School list help

[sponget]

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I'm planning to apply to U.S. osteopathic medical schools. This are my stats
MCAT: 507 (124 CARS/129 PS/127 BB/127 CP)
cGPA: 3.6
Ethnicity: half white/half hispanic
In state: Michigan

I'm not sure where to apply. I used the Lizzy score tool to come up with a list of 40+ schools but I'm not sure exactly how to narrow down my list. If my extracurriculars aren't competitive enough to apply this cycle, I'm willing to take a gap year to improve my application.

Extracurriculars:
Volunteer elementary school tutoring: 98 hours
Volunteer high school tutoring: 30 hours
Research assistant for government (paid) 600 hours
Volunteer crisis responder: 230 hours
Volunteer data collector at and activity and aging facility: 7 hours (this will increase to about 14 hours within the year)
Research assistant volunteer: 28 hours (still doing this, possible 2nd author pub)

Thank you so much for the help!

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Welcome to the forums.

Have you attended any recruitment events at the medical schools you wish to apply to OR any of your in-state programs? Michigan has a lot of seats with its MD programs, and I would still consider many of them who have strong connections with the Latino community should you identify closely with their culture in your life experiences. (It helps but is not necessary that you speak Spanish to this end.)

I would like more information about what your paid research government assistant position entails. It is different from data collection?

Otherwise, you don't list any campus club activities (leadership?), and I need more details about volunteer crisis responder to gauge whether you address non-clinical service orientation.

I don't pay attention to activities with fewer than 50 hours, unless you're shadowing. (Where's your clinical exposure, by the way?).

 

[Faha]

Do you have any physician shadowing hours? Do you have any clinical volunteering/employment hours with patient contact? Are you fluent in Spanish?

 

[sponget]

Thank you for the response.

I haven't attended any recruitment events yet. I'm just starting to get serious about applying (even if it's during a different cycle) so my experiences aren't really complete yet. I don't speak Spanish and am not involved in anything very specific to being Latino.

I am going to do some shadowing this summer: maybe about 20 hours and I'll try to find more physicians to shadow.

- my paid research position was within agricultural research and involved helping set up trials, apply treatments, maintain the trials, collect data, and data entry.

- my crisis responder role was through an online platform and involved me speaking directly to people who texted the hotline and helping them.

I don't have much leadership or clinical exposure. I guess if that's absolutely something I need before I apply, I could work on that during a gap year. The area where I live, the hospitals want 5+ month commitments from volunteers and since I live in a different city for school, it's not possible for me to commit for that duration- so I guess I've just avoided those volunteer roles.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Then it's way too early to think about applying to school. You have the cart before the horse with having an official MCAT (which means you really have 2-3 years to play with this score before you may have to retake it for most schools). The MCAT should be a confirmation step after you have at least 150 hours of clinical exposure which would could include 50 hours of shadowing (including primary care).

You also need in-person community service experiences that are not tutoring or mentoring. Crisis hotline is okay, but that's not how healthcare is effectively practiced.

Did you not meet with your prehealth advisor on campus? They should have presented you a traditional roadmap/checklist for an application.

 

[Faha]

With no clinical volunteering or shadowing hours you should wait until June 2026 to apply. Accumulate 50 hours of in person physician shadowing (including primary care) and 200+ hours of clinical volunteering with patient contact in the coming year.