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 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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