MD School List Help: 3.85 cGPA/ 3.72 sGPA/ 514 MCAT

[Lampy]

Hey, I know this is a lot of schools and are kind of all over the place. I almost applied last cycle, but due to some personal stuff I decided to take a gap year (currently planning to take CNA job and work in an assisted living facility). I would love any advice you all would have, i.e. if my distribution of reach schools is off (I tried to follow WARS but then added more, whoops). Also if there are weak points please please let me know! I really appreciate any help, thank you all. 🙂


GPA:
in title, no significant trends

MCAT:
CP 128
CARS 129
BB 126
PS 131

Major/Minors/Certificate:
Biology and Anthropology majors, Health disparities in Society minor, Medical Anthropology certificate

State of Residence:
FL

Year In school:
Senior, graduating in May

Ethnicity:
White

Research experience:
200 hours in a Herpetology lab freshman spring to sophomore fall (was paid in the summer and fall), 1 regional poster
1000 hours sophomore spring to present in genetics lab looking at under researched populations (first heart disease and genetic correlations in African American populations in FL then trauma, resilience, and genetic correlations in Jordanian and Syrian refugee populations), 2 posters and an honors thesis

Non-clinical volunteering:
250 hours in assorted volunteering through my community service fraternity, mostly offering free childcare to low SES communities and companionship to seniors in a memory care ward)

Clinical Volunteering:
250 hours working in quality improvement internship at my university hospital junior summer- junior spring, 3 posters published on Hospice and patient portal sign up initiatives
150 hours senior fall to present doing HIV testing and counseling throughout local communities, focusing on LGBTQ+ and homeless populations

Non-Clinical Employment:
2000+ hours as an RA sophomore summer to present, promoted after first year to head specialty programming for honors dorm
250 hours from senior spring to present working as a Technology Consultant on campus (mostly customer service with printing)

Shadowing:
50 hours with a neurosurgeon sophomore year, really tying to find local PCP to shadow with before June

Immediate Family in Medicine:
Yes, dad is a doctor and mom is a nurse.

Other:
Held leadership on like a student government for RAs for 2 years (treasurer then VP), pledge class service vice president then leadership chair in community service fraternity
assorted leadership elsewhere on campus, but generally smaller roles


Tentative School List:
U Michigan
Stanford
Duke- (legacy- uncle)
Emory
UVA (legacy- dad and sister)
Mayo
Baylor- (legacy aunt)
U Pittsburgh
Case Western
U Vermont
Ohio State
Dartmouth
Hofstra
Einstein
U Colarado
U Rochester
U Cincinnati
Kaiser
Wake Forest
U Illinois
U South Dakota (parent lives here)
Creighton
VTech (legacy- brother)
FAU
FIU
FSU
UCF
UF
UMiami
USF
Nova
Tufts
BU

TMDSAS:
Dell (legacy- dad, I know unlikely, but I really love Austin (my brother is literally named after the city))

Some Canadian schools (I'm a dual citizen)
U British Columbia(parent and half of family live here)
U Toronto
McMaster
U Ottawa

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[Mr.Smile12]

Hey, I know this is a lot of schools and are kind of all over the place. I almost applied last cycle, but due to some personal stuff I decided to take a gap year (currently planning to take CNA job and work in an assisted living facility). I would love any advice you all would have, i.e. if my distribution of reach schools is off (I tried to follow WARS but then added more, whoops). Also if there are weak points please please let me know! I really appreciate any help, thank you all. 🙂


GPA:
in title, no significant trends

MCAT:
CP 128
CARS 129
BB 126
PS 131

Major/Minors/Certificate:
Biology and Anthropology majors, Health disparities in Society minor, Medical Anthropology certificate

State of Residence:
FL

Year In school:
Senior, graduating in May

Ethnicity:
White

Research experience:
200 hours in a Herpetology lab freshman spring to sophomore fall (was paid in the summer and fall), 1 regional poster
1000 hours sophomore spring to present in genetics lab looking at under researched populations (first heart disease and genetic correlations in African American populations in FL then trauma, resilience, and genetic correlations in Jordanian and Syrian refugee populations), 2 posters and an honors thesis

Non-clinical volunteering:
250 hours in assorted volunteering through my community service fraternity, mostly offering free childcare to low SES communities and companionship to seniors in a memory care ward)

Clinical Volunteering:
250 hours working in quality improvement internship at my university hospital junior summer- junior spring, 3 posters published on Hospice and patient portal sign up initiatives
150 hours senior fall to present doing HIV testing and counseling throughout local communities, focusing on LGBTQ+ and homeless populations

Non-Clinical Employment:
2000+ hours as an RA sophomore summer to present, promoted after first year to head specialty programming for honors dorm
250 hours from senior spring to present working as a Technology Consultant on campus (mostly customer service with printing)

Shadowing:
50 hours with a neurosurgeon sophomore year, really tying to find local PCP to shadow with before June

Immediate Family in Medicine:
Yes, dad is a doctor and mom is a nurse.

Other:
Held leadership on like a student government for RAs for 2 years (treasurer then VP), pledge class service vice president then leadership chair in community service fraternity
assorted leadership elsewhere on campus, but generally smaller roles


Tentative School List:
U Michigan
Stanford
Duke- (legacy- uncle)
Emory
UVA (legacy- dad and sister)
Mayo
Baylor- (legacy aunt)
U Pittsburgh
Case Western
U Vermont
Ohio State
Dartmouth
Hofstra
Einstein
U Colarado
U Rochester
U Cincinnati
Kaiser
Wake Forest
U Illinois
U South Dakota (parent lives here)
Creighton
VTech (legacy- brother)
FAU
FIU
FSU
UCF
UF
UMiami
USF
Nova
Tufts
BU

TMDSAS:
Dell (legacy- dad, I know unlikely, but I really love Austin (my brother is literally named after the city))

Some Canadian schools (I'm a dual citizen)
U British Columbia(parent and half of family live here)
U Toronto
McMaster
U Ottawa

First off, if you're not Canadian, don't apply to Canada for medical school. They are also heavily metrics driven. Technically all legacy and donor relationships are under strict scrutiny due to Varsity Blues.

514 might be a bit low for your top tier schools like Stanford or Duke, though others can provide comment.

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[Lampy]

First off, if you're not Canadian, don't apply to Canada for medical school. They are also heavily metrics driven. Technically all legacy and donor relationships are under strict scrutiny due to Varsity Blues.

514 might be a bit low for your top tier schools like Stanford or Duke, though others can provide comment.

Sent from my SM-N960U using SDN mobile

Thank you so much for your feedback!! I am a dual citizen and called some schools to verify that I will count as Canadian in their applications, but yeah you're definitely right!

And yeah I'm not very hopeful about the legacy schools, just my relatives who went to those schools said they would cover my application fees there so I figured why not add them. I know I'm low for stanford and duke too, but WARS told me to add a couple top schools I think.

Overall, does my list look okay or is it too top heavy?

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Thank you so much for your feedback!! I am a dual citizen and called some schools to verify that I will count as Canadian in their applications, but yeah you're definitely right!

And yeah I'm not very hopeful about the legacy schools, just my relatives who went to those schools said they would cover my application fees there so I figured why not add them. I know I'm low for stanford and duke too, but WARS told me to add a couple top schools I think.

Overall, does my list look okay or is it too top heavy?

Okay. A colleague of mine at CWRU School of Medicine has a podcast where in a recent episode the admissions director at University of Toronto talks about the process including how American applicants are welcome to apply. (I haven't listened, but just read the teaser text.) You may want to find it and listen to it.

 

[Lampy]

Okay. A colleague of mine at CWRU School of Medicine has a podcast where in a recent episode the admissions director at University of Toronto talks about the process including how American applicants are welcome to apply. (I haven't listened, but just read the teaser text.) You may want to find it and listen to it.

All Access: Med School Admissions Episodes | School of Medicine | School of Medicine | Case Western Reserve University

,

case.edu

Does this look right? All Access: Med School Admissions

This looks really helpful either way! I didn't realize there were podcasts about this process; I'll start listening today!

 

[m1redsox]

I’d remove Stanford, Michigan, Mayo, and Pitt (and maybe Case, Hofstra, OSU, Dart, Einstein, Rochester, Illinois, and BU). Your science GPA is significantly lower than their averages, especially for an OOS ORM. I definitely think your list is top-heavy (coming from an ORM 3.82/3.71/515 who applied to 36 schools and only got interviews at schools with lower stats than his), but you should still get some interviews at your state schools and maybe some places where you have connections. I’d also remove Canadian schools unless you are looking to match in Canada— otherwise I think you’ll be fighting an uphill battle to match back into the US, especially since USMLE is P/F.