school list help - WAMC in California

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quintapov

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I'm a white, non trad. PhD in Anthro, and I've been working the last few years as a medical researcher at a R1 school in California.

sgpa/CGPA are both 3.9.

mcat score is 521

I have seven first author pubs, with three more I'm working on right now. About 25 total publications.

Volunteer and shadowing hours are weak. I have over 100 hours of non clinical volunteer and only 40 to 50 shadowing and non clinical hours.

I'm struggling to finish a school list. Do I just stick with the top 15 research schools or should I expand my search more broadly to lower ranking schools? I don't want to get "low yielded" but I also know how competitive those schools are and my volunteer hours are not great.

I prefer to stay in California.

Can anyone offer any advice?
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If you only apply to top 15 schools, despite your dream experiences, pubs, and academics, you risk not getting in. Every year, ~8% of MCAT 100 percentile trainees do not get in. Why? Too elitist...
For MD/PhD state of residency does NOT matter. US citizen/PR is all what matters.

See my typical advice in other WAMC. To cruise and triage interviews as they are offered, you need to add 5 schools in the 31-40 list, 5 schools in the 21-30, plus your 20 top 20 schools.
 
Thanks for the advice. I've tweaked my list and included a number of lower ranked research schools.

I'm not interested in MD/PhD program because I already have a PhD.
 
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