MD School List Advice

[flightless_bird]

---

Members don't see this ad.

Hi everyone, just looking for some tips on my school list. I’m not sure where to estimate my competitiveness with cookie-cutter ECs but solid stats.

School: public state school in the 30-50 range
Bio major, chem minor
cGPA/sGPA: 4.0
MCAT: 525 (132/129/132/132)
ORM

~1500 hours of research at my main lab. No pubs or national conferences, but I have a 2nd-author in technical manuscript (currently a preprint) and a handful of institutional poster presentations
~350 hours of research at another lab
~125 hours of research at another lab (hopped around a bit as a freshman to explore)
~100 hours of other short-term paid research projects

~120 hours of shadowing (primary care, ortho, ophtho, onc)
~125 hours of hospital volunteering - discharging patients, bringing patients blankets/water/etc., keeping patients company in their rooms

~300 hours as a TA for two biology classes
~75 hours of animal shelter volunteering
~50 hours on a local service trip to research, uncover, and write about my school’s prior involvement in slavery
~80 hours on a service trip to Baltimore working with an organization that provides necessities to people experiencing homelessness. We served them food, helped them pick out clothes, and surveyed them to learn about their experience in Baltimore
~25 hours of coaching youth basketball

Hobbies: voice lessons for a year and 4 seasons of intramural sports

Current list is below, roughly divided into tiers. Any tips would be greatly appreciated! @Goro

1. All VA state schools
2. JHU
3. NYU
4. WashU
5. Stanford
6. Harvard
7. Columbia
8. UPenn
9. Duke
10. Cornell
11. Pitt
12. Mount Sinai
13. Mayo (Alix)
14. Case Western
15. Vandy
16. Northwestern
17. UCLA
18. Einstein
19. Dartmouth
20. Brown
21. USC
22. Emory
23. Rochester
24. Hofstra
25. UMD
26. Georgetown
27. SUNY Downstate
    
    Edited to provide more details

 

[Goro]

Jeeze, OP, the ECs other than research are really weak! This is the app of what I call a "lab rat". Stanford will love you, but I think that you owe it to yourself to bulk up on the ECs with a gap year, and then aim high, WashU/NYU high.

 

[flightless_bird]

Jeeze, OP, the ECs other than research are really weak! This is the app of what I call a "lab rat". Stanford will love you, but I think that you owe it to yourself to bulk up on the ECs with a gap year, and then aim high, WashU/NYU high.

Thank you for the response! I have considered a gap year - if I were to apply this cycle, though, which tier do you think I’d be competitive at (if any)?

 

[Goro]

Thank you for the response! I have considered a gap year - if I were to apply this cycle, though, which tier do you think I’d be competitive at (if any)?

I'm not sanguine about your chances

 

[EdgeTrimmer]

125 hours of hospital volunteering not sufficient in current conditions?

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Hi everyone, just looking for some tips on my school list. I’m not sure where to estimate my competitiveness with cookie-cutter ECs but solid stats.

School: public state school in the 30-50 range
cGPA/sGPA: 4.0
MCAT: 525
ORM

~1500 hours of research at my main lab. No pubs or national conferences, but I have a 2nd-author in technical manuscript (currently a preprint) and a handful of institutional poster presentations
~350 hours of research at another lab
~125 hours of research at another lab (hopped around a bit as a freshman to explore)
~100 hours of other short-term paid research projects

~120 hours of shadowing (primary care, ortho, ophtho, onc)
~125 hours of hospital volunteering

~300 hours as a TA
~75 hours of animal shelter volunteering
~130 hours across two service trips to help underserved populations
~25 hours of coaching youth basketball

Hobbies: voice lessons for a year and 4 seasons of intramural sports

What's your major? You're blinding your state residency, but if your declared list already include 26 schools, you probably don't have that many in-state schools to play with. How many of these schools have you networked with at recruitment fairs (including the AAMC Virtual Fair)?

The lack of detail really doesn't help us. You still on numbers alone may have a 1 in 6-ish chance at the top schools, and you may risk being yield-limited at other schools who think you're playing them as safeties. Clarifying your chances will depend on your ability to effectively reflect on the experiences you aren't talking about here (two service trips??? doing what??? where???; hospital volunteering doing what???) The only hobbies I get is that you do sports since you have also coached.

Of course you have a great chance, but any assessment will only become more informative with more data and insight into the activities you have done and the assessment of fit with mission and with the profession. So far, your chances are probably about the same as the GPA/MCAT grid says. With those numbers I expect exemplary letters, not just strong ones. Your essays need to be spot on and heavily reviewed by the people writing your letters. Basically the things you can't control based on what you've provided will dictate your chances.

 

[flightless_bird]

I'm not sanguine about your chances

Gotcha - I appreciate the honesty. What else would you recommend, if I were to scribe for a year and a half (December grad)?

 

[Goro]

Scribe, but also get in service to others less fortunate than yourself.

 

[flightless_bird]

What's your major? You're blinding your state residency, but if your declared list already include 26 schools, you probably don't have that many in-state schools to play with. How many of these schools have you networked with at recruitment fairs (including the AAMC Virtual Fair)?

The lack of detail really doesn't help us. You still on numbers alone may have a 1 in 6-ish chance at the top schools, and you may risk being yield-limited at other schools who think you're playing them as safeties. Clarifying your chances will depend on your ability to effectively reflect on the experiences you aren't talking about here (two service trips??? doing what??? where???; hospital volunteering doing what???) The only hobbies I get is that you do sports since you have also coached.

Of course you have a great chance, but any assessment will only become more informative with more data and insight into the activities you have done and the assessment of fit with mission and with the profession. So far, your chances are probably about the same as the GPA/MCAT grid says. With those numbers I expect exemplary letters, not just strong ones. Your essays need to be spot on and heavily reviewed by the people writing your letters. Basically the things you can't control based on what you've provided will dictate your chances.

Thank you for the response! I’m a biology major and chemistry minor, and a Virginia resident (4 state schools). I haven’t explicitly networked with any schools, but I did some of my shadowing at Hopkins. I edited the OP to provide more details on my activities.

 

[flightless_bird]

Scribe, but also get in service to others less fortunate than yourself.

Makes sense - thank you for the advice.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Thank you for the response! I’m a biology major and chemistry minor, and a Virginia resident (4 state schools). I haven’t explicitly networked with any schools, but I did some of my shadowing at Hopkins. I edited the OP to provide more details on my activities.

Okay... that helps a bit. Did you live mostly in Northern Virginia? I'm just saying because GW could be a good option of course. Not sure if you wanted to consider UChicago since you have WashU on the list.

 

[Faha]

You should receive several interviews from your list with your Virginia schools the most likely. Washington University will like your MCAT score.

 

[flightless_bird]

Okay... that helps a bit. Did you live mostly in Northern Virginia? I'm just saying because GW could be a good option of course. Not sure if you wanted to consider UChicago since you have WashU on the list.

I do - I’ll definitely take a look at GW. For UChicago, I’ve heard they’re big on service (one of my main weaknesses) so I ended up leaving them off.

Edit: spelling

 

[flightless_bird]

You should receive several interviews from your list with your Virginia schools the most likely. Washington University will like your MCAT score.

Thank you for the response! I’d be thrilled to go to any of the VA schools