School List Help: 519 / 4.0

[shoddychance]

Advertisement - Members don't see this ad

Hi! Need some help cutting / adding schools to this list, aiming for ~35 schools but worried I'm applying too top heavy.

Stats:

• CA resident, graduated in 3 years from a top UC, currently in my "senior year" where I'm working full-time doing research
• Low SES, qualify for FAP, first-gen
• ORM
• MCAT: 519 (131, 130, 129, 129)
• GPA: 4.0
• Research
  • 3800 hours cancer research lab (2400 projected)
    • 3 regional and 1 national first-author poster presentations with 1 poster award
    • 2 mid-author pubs in-progress, to be submitted later this year / next year in high-impact journals
    • strong letter of rec from my PI
  • 500 hours across two independent research projects
    • 2 undergrad-level poster presentations
    • strong letter of rec from physician I worked with on these projects
• Clinical
  • 600 hours paid medical assistant
  • 400 hours volunteering at an unhoused street clinic with leadership position (250 projected)
  • 60 hours volunteering, rounding with surgery team on pre- and post-operative patients (70 projected)
• Nonclinical
  • 300 hours volunteering through a club at undergrad hospital helping pt with electronic health records, leadership position, helped with club recruitment
  • 90 hours emergency department volunteering
• Teaching
  • 360 hours as a TA
  • 585 hours free tutoring for low-income/immigrant students (180 projected)
• Other
  • 80 hours shadowing across different specialties
  • 4500 hours working for family business
  • Personal Statement TLDR: Grew up in a medically underserved community on Medi-Cal, saw how financial barriers, limited access to specialists, etc. affected the care people received → clinical work with underserved patients reinforced my interest in healthcare access and structural barriers → translational cancer research showed me that inequities also exist when effective treatments are lacking

I'm not sure what I want to go into but pretty sure I want to specialize, would prefer to stay in CA or be in a big city. This list from admit is super rough and I know the reach/target classifications aren't accurate:

Harvard
Johns Hopkins
UCSF
Duke
UPenn
Stanford
Columbia
NYU
Vanderbilt
WashU
Yale
UMich
Mayo
Cornell
Northwestern
UPitt
UChicago
Mount Sinai
Emory
Case Western
UCLA
Albert Einstein
UCSD
UVA
USC
Brown
Boston
Rochester
USF
Hofstra
University of Miami
Dartmouth
UCI
Tufts
Georgetown
UCD
Jefferson
Kaiser
NYMC
Loma Linda
CUSM
Cal Northstate

Which schools should I remove to get this list down to ~35? Are there any schools I should consider adding?

 

[chilly_md]

Are the projected hours on top of what you have or is it part of the total hours?

 

[shoddychance]

Are the projected hours on top of what you have or is it part of the total hours?

They’re on top of what I have, “projected” are hours I’m estimating I’ll get throughout my application cycle this yr, the other hours are hours I completed at the time I submitted my application

 

[chilly_md]

That is impressive you were able to accumulate all that without additional gap years.

I recommend these to make your list more manageable:

Harvard
Johns Hopkins
UCSF
Duke
UPenn
Stanford
Columbia
NYU
Vanderbilt
WashU
Yale
UMich
Mayo
Cornell
Northwestern
UPitt
UChicago
Mount Sinai
Emory
Case Western
UCLA
Albert Einstein
UCSD
UVA
USC
Brown
Boston
Rochester
USF
Hofstra
University of Miami
Dartmouth
UCI
Tufts
UCD
Jefferson
Kaiser

 

[shoddychance]

That is impressive you were able to accumulate all that without additional gap years.

I recommend these to make your list more manageable:

Harvard
Johns Hopkins
UCSF
Duke
UPenn
Stanford
Columbia
NYU
Vanderbilt
WashU
Yale
UMich
Mayo
Cornell
Northwestern
UPitt
UChicago
Mount Sinai
Emory
Case Western
UCLA
Albert Einstein
UCSD
UVA
USC
Brown
Boston
Rochester
USF
Hofstra
University of Miami
Dartmouth
UCI
Tufts
UCD
Jefferson
Kaiser

Do you think this list is too top heavy? I’m worried I don’t have enough safeties since it’s mostly T-20s

 

[chilly_md]

Do you think this list is too top heavy? I’m worried I don’t have enough safeties since it’s mostly T-20s

You can swap some of the first 8 + Yale and Michigan with a couple schools like UMass, Ohio State, Cincinnati and Saint Louis.

You have about 15 or so schools that broaden your list like Rochester, USF and Dartmouth. Adding schools like Loyola is not worth it because they target a different type of applicant usually.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

The challenge I see is that your "safeties" should be the UC schools, especially if your personal experience gives you insight about specific communities' challenges. Have you looked at the UC PRIME options at all the UC schools?

It is important that you say you want to stay near home. That may guide you to think seriously about going all the way to the East Coast. It's not that returning to California would be impossible, but the patients you connect with are those that know about MediCal.

In short, what is your purpose as a physician? What do you want to accomplish by the time you are ready to apply for residency?