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Hi,
I'm a non-trad with a fairly unusual path. I knew in college that I wanted to pursue medicine, but I also wanted to do a contract in special operations in the military, which led to my current situation. Based on the stats below, is it worth applying late in the cycle for a 2027 matriculation? I think my chances will be very good for 2028, but I'd rather not waste a year if I can get in this cycle. Oh, and RE forum choice, I get that this is more of a WAMC question, but I thought the significant non-trad component made it a better fit for this forum.
Academics:
- Biochemistry undergrad '21, graduated SCL from SC honors college in 2.5 years
- 3.95 science GPA, 3.97 combined GPA
- 527 MCAT, March 2026
Military service:
- infantryman in a special operations unit in the Army
- 5 year contract, getting out early 2027
- won Best Ranger Competition, but other than that I have nothing I would be talking about in my application or interviews with respect to deployments/real-life stuff. Put plainly, I am not in the situation of a 15+ year Special Forces medic with 8 deployments who's had a bunch of real-world medical experience to talk about.
Letters of Evaluation:
- 1 from a physician whom I shadow with, 1 from my first military supervisor who was my boss for about 3 years in total, and 1 from a relatively famous military contact who doesn't know me very well (I'm not really sure I'm going to take him up on his offer based on that). I'm going to try to get one from another physician to have 3 from people who know me.
Shadowing/ECs:
- 250 hours total (conservative estimate) paid work teaching organic chemistry I and II labs for two semesters
- 300 hours on a research project for my honors thesis (mostly bioinformatics in genetics, no wet-lab stuff)
- 160 hours formal medical training in the military, 80 hours of fairly elementary stuff in initial training and 80 hours of the most advanced hands-on trauma medicine in special operations available for non-medics.
- 60 hours service volunteering (food bank/homeless shelter) *** will be continued over the coming months
- 12 hours shadowing doctors (orthopedic surgeon and FM/sports) ***will be continued over the coming months
- 20 hours shadowing PAs (orthopedics) ***will be continued over the coming months
The obvious weaknesses that I see are the lack of hours in service and clinical experience. Applying late in the cycle for rolling admissions isn't helping me either.
The things in bold are what will change if I wait to apply for 2028 matriculation. I'd be looking at 300+ hours of clinical observation in various medical specialties, split between physicians and other medical providers, and I'd be in the realm of 300+ service hours. If I apply this cycle, for 2027 matriculation, I'm looking at probably 100 hours of clinical observation and about 150 hours of service volunteering (this is a more aggressive work-on-the-weekends-for-a-month scenario in order to hit those numbers).
What do y'all think? I'm looking at UVA, Hopkins, VCU, and Vandy for my top 4 schools. It's mostly a geographic thing for me since almost my entire family lives in Virginia-- so I'd like to go to an East Coast school in the mid-Atlantic area. However, if branching out gives me better chances of acceptance for 2027 matriculation, I'm tentatively open to that. I'm not a big "prestige" kinda guy, I know I can get an excellent education pretty much anywhere. However, I got rejected by a public university back when I was applying for undergrad despite being a very competitive applicant because I think they saw the dichotomy between high stats and a late application, and hence assumed I wasn't going to go there and they were just a safety pick. That's what I'm hesitant about with respect to VCU after looking at their admitted class statistics, but maybe my concern is misplaced.
Thanks for any advice!
I'm a non-trad with a fairly unusual path. I knew in college that I wanted to pursue medicine, but I also wanted to do a contract in special operations in the military, which led to my current situation. Based on the stats below, is it worth applying late in the cycle for a 2027 matriculation? I think my chances will be very good for 2028, but I'd rather not waste a year if I can get in this cycle. Oh, and RE forum choice, I get that this is more of a WAMC question, but I thought the significant non-trad component made it a better fit for this forum.
Academics:
- Biochemistry undergrad '21, graduated SCL from SC honors college in 2.5 years
- 3.95 science GPA, 3.97 combined GPA
- 527 MCAT, March 2026
Military service:
- infantryman in a special operations unit in the Army
- 5 year contract, getting out early 2027
- won Best Ranger Competition, but other than that I have nothing I would be talking about in my application or interviews with respect to deployments/real-life stuff. Put plainly, I am not in the situation of a 15+ year Special Forces medic with 8 deployments who's had a bunch of real-world medical experience to talk about.
Letters of Evaluation:
- 1 from a physician whom I shadow with, 1 from my first military supervisor who was my boss for about 3 years in total, and 1 from a relatively famous military contact who doesn't know me very well (I'm not really sure I'm going to take him up on his offer based on that). I'm going to try to get one from another physician to have 3 from people who know me.
Shadowing/ECs:
- 250 hours total (conservative estimate) paid work teaching organic chemistry I and II labs for two semesters
- 300 hours on a research project for my honors thesis (mostly bioinformatics in genetics, no wet-lab stuff)
- 160 hours formal medical training in the military, 80 hours of fairly elementary stuff in initial training and 80 hours of the most advanced hands-on trauma medicine in special operations available for non-medics.
- 60 hours service volunteering (food bank/homeless shelter) *** will be continued over the coming months
- 12 hours shadowing doctors (orthopedic surgeon and FM/sports) ***will be continued over the coming months
- 20 hours shadowing PAs (orthopedics) ***will be continued over the coming months
The obvious weaknesses that I see are the lack of hours in service and clinical experience. Applying late in the cycle for rolling admissions isn't helping me either.
The things in bold are what will change if I wait to apply for 2028 matriculation. I'd be looking at 300+ hours of clinical observation in various medical specialties, split between physicians and other medical providers, and I'd be in the realm of 300+ service hours. If I apply this cycle, for 2027 matriculation, I'm looking at probably 100 hours of clinical observation and about 150 hours of service volunteering (this is a more aggressive work-on-the-weekends-for-a-month scenario in order to hit those numbers).
What do y'all think? I'm looking at UVA, Hopkins, VCU, and Vandy for my top 4 schools. It's mostly a geographic thing for me since almost my entire family lives in Virginia-- so I'd like to go to an East Coast school in the mid-Atlantic area. However, if branching out gives me better chances of acceptance for 2027 matriculation, I'm tentatively open to that. I'm not a big "prestige" kinda guy, I know I can get an excellent education pretty much anywhere. However, I got rejected by a public university back when I was applying for undergrad despite being a very competitive applicant because I think they saw the dichotomy between high stats and a late application, and hence assumed I wasn't going to go there and they were just a safety pick. That's what I'm hesitant about with respect to VCU after looking at their admitted class statistics, but maybe my concern is misplaced.
Thanks for any advice!
