Reapplicant- foreign masters?

[premedmarathoner]

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I haven't gotten in this cycle and only had one interview which I haven't heard back from, so I'm taking it as a no. Currently weighing my options about what else to do and how I can improve. I applied a little on the late side but nothing crazy, took my MCAT June 29th and sent off my applications the day I had my scores back, had all secondaries in by the first week of September.

Current senior, double major in Biochemistry/French, minors in International Studies, Biology
MCAT-513
GPA-3.75
sGPA-3.5
1000 hours research, 2 publications as author kind of far down the list
250 hours hospital volunteer
400 hours internship in social services/HIV prevention org that serves transgender people
450 hours non-health-care volunteering (soup kitchen, youth leadership)
75 hours shadowing in orthopedics/family med
President of two global health clubs, member of a sorority, marathon runner etc. etc.

Not sure what I'm missing for certain but I know that my sGPA is a little lower than it should be ideally. I got a C and a string of B's in biology my sophomore year due to some ~personal matters~ which have since been resolved. GPA has a pretty evident dip there and has been on the up and up since then.

I got a grant that will pay for me to get my masters in biology in France next year, and I am almost certain that I am going to take it, wait a year, and apply again in the 2019-2020 cycle. I am hoping that this will 1) prove that I don't actually suck at biology 2) help me get some more time/publications from researching in a pretty clinically relevant field and show my commitment to research.

My main questions are: Do adcoms care about masters that are done outside of the US? Is there anything else that it seems that I may need more of? Do I need to be applying to DO schools as well this next time around?

Thanks for any and all wisdom!

 

[Isoval]

My thoughts are these:
- Your application looks fine. Potentially, there was an issue with your school list and this led to a low number of interviews and no acceptances. How broadly did you apply this cycle?
- The masters will do little to nothing for your application. 1) Admissions committees could not care less about a masters - US or foreign - unless it was an SMP, and 2) You’ve already shown competence in biology via your MCAT score and your semi-solid sGPA. You already have 1000 hours of research and publications. There is almost no gain for your time off doing a masters in France other than the experience of doing a masters in France.
- Yes, you should apply DO next cycle. Your application is strong enough to where you should receive multiple DO interviews. Pick a few schools you like and apply to them, then tack on one or two safety fallbacks juuuuust in case. I would recommend applying to a handful of DO schools and then broadly to MD again.

 

[premedmarathoner]

My thoughts are these:
- Your application looks fine. Potentially, there was an issue with your school list and this led to a low number of interviews and no acceptances. How broadly did you apply this cycle?
- The masters will do little to nothing for your application. 1) Admissions committees could not care less about a masters - US or foreign - unless it was an SMP, and 2) You’ve already shown competence in biology via your MCAT score and your semi-solid sGPA. You already have 1000 hours of research and publications. There is almost no gain for your time off doing a masters in France other than the experience of doing a masters in France.
- Yes, you should apply DO next cycle. Your application is strong enough to where you should receive multiple DO interviews. Pick a few schools you like and apply to them, then tack on one or two safety fallbacks juuuuust in case. I would recommend applying to a handful of DO schools and then broadly to MD again.

I applied relatively broadly but could probably afford for some more low ballers the next time around.

My list- Arizona Phoenix, Arizona Tucson, Brown, Colorado, Georgetown, Hawaii, Indiana, GW, Loyola, Miami, Rush, Tulane, Tufts, St Louis, UCLA, USC, Jefferson, and then all the TX schools (not a resident but my one interview was from a TX school, go figure)