School List Advice for Nontrad TX (522 MCAT, 3.99 GPA)

[nontradpremed2024]

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Please do not quote this post!
I'm looking for help revising the school list that admint.org generated for me. (See below)

cGPA: 3.99
sGPA: (Not officially calculated, but I earned all As with the exception of one grade that was an A-)
MCAT: 522
State of residence: TX
Ethnicity/Race: White & Latina
First-time applicant
Non-trad

Education:

• Graduated from a small liberal arts college
• Master’s in a humanities field (GPA: 3.96)

Clinical Experience:

• ~300 hours as a medical assistant at a community health clinic (started Fall 2024, ~150 hrs volunteer, ~150 hrs paid)
• Clinic serves a largely Spanish-speaking, underserved population

Research Experience:

• No traditional wet-lab or clinical research
• Completed a master’s thesis in a humanities field
• Volunteer faculty mentor for a high school lab assistant program (students researched and troubleshot HS-level experiments, but not formal research)

Shadowing:

• 30 hrs: primary care in community health clinic, ENT clinic, ENT surgery

Non-Clinical Volunteering:

• AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer with Habitat for Humanity (~350 hrs)
• Volunteer mentor for middle/high school clubs (German, chess, track)
• Volunteer chaperone for wilderness expedition (back country backpacking) for high schoolers

Teaching/Leadership Experience:

• 7 years full-time high school teacher at tuition free schools; 1 year teaching in a border (US-Mexican) town
• 1 year as part of the leadership (admin) team for middle and high school
• Led many faculty development workshops and seminars
• In college: founder/president of German Club, president of running group, co-leader of a women’s group

Other:

• Gymnastics and running coach for many years
• Working to improve Spanish through clinic work and coursework (currently taking a course specifically for Spanish in the healthcare setting)
• Conversational German due to immersion and study abroad in high school; academic background in Latin

Admit.org list:

 

[Faha]

You have a good list and should receive several interviews.

 

[nontradpremed2024]

You have a good list and should receive several interviews.

Thank you for the feedback!

 

[Approach]

To be honest I'm a nontrad at a T5 and your app is effectively the same "level" as mine and my nontrad peers at my institution and other nontrads I've met at similar schools in my region. you will have no problem with your pick of schools. I'd add Harvard just to round out your list.

Edit: Just be sure to really invest in your writing, your narrative, and your interviewing.

 

[nontradpremed2024]

To be honest I'm a nontrad at a T5 and your app is effectively the same "level" as mine and my nontrad peers at my institution and other nontrads I've met at similar schools in my region. you will have no problem with your pick of schools. I'd add Harvard just to round out your list.

Edit: Just be sure to really invest in your writing, your narrative, and your interviewing.

Thank you, that's encouraging! I've been worried that the top schools might screen me out due to my lack of research.

 

[Approach]

Thank you, that's encouraging! I've been worried that the top schools might screen me out due to my lack of research.

Research can be a reason that a med school appreciates a non-trad student, but I can tell you that most of the ones I know, including myself, had low research involvement. IB, consulting, teaching, pro to semi-pro sports, veterans, lawyers, and so on. It's all about your background and career; that's what you're evaluated against, not a student who spent four years in their undergraduate lab and then took two gap years working in the same lab. Sure, that student may get into [Top School] as well, but that's not the student keeping you from a top school. I do have a couple peers that came from PhD backgrounds to medicine, but they're a different bucket.

 

[nontradpremed2024]

Research can be a reason that a med school appreciates a non-trad student, but I can tell you that most of the ones I know, including myself, had low research involvement. IB, consulting, teaching, pro to semi-pro sports, veterans, lawyers, and so on. It's all about your background and career; that's what you're evaluated against, not a student who spent four years in their undergraduate lab and then took two gap years working in the same lab. Sure, that student may get into [Top School] as well, but that's not the student keeping you from a top school. I do have a couple peers that came from PhD backgrounds to medicine, but they're a different bucket.

Thanks, that's reassuring! It sounds like they really do take a holistic look at applicants.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Call your shot. I agree with all of the above advice to make sure you can articulate the value of your experiences to an incoming class.

Also figure out how you wish to leverage your past towards your career in medicine. Lots of "medical humanities" options exist in your list.

Get connected with SNMA and LMSA officers for the schools you covet. See if they can find you a peer/buddy with similar experiences as yours (which might be challenging given what you have mentioned, but it's interesting to see who they come up with). This will be your peer support group for the rest of your professional life should you get in. I'd also include AMWA.