Second Thoughts About Reapplying This Cycle

[Jomamallamasama]

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So I had my primary application ready to go but now I am having second thoughts after finding/reading this forum. Here is a general outline of my application, numbers that are bolded/underlined are things that are new for this cycle:

Info/Numbers~
-Applied one other time in last year's cycle
-California resident
-GPA: 3.97 (both AO/BCMP)
-MCAT: 37 (11 verbal, 12 phys, and 14 bio)

Experience~
-400 hours total (50 new hours) volunteering at my church (minority religious sect of a minority religion if it counts for anything)
-700 hours total (150 new hours) research in a microbe lab (1 publication)
-440 hours total (200 new hours) volunteering in a pediatric hospital and ER (heavy patient contact)
-250 hours working as a TA at the university
-100 hours working as a lab assistant
-7 hours shadowing (ughhhhhh.... I have another session lined up but its in June)
-Literally just started volunteering in a child center for kids from underserved families

Things I know are hurting me~
-Amount of shadowing (can't find doctors to shadow to save my life)
-Amount of helping the underserved community
-Fact that I didn't take psychology/sociology as an undergrad. In regards to this I have planned to take a semester of each at a local 4 year university's "open university" program during the coming fall so they are currently marked as "future" on my app. I also only chose schools that either have the two subjects as "recommended" or don't mention them at all.

Last Cycle~
-Applied to 26 schools across the country, made it to the secondary apps with no problems (mainly looking at the UCs here since they actually look over your primary before sending the secondary) and then got 2 interviews where I was waitlisted to both schools (Wayne St. and University of Virginia).
-Potential problems: didn't screen as well for schools that don't require/highly recommend soci/psych although that doesn't account for that many, turned in secondary apps 2 weeks after I got them

Last year I got secondary apps from schools I know screen the primary apps so I don't think my PS is terrible (and I didn't rewrite it since my past experiences that serve as a motive for going to medical school have not changed, although based on comments on the forum it's a bad call?). I also received no feedback from the two schools I interviewed at, although I know I need to work on my interview skills. The other problem is that if I take a gap year to spruce up the above my MCAT score will start to expire (took it in May 2014). Any thoughts/comments on reapplying in my scenario would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[Faha]

Where did you apply last cycle? You should be able to receive a MD acceptance with your excellent stats.

 

[Jomamallamasama]

UCLA, U of Wisconsin, Ohio State U, USC, U of Virginia, U of Pittsburgh, Baylor, Columbia, Georgetown U, U of Minnesota, UCSD, Vanderbilt, Wayne State, Kansas U, Emory, Boston, Yale, Rosiland Fanklin, Arizona Tuscon, Case Western, Harvard, UCI, Indiana U, Temple, and UCR. I thought I had a decent smattering of low/mid/upper tier schools in the mix but I maybe remembering my original list before I pruned it down.

This time around I was going to focus more on OOS privates or public schools that had good seat counts and % out-of-state stats.

Thanks for replying.

 

[Faha]

I suggest concentrating on OOS private schools since state schools prefer their own residents. There are some exceptions and obviously you found 2 of them since you are on the waiting list at Wayne State and Virginia. You could still receive an acceptance from either of those in the next 2 months. Schools you could consider are:
Tufts
Boston University
Vermont
Hofstra
Einstein
Albany
New York Medical College
Drexel
Temple
Jefferson
GW
Georgetown
Wake Forest
Loyola
St. Louis
Rosalind Franklin
Medical College Wisconsin
Creighton
Tulane
Miami
Apply to all your CA schools and any reaches you desire as well as Virginia and Wayne State

 

[qwerty89]

you just had a really REALLY poor school list. The one above is much better.

 

[Jomamallamasama]

I suggest concentrating on OOS private schools since state schools prefer their own residents. There are some exceptions and obviously you found 2 of them since you are on the waiting list at Wayne State and Virginia. You could still receive an acceptance from either of those in the next 2 months. Schools you could consider are:
Tufts
Boston University
Vermont
Hofstra
Einstein
Albany
New York Medical College
Drexel
Temple
Jefferson
GW
Georgetown
Wake Forest
Loyola
St. Louis
Rosalind Franklin
Medical College Wisconsin
Creighton
Tulane
Miami
Apply to all your CA schools and any reaches you desire as well as Virginia and Wayne State

Alright, thanks! I think I got most of them but there are some that I can't remember if I looked into them. For OOS public schools I chose the ones that had both a large number of seats and a relatively high out-of-state acceptance percentage so hopefully they turn out alright.

 

[Jomamallamasama]

you just had a really REALLY poor school list. The one above is much better.

Oh, well I'm relieved if some/most (hoping for "most") of my problems stemmed from the schools I picked. I guess it's a good sign that the list I planned on using this year had mostly new schools and contained a lot from Faha's list. Thanks for replying.