School List Help/WAMC: 3.93sGPA, 521 MCAT

[treetop123]

GPA: cGPA: 3.98 sGPA: 3.93
MCAT: 521 (131/128/130/132)
State: Wisconsin resident
Ethnicity/Race: White ORM
Undergraduate Institution: T-40 Undergrad CA. Graduated Spring 2022.


Clinical experience (volunteer and non-volunteer):
- 500 hours as patient care associate at psychiatric hospital (current job- started in Sept. 2022)

-80 hours hospital volunteer PACU/patient transport

-65 hours home health aide in nursing home

Research experience and productivity:
- Have recently began helping write a clinical case report with a physician at the psychiatric hospital I work at

-No other research experience, mainly because basketball took up so much time during undergrad


Shadowing experience and specialties represented:
- 8 hours with pediatrician

- 16 hours with internal medicine (hospitalist)

-4 hours general surgery

- 20 hours psychiatry

Non-clinical volunteering:
- 100-110 hours local food pantry
- 230 hours crisis text line

Other extracurricular activities (including athletics, military service, gap year activities, leadership, teaching, etc):
- D1 Basketball for 3.5 years

Relevant honors or awards:
- Full athletic scholarship for entire undergrad degree



Anything else not listed you think might be important:

Would love some advice on my school list. Realize my lack of research could hold me back at top schools. Have also heard about yield protection and wondering if that could be a factor at certain schools given my GPA/MCAT. Wanted some thoughts on the types of schools I should apply to tier wise. Ideally, interested in staying in the Midwest, but will obviously apply all over.


I’ve seen @Goro @Faha @chilly_md @Mr.Smile12 tagged for advice. Thank you so much in advance for your help and expertise, I really appreciate it!

Current School List:

UW-Madison
MCW
Minnesota
Rosalind Franklin
Loyola
Western Michigan
Indiana
Penn State
St Louis
Creighton
Ohio State
USF
Nova Southeastern
Cincinnati
Michigan
Iowa
Miami
Pitt
Vermont
Virginia
Emory
TCU
Wake Forest
VCU
Arizona (Phoenix)
Case Western
Mayo
Northwestern
U of Chicago
Kaiser

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[Mr.Smile12]

Barring any mismatch with mission, your in-state programs should send you invitations. I need a better picture of what you want to be doing as a physician in 10 years. What is your purpose in becoming a physician?

 

[chilly_md]

I hope you made some good memories with your team, we don't usually see D1 basketball players. Rooting for Wisconsin to climb back up and keep Michigan down in men's college bb.

You are right that there will be schools (such as Rosalind Franklin) that will assume you will matriculate somewhere else. I suggest:

UW-Madison
MCW
Western Michigan
Indiana
St Louis
Creighton
Ohio State
USF
Cincinnati
Michigan
Iowa
Miami
Pitt
Vermont
Virginia
Emory
Case Western
Mayo
Northwestern
UMass
WUSTL
Vanderbilt
Colorado
Dartmouth
Einstein
Hofstra
Rochester
Sinai
NYU
Jefferson
Tufts

It is coincidental that most of these have had their own spotlight at some point in basketball.

 

[LizzyM]

Counterintuitive for someone who wants to do medicine but a year of bench research followed by a year of psych tech work would have been a better combo. You have the grades and scores for top research schools but without research, that is not a viable option. The schools not as interested in having students do research will figure that they don't have a chance with you because in some ways you look like a shoo-in for the top schools.
There is at least one med school in Wisconsin that can be completed in three years but limits students to primary care including psychiatry. Would that be appealing? Given your work experience, if that's what interests you, you may be able to make a good case for wanting to matriculate there.

 

[atung]

This is a solid list (similar to mine this cycle, as also a Wisconsin resident). I don't think you'll face too many yield-protection from schools (you should at least receive interviews first) as long as you spend the time on secondaries to really show that you want to go to those schools. As a CA graduate, you're not planning to apply to any CA schools?

 

[Goro]

I hope you made some good memories with your team, we don't usually see D1 basketball players. Rooting for Wisconsin to climb back up and keep Michigan down in men's college bb.

You are right that there will be schools (such as Rosalind Franklin) that will assume you will matriculate somewhere else. I suggest:

UW-Madison
MCW
Western Michigan
Indiana
St Louis
Creighton
Ohio State
USF
Cincinnati
Michigan
Iowa
Miami
Pitt
Vermont
Virginia
Emory
Case Western
Mayo
Northwestern
UMass
WUSTL
Vanderbilt
Colorado
Dartmouth
Einstein
Hofstra
Rochester
Sinai
NYU
Jefferson
Tufts

It is coincidental that most of these have had their own spotlight at some point in basketball.

I agree with this list. Also consider Emory, Keck, UCSF, UCLA, SUNY.SB, Baylor

 

[GoSpursGo]

I think the above lists are pretty good. Honestly, I suspect you don’t strictly NEED to apply to this many schools—you are very likely to get into at least one of your state schools, so I’d really look at the schools on this list and narrow it down to schools that you would actually choose to matriculate at over your state schools, which are already quite good.

Additionally, while I agree that top schools tend to value research highly… I’m not so sure I agree that you would be locked out of them. As noted above, a D1 athlete with these kinds of stats is extremely rare, so I think there is a chance you could snag an interview or two that you might not have suspected. The rub is that none of us can predict which schools where your athletic background might play well, but if you have a burning desire to send an app to a few “dream schools” I don’t think that is crazy

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Adding: yes, your D1 athletics experience is going to be interesting to many schools, but again, you need to find mission fit and do some networking with students.

You also should not worry about yield protection from your in-state schools.