School List?

[DrDriven07]

Hello all. I am planning to be applying this upcoming June and would like some feedback on this very raw list of schools I am interested in applying to. I attempted to only add schools where they have at least 2+ people doing research that fits my interests (Alzheimer’s Disease). Additionally, I tried to add a mixture of very top schools and mid-tier schools. Lastly, I am really not sure how many schools I should apply to. Please let me know if I have too many schools and/or if I should add/remove a school or two. Thank you for your time, and I hope you all continue to stay safe.

1. GPA: 4.0
2. MCAT: 515 (129/125/131/130)
3. Race: African American (URM)
4. Residence: Georgia
5. School: State School
6. Research Experience: Will have approximately 3k hours by the time I apply in June. 1 2nd-author publication in a mid-tier journal. 11 Conference presentations. Two Summer research programs: 1 at my state school, 1 at MIT (would have gone back this past summer if it weren’t for COVID). For majority of my research, it has been independent as my state school does not have PhDs nor Postdocs so undergraduates take large leadership roles. Will complete an Honor’s Research Thesis.
7. Notable Awards: NSF STEM Scholarship and Goldwater Scholarship. ABRCMS Presentation Award.
8. Extracurriculars: Will have been a TA for 7 semesters in a wide range of courses (General Chemistry and Organic Chemistry mainly). President/founder of a student organization. Work with school Administration to help improve STEM education to minority students in STEM majors.
9. Clinical Experience/Shadowing: 250+ clinical volunteer hours. 25+ shadowing hours.
10. Other notable Internships/awards: Stanford MSTP Internship. Mitchell Scholar Semi-Finalist.
11. Should have amazing LOR.

School list:

1. Stanford
2. Harvard
3. Cornell
4. Yale
5. NYU
6. Mayo
7. John Hopkins
8. UCLA
9. UCSD
10. Columbia
11. Icahn
12. UCSF
13. Miami
14. Michigan
15. Florida
16. Emory
17. OSU
18. UNC
19. UT Southwestern
20. UT San Antonio
21. Wisconsin
22. UAB
23. Tufts
24. Maryland
25. UMass
26. Northwestern (free secondary)
27. Pittsburgh
28. Case Western
29. Indiana
30. Iowa

 

[turtle114]

You should be good to go, beware of secondary writing fatigue with this many schools. Consider cutting 5-10 (but if the $ is no object and you have time to write all day in July/Aug, go ahead.)

 

[gnΩhmChild]

I applied to a similar about of schools and I'd echo the statement about writing fatigue. I started as early as possible and tried to prioritize prompts that were shared between schools (diversity, challenge, etc). Its hard to comment in detail about your list but it doesn't look too top heavy, in my opinion. You may consider adding some 'safer' schools depending on your field of interest. I also read a quote on here a while ago that I think is relevant - 'for MD/PhD admissions every school is a reach', so just keep that in mind and don't take it for granted.

 

[DrDriven07]

I applied to a similar about of schools and I'd echo the statement about writing fatigue. I started as early as possible and tried to prioritize prompts that were shared between schools (diversity, challenge, etc). Its hard to comment in detail about your list but it doesn't look too top heavy, in my opinion. You may consider adding some 'safer' schools depending on your field of interest. I also read a quote on here a while ago that I think is relevant - 'for MD/PhD admissions every school is a reach', so just keep that in mind and don't take it for granted.

Is there a source where I could find the common secondary essay prompts? It may be worth my time to atleast prep some ideas or drafts to increase my efficiency during my application cycle.

 

[gnΩhmChild]

You could just google the name of the school + 'secondaries' or 'mstp secondaries' or something similar and you'll get most of them. Some of them change year to year but you'll get a feel for what questions are common.