School list help / WAMC: (516 MCAT, 3.87 GPA, ORM, re-applicant)

[sunil2rao]

Hi! I am a re-applicant, looking for help with my school list. Below are my stats and schools list. Please provide your feedback

• Re-applicant.
• 3.87 GPA
• MCAT: 516 (128/128/128/132)
• IL resident (studied at Ohio State, trad/1 gap yr)
• ORM (Indian Male)
• Clinical experience: ~2000 hrs CNA, ~150 hrs as a scribe
• Research experience: ~2000 hrs as a research assistant, Published thesis as an undergrad
• Shadowing experience and specialties represented: 100 hrs
• Non-clinical volunteering: 1500+ hrs – Neuroscience Ambassador, Tutor, Red Cross, food bank, local community organizations

School List

Category	College	Location	MCAT
2	CWRU	cleveland	519
2	Emory	Atlanta
2	Northwestern	Chicago	520
2	Michigan	Ann Arbor, MI	518
2	Pitt	Pittsburg	518
3	Ohio State	Columbus, OH	516
3	Albert Einstein	Bronx, NY	516
3	Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth	NH	516
3	University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry	NY	517
4	Colorado	Aurora, CO	515
4	Medical College Wisconsin	Wisconsin	511
4	Oakland University William Beaumont	Rochester, MI	511
4	Cincinnati	Cincinnati, OH	516
4	Iowa	iowa city	516
4	Univ of Wisconsin	Madison	511
4	virginia commonwealth	richmond	514
4	Univ of Miami	miami	515
4	SLU	St. Louis	514
4	Utah	Salt Lake	513
4	western michigan	kalamazoo	515
4	Florida atlantic	boca rotan, FL	515
4	Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine	Nutley, NJ	515
4	Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University	Hamden, CT	514
4	Toledo	Toledo	510
4	Eastern Virginia Medical School	Norfolk, VA	512
4	West Virginia University School of Medicine	West Virginia	512
4	Robert Larner, M.D., College of Medicine at the University of Vermont	Vermont	512
4	Wake Forest University School of Medicine	NC	512
4	Creighton	Omaha, NE	515
4	Indiana University school of medicine	Indiana
5	UCF	orlando	515
5	UIC	chicago	512
5	Carle Illinois	Urbana, IL	515
5	Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine	Dayton Ohio
6	Drexel	Philly	512
6	Loyola	Chicago	512
6	New York Medical College	NY	516
6	Rush	chicago	510
6	Thomas Jefferson	philly	515
6	Tufts	boston	515
6	Tulane	new orleans	512
6	Albany Medical College	NY	510
6	George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences	DC	512
6	Georgetown University School of Medicine	DC	514
6	Boston University Aram V. Chobanian & Edward Avedisian School of Medicine	Boston	518
6	penn state	Hershey, PA

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[Faha]

Did you receive any interviews in your previous application cycle ?

 

[Mr.Smile12]

1500+ hrs – Neuroscience Ambassador, Tutor, Red Cross, food bank, local community organizations

Please break down your hours by activity.

Shadowing experience and specialties represented: 100 hrs

It would also help to know what your mission fit is.

 

[sunil2rao]

Did you receive any interviews in your previous application cycle ?

Nope. None

 

[sunil2rao]

Please break down your hours by activity.

It would also help to know what your mission fit is.

Volunteering activity break down:

1. Neuro Ambassador: 300
2. Tutoring: 400
3. Red Cross: 100
4. Food Bank: 50
5. Religious organization: 500

Specialties Shadowed: neurology, internal medicine, nephrology, orthopedics, sports medicine, surgery, cardiology.

Does this answer your question? Not sure what mission fit means.

Thanks and regards,

 

[Faha]

Nope. None

I suggest these schools with your stats:
U Illinois
Southern Illinois (if you are from central or southern Illinois)
Loyola
Rush
Rosalind Franklin
Iowa
Medical College Wisconsin
Western Michigan
Oakland Beaumont
Wayne State
Ohio State
Cincinnati
St. Louis
Creighton
TCU
Tulane
USF Morsani
Miami
NOVA MD
Wake Forest
Virginia Commonwealth
Eastern Virginia
Georgetown
George Washington
Penn State
Drexel
Temple
Jefferson
Pittsburgh
Hackensack
Hofstra
Einstein
New York Medical College
Albany
Rochester
Vermont
Quinnipiac
Tufts

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Volunteering activity break down:

1. Neuro Ambassador: 300
2. Tutoring: 400
3. Red Cross: 100
4. Food Bank: 50
5. Religious organization: 500

So most of your hours is with your faith-based organization... what were you doing? Then you did a lot of tutoring.

In short, your non-clinical community service showing service orientation would be Red Cross (which could be clinical-adjacent but you don't say) and food bank. 150 hours is above the minimum threshold for most schools for service orientation, but your distribution of hours makes it appear to me that it's just something you could be doing to "check the box". Tutoring usually goes under "teaching" and does not count towards alleviating others' distress.

Mission fit, briefly, is the reason why you want to come to our school and why you fit our mission as a school/program.

 

[sunil2rao]

So most of your hours is with your faith-based organization... what were you doing? Then you did a lot of tutoring.

In short, your non-clinical community service showing service orientation would be Red Cross (which could be clinical-adjacent but you don't say) and food bank. 150 hours is above the minimum threshold for most schools for service orientation, but your distribution of hours makes it appear to me that it's just something you could be doing to "check the box". Tutoring usually goes under "teaching" and does not count towards alleviating others' distress.

Mission fit, briefly, is the reason why you want to come to our school and why you fit our mission as a school/program.

At the faith based org, I have helped with fundraising events (raised over $500K in 4 years), volunteered in the running of free medical checkup and vaccination clinics, performed facility cleaning activities like mopping, pots and pan cleaning, vacuuming etc.

 

[deleted1156722]

I have to admit that I still cannot fathom why you didn’t receive a single interview last cycle with those stats and experiences.
While the suggestions given by the SDN experts is generally beneficial such as improving activities/ personal statements/ mission/ fit etc…the simple but fatal flaw in your application that no one is talking about, but is (hopefully) going to be fixed in 2023-2024 cycle, is the minus points being given by all the adcoms for your Asian American race/ethnicity. Once med schools cannot consider those immutable characteristics based on the upcoming SCOTUS decision, your application will surely fetch interviews. So apply for this cycle with a positive mindset and you will surely be successful!

Also, when you have a moment, just look through some SDN posts in “Reapplicant threads”. You will see 4.0 and 527 and exemplary ORM students reapplying after a failed admissions cycle, and on the other hand, there are those successful applicants with far inferior scores, attributes and experiences as per their posts, trying to choose between 5-10 admissions includes top 10 med schools, and openly cheered on by Adcoms including here at SDN.

Unfortunately, it is the ORM/ Asian American meritorious students who have to prove their their “mission” and “motivation”. Or charitably speaking, the best responses to those ORM is that their application was unlucky and likely fell through a “crack”. Wow! that must be one big giant tectonic plate shift rather than a crack, if so many ORMs applications are falling repeatedly through that!

 

[MrPuff]

It would be interesting to see the OP's stats/activities used for the last cycle. It's conceivable they had little/no clinical experience, little/no shadowing, or weak interviewing skills. They've got decent stats and a broad list so I'm guessing one of these areas needs to be tuned up.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

the simple but fatal flaw in your application that no one is talking about, but is (hopefully) going to be fixed in 2023-2024 cycle, is the minus points being given by all the adcoms for your Asian American race/ethnicity. Once med schools cannot consider those immutable characteristics based on the upcoming SCOTUS decision, your application will surely fetch interviews. So apply for this cycle with a positive mindset and you will surely be successful!

I've never seen "minus points" in any of the processes I've been involved with (that would be illegal). I've also worked with various admissions committees with a majority of ORM's (i.e., Asians and MENASA) as voting members.

I also do not have any optimism that things will "get better" once we hear from the SFFA cases soon.

"Overrepresented Minorities": A Brief History - SDN

The Student Doctor Network provides free tools, resources, and advising services to help students become health professionals.

www.studentdoctor.net

So for the OP: have you done any outreach before applying with APAMSA chapter officers at the schools on your list (or similar affinity organizations that may appeal to your identity)?

 

[deleted1156722]

I've never seen "minus points" in any of the processes I've been involved with (that would be illegal). I've also worked with various admissions committees with a majority of ORM's (i.e., Asians and MENASA) as voting members.

I appreciate the AAPI/MENA related ORM information provided by Mr.Smile12, and it further sheds light on the errors of misclassifying such a diverse demographic group into one simple “race box”.
The bottom line is that regardless of how one chooses to frame this argument (i.e giving minus points for ORMs or plus points for URMs), the fact remains that the medical school admissions is a “zero-sum” game. If race/ethnicity is going to be counted as a determinant for admissions, that means some people are going to get in and some people are going to be excluded- based on race.

The key tables from 2021-2022 for comparisons.

	2021 Matriculant MCAT / GPA	2022 Matriculant MCAT / GPA
White	512.7 / 3.78	512.6 / 3.79
Asian	514.5 / 3.79	514.4 / 3.80
Black or African American	505.9 / 3.55	505.7 / 3.55
Hispanic, Latino, or of Spanish Origin	506.6 / 3.64	506.1 / 3.62

Yes, ascribing plus or minus points based on race/ethnicity is unconstitutional. That is why the Affirmative Action arguments throughout SCOTUS history has been pretty close with 5 to 4 rulings from the justices, and never been a slam dunk for AA in the past. That is because race-based admissions does cause considerable consternation to the majority of people in this country regardless of their political persuasions, as it is unconstitutional and illegal.

https://www.aamc.org/media/6066/download?attachment

 

[sunil2rao]

Following. Also very interested to see how many of these experiences/hours were completed after you applied last year. Is this the same MCAT score you applied with last year? I'm wondering if it's possible adcoms potentially(and wrongfully) considered your mcat more like a 512-514 instead of a 516 as it was boosted by a 132 P/S.

MCAT is same as last year.

 

[sunil2rao]

It would be interesting to see the OP's stats/activities used for the last cycle. It's conceivable they had little/no clinical experience, little/no shadowing, or weak interviewing skills. They've got decent stats and a broad list so I'm guessing one of these areas needs to be tuned up.

Graduated in 3 yrs, last year. Since last year I have been working as an MA at a medical practice. Majority those hours (about 80%) were relevant last year. My MCAT was from last year too. Interviewing skill is comment....not sure about that. Never got an interview.

 

[sunil2rao]

I've never seen "minus points" in any of the processes I've been involved with (that would be illegal). I've also worked with various admissions committees with a majority of ORM's (i.e., Asians and MENASA) as voting members.

I also do not have any optimism that things will "get better" once we hear from the SFFA cases soon.

"Overrepresented Minorities": A Brief History - SDN

The Student Doctor Network provides free tools, resources, and advising services to help students become health professionals.

www.studentdoctor.net

So for the OP: have you done any outreach before applying with APAMSA chapter officers at the schools on your list (or similar affinity organizations that may appeal to your identity)?

no APAMSA outreach. Should I?

 

[Mr.Smile12]

no APAMSA outreach. Should I?

Any other outreach? I think it helps to know that schools on your list are supportive of affinity groups within its student body, and knowing what the experience is for students with a similar background to yours matters.

 

[Goro]

At the faith based org, I have helped with fundraising events (raised over $500K in 4 years), volunteered in the running of free medical checkup and vaccination clinics, performed facility cleaning activities like mopping, pots and pan cleaning, vacuuming etc.

How many hours of the bolded? That's what counts.

You need to demonstrate that you're comfortable getting off campus and out of your comfort zone and engaging in service to others less fortunate than yourself. I suspect that this is what is hindering you.

Faha's list is good, although many of the schools on the list are service loving schools.

 

[DubyD]

I have to admit that I still cannot fathom why you didn’t receive a single interview last cycle with those stats and experiences.
While the suggestions given by the SDN experts is generally beneficial such as improving activities/ personal statements/ mission/ fit etc…the simple but fatal flaw in your application that no one is talking about, but is (hopefully) going to be fixed in 2023-2024 cycle, is the minus points being given by all the adcoms for your Asian American race/ethnicity. Once med schools cannot consider those immutable characteristics based on the upcoming SCOTUS decision, your application will surely fetch interviews. So apply for this cycle with a positive mindset and you will surely be successful!

Also, when you have a moment, just look through some SDN posts in “Reapplicant threads”. You will see 4.0 and 527 and exemplary ORM students reapplying after a failed admissions cycle, and on the other hand, there are those successful applicants with far inferior scores, attributes and experiences as per their posts, trying to choose between 5-10 admissions includes top 10 med schools, and openly cheered on by Adcoms including here at SDN.

Unfortunately, it is the ORM/ Asian American meritorious students who have to prove their their “mission” and “motivation”. Or charitably speaking, the best responses to those ORM is that their application was unlucky and likely fell through a “crack”. Wow! that must be one big giant tectonic plate shift rather than a crack, if so many ORMs applications are falling repeatedly through that!

I understand your frustration. I’d be annoyed to if, on paper, i outperform many of my peers. However, you give off a very negative attitude in attributing lack of acceptance due to race, as though it is the sole reason. Here’s the thing, AMCAS has provided applicants 1) a disadvantaged essay to explain if they’ve had any hardships 2) the option to show your socioeconomic status 3) the opportunity to expand on your PS, W/A and secondaries how you’re different from anyone else and even the opportunity to elaborate on any hardships. There’s no such thing as points taken away due to your race, what a foul thing to say. Look at the MSAR for almost every school and tell me what are the top two races who get accepted every year. Asians are definitely not at the bottom. Moreover, there’s a reason why medical schools may want someone of a minority background, can you guess why? Probably because patients feel more comfortable with someone who understands them. You clearly haven’t had enough clinical experience to witness that or you live in an area where you don’t get to see that harsh reality when a white or Asian doctor can’t speak the same language or doesn’t understand a patients preference or way of being. Stop being so damn salty. If you care about patients as I’m sure you elaborated on in your motivations to medicine, I am sure you’d want the best for them. Preaching for admissions in which Asians and whites are the major representation, based on better performance, is not the move.

 

[chilly_md]

The WAMC forums are meant to advise applicants on school lists and any improvements they can make.

This is a reminder that off-topic discussions are not permitted here. There are more appropriate forums for that.

 

[chilly_md]

Volunteering activity break down:

1. Neuro Ambassador: 300
2. Tutoring: 400
3. Red Cross: 100
4. Food Bank: 50
5. Religious organization: 500

Specialties Shadowed: neurology, internal medicine, nephrology, orthopedics, sports medicine, surgery, cardiology.

Does this answer your question? Not sure what mission fit means.

Thanks and regards,

I had advised you in your prior post back in November to get the food bank hours up to 200. It appears you did not add to that at all during this time period.