School List for 526/4.0 ORM

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.

ikbc2020

New Member
Joined
Mar 7, 2019
Messages
6
Reaction score
2
Hi, I'm looking for help on creating my school list. I'm currently a junior applying this cycle. I knew I wanted to do medicine early on, so I have a lot of clinical experience from HS that I won't put on AMCAS, but will mention in my PS. I'm looking for help on my school list, and also any tips on how to present my narrative and write my personal statement.

cGPA and sGPA: 4.0 cGPA, 4.0 sGPA

MCAT: 526

Ethnicity: Asian

Undergraduate institution: HYPSM

Clinical experience:
600 hours in high school as a volunteer OR tech.
250 hours in college as a emergency room volunteer

Research experience:
1000 hours in HS, including the summer after I graduated and right before I started college

About 1800 hours in college. Multiple poster presentations and conferences attended. One second author in medium impact journal. Have another pub currently under review. Awarded a national scholarship to purse research.

Shadowing experience:
Too much to count from HS. In college, about 100 hours split over multiple surgical specialities, and one IM doc.

Non-clinical volunteering:
250 hours teaching sex-ed to under-resourced inner-city public high school students.

Other extracurricular activities:

TA for a premed orgo weeder class at my school.

President of a club sport. I play this sport competitively, have a national ranking, and am captain of the team for my school. We compete at national tournaments and play other schools. This sport is a big hobby of mine and I probably spend like 6-10 hours a week practicing.

Editor-in-chief of a journal that publishes a magazine at my school.

Student council treasurer for 1 year.

Perceived Strengths/Weaknesses:
My strengths would be my stats, research, clinical exposure.

My weaknesses would be how traditional I am (lol), cookie cutter ECs, also the fact that my life is pretty lame. I don't feel like I have a good life story like some other people on here. I basically knew since I was in kindergarten that I wanted to do medicine, and everything I've done in life has been to achieve that goal. I don't know if this is viewed as a good or bad thing. I'm starting to think about my personal statement, and I have NOOO idea what to write. Like if I were honest it would just be that I've always wanted to be a doctor, I like science, and I feel that helping people is a good thing to do.

School list:
I can probably aim anywhere I want. My dream would be HMS or JHU, but obviously they look at stuff other than grades, which I feel like I lack due to my traditional life story. Anyways, I'd appreciate any feedback. I plan on applying to around 20-25 schools. I don't really want to apply to my state school just cause I don't like its location. I'm wondering how many mid-tiers/safeties I should apply to.
 
Just apply anywhere, trust me the whole life story thing is not necessary. You’re going to be fine.
 
You're platinum, aim high. If you want to become closer to unobtainium, do something like Americorps, Peace Corps, or Teach for America...although you probably don't want to let that insanely high MCAT expire, and you are golden for every school in the country, including the likes of NYU and Harvard. Good luck. Have your state schools and any top-20 that interests you. If you'd like, you can probably get away with a fairly top-heavy list.
 
Apply anywhere you like; just make sure to have some variety of schools in your list whose missions fit with your experiences.

Harvard
Yale
Columbia
Cornell
U Penn
Chicago
Washington University in St. Louis
NYU

Rochester
U Mich
Cincinnati
Ohio State
Duke
Emory
Dartmouth

Tulane
Boston

Your state school(s)
 
This is probably the most perfect application I've seen on here. Jeebus Christ. Apply anywhere.

If you need help with PS and essays; there are tons of people who can help you here. Your essays and interview skills would be the only thing that prevents you from getting tons of success.

Edit: Someone correct me but not sure if these High school hours for activities will count in your AMCAS app.
 
Last edited:
It certainly makes the top five. There was a PhD with a first-author Nature paper and sky-high MCAT score on here a few years ago.
 
This is probably the most perfect application I've seen on here. Jeebus Christ. Apply anywhere.

If you need help with PS and essays; there are tons of people who can help you here. Your essays and interview skills would be the only thing that prevents you from getting tons of success.

Edit: Someone correct me but not sure if these High school hours for activities will count in your AMCAS app.

Haha thanks! The only high school activity I'm listing in my activities is my first lab, since I worked there the summer after I graduated hs. I'm not going to list the other HS activities I did, but I will probably talk about them in my personal statement since it was the first clinical experience I had and I learned a lot from it.
 
Top