School List Advice

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vrazzles

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Hi guys, I have made a WAMC about a year ago, but as my time has come to apply and I have finalized all hours for all activities, I want to make my final WAMC post. I apologize for the neuroticism. I would rather be neurotic than sitting on no acceptances by the end of this cycle.

STATS AND METRICS: 3.95
cGPA and sGPA from low-ranked university (not state flagship), 52x MCAT (taken in May 2017)
Major and minor both related to life sciences but a lot of coursework in CS and Math.
TN resident

CLINICAL
750 hours working as a CNA in a long-term care unit attached to a rural hospital in a medically underserved area
180 hours volunteering at the VA - time split between post-op recovery room and skilled nursing facility

SHADOWING
100 hours total - mostly in primary care (both in and out-patient) as well as a little bit in gen surg

NON-CLINICAL VOLUNTEERING
3200 hours as Peace Corps Volunteer in an African country teaching advanced level chemistry - implemented educational projects at my school
350 hours as a delivery driver for Meals on Wheels
40 hours tutoring - 30 of these for underserved students on my campus, 10 for tutoring veterans

RESEARCH
3100 hours spent in Neuroscience research - 3 publications (2 3rd author and 1 6th author) in low/medium impact journals
750 hours spent in reproductive physiology research - 1 first author poster presented at national conference as well as local conference, and 1 talk given at local symposium

LEADERSHIP:
250 hours as vice-chair/chair of the grants committee during Peace Corps service

MISC WORK
150 hours spent tutoring between 2 different organizations at my university: one for underserved students, the other for veterans

HOBBIES
Trail running, kayaking, skimboarding, writing short stories, etc. Nothing mind-blowing.

MISC
Russian Immigrant
Fluent in 2 languages (Russian and English) and highly advanced in a third (Swahili)
IA from 6 years ago for Marijuana
Application focused on education and addressing health disparities
Letter of Recommendations should be ranging from quite strong to very strong

SCHOOL LIST
Einstein
BU
Columbia
Duke
Emory
Mount Sinai
John Hopkins
USC
Mayo Clinic
NYU
Northwestern
U of Penn
Stanford
UCLA
UCSF
U of Chicago
U of Cincinnati
U of Miami
U of Michigan
U of Pitt
U of Rochester
U of Tennessee
ETSU
UVA
Vanderbilt
WashU
Cornell
Yale
Dartmouth

I have been told previously that my school list is long, but I would rather minimize my chances of being shut out. I would appreciate any feedback and sorry again for the neuroticism.

@LizzyM @Goro @gyngyn @Faha
Thank you everybody!

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U Washington accepts less than 1% of applicants who are not from states in the Northwest. Add Washington University (in St.Louis) instead. You should receive many interviews from your list.
 
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U Washington accepts less than 1% of applicants who are not from states in the Northwest. Add Washington University (in St.Louis) instead. You should receive many interviews from your list.
Whoops that's what I meant. Thank you!
 
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The IA is the only blemish on your record and I don't see it as a dealbreaker. You are golden. Get ready to be very busy up through October 15th as schools try to interview you before you get an offer and start being more picky. Get a credit card that offers miles or rewards as you are going to have some travel expenses in the coming months. Please up-date us at this time next year.
 
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The IA is the only blemish on your record and I don't see it as a dealbreaker. You are golden. Get ready to be very busy up through October 15th as schools try to interview you before you get an offer and start being more picky. Get a credit card that offers miles or rewards as you are going to have some travel expenses in the coming months. Please up-date us at this time next year.
Thank you for your advice! I will be sure to post an update when I have more information.
 
Thank you all very much for your responses - Time to get started on those secondaries!
 
Hey, I'm just curious... Are you currently still in the middle of Peace Corps, or have you finished? You don't need to worry at all about your MCAT expiring? Would you be able to share any advice you've received about this?
 
Hey, I'm just curious... Are you currently still in the middle of Peace Corps, or have you finished? You don't need to worry at all about your MCAT expiring? Would you be able to share any advice you've received about this?
I am currently in Peace Corps, but I only have 3 months left. No, I do not need to worry about my MCAT expiring. PM me for more details.
 
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Among the most perfect applications I've ever seen, you're gonna do great :) Good luck!
 
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You're one of the stronger applicants to post here in a while. The weed IA was six years ago, and you've served in the Peace Corps; it could very easily be considered youthful immaturity and overlooked.

Start your list with Harvard.

262599
 
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Hello! I wanted to provide an update on my cycle as reading through these WAMC posts helped me a lot in choosing my school list. Information below.

TLDR: Applied to 31 schools primary, finished 23 secondaries, 16 interview invites, 11 interviews attended, 7 acceptances, 4 wait lists. The interviews were mostly from top 20 schools with a few top 30 thrown in and my state schools.

So I applied with basically the list that I had in my OP. After submitting primaries, some personal stuff went down that resulted in a pretty severe case of the full body karate, and I only managed to find the motivation to fill out 23 secondaries (all submitted by August 5th). I selectively chose not to submit secondaries to the most competitive schools (Harvard, Yale, Stanford, NYU, JHU, Mayo) so as to focus all efforts on higher yield schools. If I could go back and redo, I would definitely submit secondaries to those schools but c'est la vie. In the end, I received 16 interview invites (2 state schools, 1 top 40, 3 top 30, and 10 top 20). I attended interviews at 11 of these programs and ended up receiving acceptances to 7 of them.

I am happy to answer any questions about my experience!
 
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Hello! I wanted to provide an update on my cycle as reading through these WAMC posts helped me a lot in choosing my school list. Information below.

TLDR: Applied to 31 schools primary, finished 23 secondaries, 15 interview invites, 11 interviews attended, 6 acceptances, 5 wait lists. The interviews were mostly from top 20 schools with a few top 30 thrown in and my state schools.

So I applied with basically the list that I had in my OP. After submitting primaries, some personal stuff went down that resulted in a pretty severe case of the full body karate, and I only managed to find the motivation to fill out 23 secondaries (all submitted by August 5th). I selectively chose not to submit secondaries to the most competitive schools (Harvard, Yale, Stanford, NYU, JHU, Mayo) so as to focus all efforts on higher yield schools. If I could go back and redo, I would definitely submit secondaries to those schools but c'est la vie. In the end, I received 15 interview invites (2 state schools, 1 top 40, 2 top 30, and 10 top 20). I attended interviews at 11 of these programs and ended up receiving acceptances to 6 of them.

I am happy to answer any questions about my experience!
Can you list the ones you interviewed and got acceptances?
 
Sure!

Mt. Sinai (turned down interview)
Cornell (turned down interview)
Rochester (turned down interview)
Penn (turned down interview)
Baylor (turned down interview)
WashU (Accepted)
Pitt (Accepted)
Vanderbilt (Accepted)
UVA (Accepted)
Cincinnati (Accepted)
UTHSC (Accepted)
ETSU (Accepted)
UChicago (Waitlist)
Case Western (Waitlist)
CCLCM (Waitlist)
UMich (Waitlist)

Looks like I was wrong in the above post. I actually got 16 interview invites, turned down 5, accepted at 7, and wait-listed at 4. Editing my post to reflect the correct info.
 
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Sure!

Mt. Sinai (turned down interview)
Cornell (turned down interview)
Rochester (turned down interview)
Penn (turned down interview)
Baylor (turned down interview)
WashU (Accepted)
Pitt (Accepted)
Vanderbilt (Accepted)
UVA (Accepted)
Cincinnati (Accepted)
UTHSC (Accepted)
ETSU (Accepted)
UChicago (Waitlist)
Case Western (Waitlist)
CCLCM (Waitlist)
UMich (Waitlist)

Looks like I was wrong in the above post. I actually got 16 interview invites, turned down 5, accepted at 7, and wait-listed at 4. Editing my post to reflect the correct info.
Thanks. Why did you turn down Cornell and Penn interviews?
 
Cause they sent me invites after I had already run out of money to interview, and I was happy with where I had gained admission :)
 
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Cause they sent me invites after I had already run out of money to interview, and I was happy with where I had gained admission :)
Doesn't Penn have merit scholarships? Which school are you committing to?
 
Doesn't Penn have merit scholarships? Which school are you committing to?
They may, but they don't offer money to help people come interview :)

I applied while I was living dirt poor as a Peace Corps Volunteer so I had to make tough choices on where to interview and where not to.

I will DM you about which school I'm committing to.

Edit: Can't DM you as your profile is set to private. If you want to DM me, I'll be glad to share but don't wish to post this info publicly.
 
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Congratulations and good luck in medical school!
 
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Hello! I wanted to provide an update on my cycle as reading through these WAMC posts helped me a lot in choosing my school list. Information below.

TLDR: Applied to 31 schools primary, finished 23 secondaries, 16 interview invites, 11 interviews attended, 7 acceptances, 4 wait lists. The interviews were mostly from top 20 schools with a few top 30 thrown in and my state schools.

So I applied with basically the list that I had in my OP. After submitting primaries, some personal stuff went down that resulted in a pretty severe case of the full body karate, and I only managed to find the motivation to fill out 23 secondaries (all submitted by August 5th). I selectively chose not to submit secondaries to the most competitive schools (Harvard, Yale, Stanford, NYU, JHU, Mayo) so as to focus all efforts on higher yield schools. If I could go back and redo, I would definitely submit secondaries to those schools but c'est la vie. In the end, I received 16 interview invites (2 state schools, 1 top 40, 3 top 30, and 10 top 20). I attended interviews at 11 of these programs and ended up receiving acceptances to 7 of them.

I am happy to answer any questions about my experience!
Very impressive stats, ECs, few questions, assuming May 2017 was your undergraduate junior year.
  • With those stellar GPA and MCAT score, what was rationale to take 2 gap years?
  • How much ECs you were able to accomplish on those 2 gap years?
  • Should you had applied at end of junior year, how that may have played out in terms of choices, interviews, acceptances etc.?
Thanks for guidance.
 
With those stellar GPA and MCAT score, what was rationale to take 2 gap years?
I took 3 gap years (4 if you count this one) I didn't get my MCAT score until a month before leaving for the Peace Corps, so my score was not part of my decision making in that regard. I basically wanted adventure/mind expansion and didn't really care about the concept of "X years of lost physician wages" that people often bandy about when they talk about going to med school as fast as possible. Thank god I did it.
How much ECs you were able to accomplish on those 2 gap years?
I got competent at research, got published, did Peace Corps, learned Swahili, taught chemistry for two years, organized public health outreach projects, herded goats, etc
Should you had applied at end of junior year, how that may have played out in terms of choices, interviews, acceptances etc.?
Hard to say.

I will say that my research experience helped me a ton for the MCAT. I doubt I would have had such an easy time with it if I hadn't done a fair amount of data analysis every day for the past year before taking it. As a junior, I also wouldn't have been published, nor would I have had much nonclinical volunteering, teaching, or Peace Corps.

I would imagine I would have still been a strong candidate for my state schools as well as more metric-focused OOS schools. Doubt my ECs would have been strong enough for top 20s, but who knows. A lot of it is about how you write and describe your experiences.
 
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Yep, May of 2016!

How did you manage interviews/application preparation & submission while a Peace Corp volunteer?

When did you have time to squeeze in the full time research?

What are you doing in the year preceding entry into medical school?
 
How did you manage interviews/application preparation & submission while a Peace Corp volunteer
It sucked. I had one tree in my village that got 3g service reliably. I would hike there and sit under it with my phone and computer so I could hotspot myself. Sat under that tree for half a day with my computer sometimes. I didn't prepare for interviews other than briefly read the school's website.
When did you have time to squeeze in the full time research?
I did full time research for a year after graduating college, before I went to Peace Corps.
What are you doing in the year preceding entry into medical school?
I was doing research but the uni closed so had to find a side hustle. Currently tutoring MCAT for money and doing some consulting on the side.
 
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