the RA finds the two of them outside and Sam is sent to the hospital. My friend tells the RA that he was over my place which prompts the RA to come into my room and that is when I got written up for noise complaint & underage alcohol.

My second red flag was that I was accused of plagiarism for a lab report during my Biology Lab. However, I was found not guilty. Backstory - our school requires us to send the reports online and it checks for matches / paraphrases. It linked my to another student (who took it a year ago) for a match in the BIBLIOGRAPHY page to a source I used. I was told by the TA that the system thought I was cheating and when that happens a whole formal accusation has to be done. I appealed it because it wasn't true and I showed a committee of my peers (students + judiciary) that not I was not guilty. They found me not guilty and the charges were dropped with no further action taken against me. Since the case can be found if they asked for my record, both the AAMC / my advisors said that I still need to put it on my AAMC application. Did stating this last cycle hurt my chances? Did it damage my application to the point where I will never be accepted?

This cycle
I recently (last half year) got a job as a medical assistant / medical technician at a clinic with an ophthalmologist who specializes in retina surgery. He has taught me a lot about the eye and triaging for emergencies regarding the eye. I have accumulated about 1000 hours of patient care with this doctor. Under his supervision I learned to help him screen patients (checking visual acuity, iop, and rapd's), operate imaging systems ( such as the fundus camera, oct, visual fields), and assisted with office procedures (such as setting up shots, cryo, laser). He is also writing a LOR for me as well.

I am thinking about completing everything EARLY this cycle. I know with my schools it was suicidal to apply that late but I caved into pressure. For this cycle I want to reapply to all the NYC schools and add more east coast schools. I can also now apply to more DO schools compared to last cycle since a lot of them required a LOR from a physician.

What are my chances for this cycle?
I find it highly unlikely that either IA will have a negative effect on your application to MD schools, especially if you wrote a great "lessons learned" essay about the first one, and have no other legal issues to report.

I also find it iffy that someone with a 3.5/3.3/31, no research, and no nonmedical community service will attract a great deal of interest from MD schools, especially NYS schools, unless there is something you haven't mentioned that makes you a "special snowflake". A steep year's long upward grade trend might change my mind. Your teaching, active clinical experience, and leadership look good though.

Goro is the DO school expert and if he thinks you're good to go as you are for osteopathic med schools, believe it.
 
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Thanks for all the replies. Unfortunately this is what I was told by both the AAMC / Advisors so I believed it and had to do so. I am not sure how affected my application since I have stated it once already. I also felt that I was mislead / advised because I was found NOT GUILTY. How should I approach the IA situation on the AMCAS this cycle? Do you guys think I should recite this on this years app? For the first IA I will rewrite my part on that but I have no excuses for that one. I have since not had any problems regarding the alcohol / noise situation. For the second IA I am not sure if I should be restating it. I don't know if stating it the first time has irreparably hurt my chances.

In terms of GPA I have -- Fall 2008 (3.44), spring 2009 (3.5), summer 2009 (3.83), fall 2009 (3.19), spring 2010 (3.28), summer 2010 (3.67), fall 2010 (3.3), spring 2011 (3.83), fall 2012 (3.28) and I ended my last semester there with a (3.93) for my major. The last semester were mainly classes in emergency and critical care like cardiac emergencies, weapons of mass destruction, HAZMAT for EMT, trauma and trauma systems (has ANP). Sophomore year were some of my lowest GPA's. I had a tough time with my father getting sick, bad course management as I was trying to minor math + prehealth + trying to take language classes too. I endedup dropping my math minor and approached sciences / medicine more closely. I start tutoring in my junior year and majored in healthsciences EMT for senior year.

What is considered Low-Tier MD? I will be applying even more broadly as possible this year including even more DOs. I'm aiming for about 15-25 MD's and 5-10 DO's.

Last year I had

MD
All NYS (minus columbia, nyu)
Temple, Drexel, Jefferson
Rutgers (UMDNJ)
Boston,

DO
PCOM
NYCOM
ROWAN
TOURO NY


what other schools should I add onto the list for MD and DO?
 
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Wanted to know what everyone thinks of the list so far. I checked my MSARs for any schools where my MCAT / GPA (one or the other) fit into the ranges. I am trying to cast a widenet about 25-30 schools intotal. Geographically I want to be on the east coast but I also added one Cali school because I do not mind California, it doesn't have regional bias, and I might actually have a shot there.

Is this a good amount of schools where I have SOME shot of getting into? Is there schools I should add / take away because I have no realistic shot? I am working on the apps and hopefully finish this week and it will be ready to submit the minute it opens in a couple of weeks.

For MD: (IDK about the ? ones atm)
Albany Medical
Hofstra
NYMC
SUNY Downstate
SUNY Stony Brook
SUNY Buffalo
Rochester
Rutgers (Both)
Rosalind
Rush
University of Illinois
University of Maryland
Drexel
Jefferson
Temple
Penn State
Commonwealth?
Loyola?
Tufts?
Cooper?
Loma Linda?
University Connecticut?
George Washington?

For DO:
PCOM
Touro
NYIT
ROWAN
 
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"My first red flag was being found guilty for a party I had during my sophomore year (Spring 2010). I was celebrating my birthday and my two friends birthdays (around same time) with our group. A friend of ours brought his friend (well call him Sam). Sam gets drunk and starts to feel sick. My friend tries to help him into his car and leave but he passes out in the hallway of my building. Eventually the RA finds the two of them outside and Sam is sent to the hospital. My friend tells the RA that he was over my place which prompts the RA to come into my room and that is when I got written up for noise complaint & underage alcohol."


You don't need to include this, being written up by an RA is not included in your academic record. Either way its a stupid thing.
 
"My first red flag was being found guilty for a party I had during my sophomore year (Spring 2010). I was celebrating my birthday and my two friends birthdays (around same time) with our group. A friend of ours brought his friend (well call him Sam). Sam gets drunk and starts to feel sick. My friend tries to help him into his car and leave but he passes out in the hallway of my building. Eventually the RA finds the two of them outside and Sam is sent to the hospital. My friend tells the RA that he was over my place which prompts the RA to come into my room and that is when I got written up for noise complaint & underage alcohol."


You don't need to include this, being written up by an RA is not included in your academic record. Either way its a stupid thing.

Strictly speaking, he has to disclose this.

ANY violation (including party and noise violations) has to be disclosed.
 
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I'm pretty sure the first one I have to write it since it does show up on my record. The 2nd one however, was BS. Anyhow, hows my list of schools? Any I should add or take away? I feel that the ones there I have a shot at.
 
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For the schools to which you are re-applying. Do you personally think your application has changed enough to merit a different outcome? There is only so much you can change in less than a year.
 
For the schools that I am re-applying for I think one of the factors for my outcome last year was due to having most of my application done rather late. Having most done almost in october / november hurt my chances since majority of the people have their applications done around this time or prior to it. I think this year I can have my applications done rather early and as such will have a better chance... While it is true that my application has not changed a lot, since I only have my new job assisting an MD, I do think I have a good chance for DO and have some shot for "lower tier" MD's.

I was rather iffy about the LL & Loyola due to the mission statement the first time. I do not come from a very religious background and such can't say that I am. I guess those will be coming off the list. Thank you gyngyn =).

I have also updated the ones that I applied to last year with an *

*Albany Medical
*Hofstra
*NYMC
*SUNY Downstate
*SUNY Stony Brook
*SUNY Buffalo
*Rochester
*Rutgers RWJNJ
Rutgers NJMS
Rosalind
Rush
University of Illinois
University of Maryland
*Drexel
*Jefferson
*Temple
Penn State
Commonwealth?
Tufts?
Cooper?
University Connecticut?
George Washington?

For DO:
*PCOM
Touro
*NYIT
*ROWAN
 
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No I am not. I guess I was being hopeful by putting those there :(. But I rather be realistic and save some $ to places where I have no shot. Thanks again gyngyn. I think Uconn is also not a good one either since its 10 OOS compared to thousands similar to Rutgers.
 
No I am not. I guess I was being hopeful by putting those there :(. But I rather be realistic and save some $ to places where I have no shot. Thanks again gyngyn. I think Uconn is also not a good one either since its 10 OOS compared to thousands similar to Rutgers.
Now you are thinking!
It might be time to make a DO list as thoughtfully as your MD list?
 
Thanks again for the help gyngyn.

I am also considering adding Chicago COM, Western COM at CA, and Touro CA. Since those schools are also around the other area where I have applied for MD schools. I'm trying to be open for where I go to school but I just can't find myself to applying to areas like Arizona, Kansas, or Iowa.

Also does adding Touro CA affect Touro NY or vice versa?
 
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Thanks again for the help gyngyn.

I am also considering adding Chicago COM, Western COM at CA, and Touro CA. Does adding Touro CA affect Touro NY or vice versa?
Not to my knowledge. I'm not as familiar with the ins and outs of DO schools but I see no reason why one application would affect the outcome of the other!
 
Nope. They're all competitor schools with the same name. Ditto CCOM and AZCOM, Western and Western-OR, VCOM and VCOM-SC, AT Still-MO and -AZ, PCOM and PCOM-GA and the LECOMs. As you can surmise, having a branch campus is lucrative for the parent body.

Also does adding Touro CA affect Touro NY or vice versa?
 
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