Scholarships, Top 20s, and Rock Stardom

[Walter Raleigh]

I am a White male from New York.
ECs:
Graduated college May 2017 and applying this cycle for 2019 matriculation
820 hours research with 3 poster presentations
400 hours on ambulance corps as attendant
100 hours volunteering in local emergency room
130 hours nonclinical volunteering - mentoring students, soup kitchens, miscellaneous stuff.
300 hours as private MCAT tutor.
50 hours shadowing local doctors - radiology, emergency medicine, physiatry.
1400 hours as triathlete (trained and competed solo; was not on a college or any other team)
MCAT: 130/130/130/130

Are there any schools that give out a lot of scholarship money that I might want to apply to?

The learned @Goro has said that I was a "rock star applicant"; why do you say that, when I have a GPA that is at or below the 10th percentile at most top-20 schools - the very schools you urged me to apply to? I don't think my ECs are at all stellar enough to compensate for my (by top 20 standards) below-average GPA and average MCAT. They seem, instead, to be average at best, not "rock star tier". @gyngyn, @LizzyM, care to weigh in on this? It just puzzles me a bit.

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[Goro]

This is a great teaching moment to remind pre-meds that you CAN'T fixate on a single metric. Your ECs are killer and you have a killer NCAT score.

But hey, if you want to apply to my school instead, we'll take you.

 

[Walter Raleigh]

Goro: thank you for the words of wisdom. If we were to rank ECs by tiers, this was my understanding:

"Good" ECs, one step above "Cookie cutter" ECs:

• 400+ hours of volunteering, with no less than 100 hours in either the clinical or nonclinical category.
• 50+ hours of shadowing.
• 400+ hours of research, maybe one poster presentation.

"Excellent" ECs. One step above "good":

• 1,000+ hours of volunteering, maybe with leadership in said volunteering organization
• Athletics, though not Division I or pro
• 1,000+ hours of research with poster presentations or pubs in small journals as other than first author

"Killer" ECs. One step above "excellent"

• Founder of successful nonprofit or small business.
• Division I athlete
• Peace Corps
• Teach for America
• First-author publication, or any author in Nature, Science, or Cell.

"Rockstar" ECs. One step above "killer" and extremely rare.

• Military service.
• Professional athlete.
• Refugee.
• First-author publication in Nature, Science, or Cell.
• Founded a large, impactful (regional or national) nonprofit or business.
• Any other world-class achievement: concert pianist, Pulitzer Prize winner, Olympic medalist, full tenured professor at elite university.

"God Tier" ECs. Extraordinarily rare; may come once or twice per generation.

• Medal of Honor.
• Nobel Peace Prize.
• World-renowned athlete: think Michael Phelps, Gabby Douglas, Serena Williams.

I am quite flattered and impressed that you consider my ECs to be "killer" - the same appellation that you give to people who've completed tours in the Peace Corps and TFA! Of course, these "tiers" may be all wrong.