School List Help CA ORM (4.0/521)

[sundevil123]

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Hello! I'm new to SDN and attempting to finalize my list of schools to apply to for the 2025-2026 cycle. All advice is greatly appreciated!

1. cGPA/sGPA: 4.0
2. MCAT: 521 (130/129/130/132)
3. CA Resident
4. Asian
5. Arizona State University
6. Clinical Experience
   1. Scribe at Dermatology Clinic: 400 hrs
   2. Athletic Training/Sports Medicine Program: 425 hrs
   3. Emergency Department Volunteer: 100 hrs
   4. Mobile Clinic Volunteer: 100 hrs
7. Research Experience
   1. 1200 hrs in Wet Lab (2 poster presentations)
8. Shadowing
   1. 80 hrs (Plastic Surgery, Neurosurgery, Orthopedic Surgery, Trauma Surgery, Family Med, Peds)
9. Non-Clinical Volunteering
   1. 150hrs Food Bank
10. Other extracurricular activities
    1. Chemistry TA 150 hrs
11. All of these hours are what I will have by the time I apply in May. I am worried that my school list has many high yield schools, and I am looking for advice to create a realistic school list. Goal as a physician is to go into clinical academic medicine but not interested in doing an MD/PhD as I am more interested in clinical practice and clinical research more than wet lab research. I am not constrained to how many schools that I apply to, so I am open to expanding and having a larger school list if that gives me a better chance of acceptance.
12. Current School List
    1. UCLA
    2. UCI
    3. UCSF
    4. UCSD
    5. Stanford
    6. USC Keck
    7. Kaiser
    8. University of Arizona
    9. University of Arizona PHX
    10. Mayo Clinic
    11. University of Michigan
    12. University of Colorado
    13. University of Virginia
    14. University of Pittsburgh
    15. Ohio State
    16. Case Western
    17. Northwestern
    18. University of Chicago
    19. Vanderbilt
    20. Wash U
    21. Emory
    22. Duke
    23. Yale
    24. Columbia
    25. University of Pennsylvania
    26. Mount Sinai
    27. Harvard
    28. Cornell
    29. NYU

 

[ClashRoyaleKing]

Maybe add some mid-tiers/non T20's to balance? Your school list is top-heavy.

Creighton
NYMC
Hackensack
USF Morsani
Miami
Iowa
Cincinnati
Dartmouth
Brown

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Your non-clinical volunteering at the food bank likely meets minimum expectations to avoid getting screened out (150 hours), but to stay on pace with applicants with high metrics going for brand-name schools, you should have more. Try to get 250 hours before submitting your application, and keep going.

What is your purpose and mission fit? Every school that would likely interview you would have the resources for clinical exposure for desired specialty training. Additionally, your profile is generic that you would look like everyone else (I see nothing that really stands out from what you have given me).