Should I apply this round or wait for next year? ONLY Top 15!!

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Vader1990

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Hi,

I'm now a rising senior Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. I've been wanting to do Medicine since my Sophomore year here.

Hopkins has like an AWESOME Pre-Professional Society thing, but I was a knuckle-head and like never went to them for advice, and now its down to the wire

So, my fundamental question is should I start applying this round--starting now to early weeks of my Fall Senior--or wait and pursue a Hopkins 5-year combined BS/MS and then go to Med School?

My stats:

BS: Biomedical Engineering
Minors: Computer Integrated Surgery
Mathematics

GPA [overall-inclusive of ALL Pre-Med Requirements]: 3.82/4.00

MCAT: 39S [only took it once] (Physical: 14, Bio: 13, Eng: 12, Writing: S)

EC:
*Research in BME Labs for a few semesters and a summer term
*Internship [summer] at NIH
*I'm a Tenor in an A Cappella Group [we do a lot of charity work for 3rd World Countries]
*Certified EMT-B and part of Rescue Organization on Campus, and during summer with Firefighters in my community
*Minor volunteering with the Hopkins Hospital
*TA for Orgo Lab, and a Computer Science Class
*Part of Biomedical Engineering Society [BMES]
*I have taken a LOT of design [Grad Level] courses and have a ton of research projects to talk about


I want to get a MD, and I REALLY want to go to a Top 10 Med School!

So basically I'm ONLY going to apply to:
Harvard,
JHU
U Penn
UCSF
UCLA
Yale/Columbia
I guess a state school safety or two...

So do you guys think I should wait and get a MSE before applying to Med School or just send my app out now?

Thanks guys, I really appreciate your inputs!

p.s. Feel free to tell me which school I have an alive chance of acceptance and which schools I should stop dreaming about!
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You obviously have a very competitive application. Would another year make any difference? Probably not.

So, why do you only want a top 10 school? There are plenty of fantastic schools. I would advise you to seriously expand your list of schools. Don't just look at some list US News and World report came up with. School location, curriculum, size, and grading systems are all factors which are should be important than rank. Are there advantages to going to a top school? Of course; great faculty, state of the art research, etc. However, ultimately the biggest factors in matching the residency of your choice are your Step scores, letters of recommendation and clerkship grades. No matter how good your application is medical school admission is very fickle; especially at the top schools. Expand your options, but don't apply to a school you would not want to attend. Every year a few poor souls on SDN end up rejected everywhere but a school they applied to but would never attend and its not a good position to find yourself in.

BTW: prepare to be flamed by SDNers who don't like "excellent applicants who worry about which top 10 school will accept them". People who are dealing with rejections and reapplications can get touchy on this subject.
 
If I were you I would apply now, those are very impressive numbers and accomplishments. If you want the masters, get it, but I don't think a masters level degree will necessarily put you above the threshold to get into Harvard, you have a good chance now and after your masters you'll still have only a good chance.

So basically, I think you have a realistic shot at all those schools listed, but I would not be shocked if you didn't get into any of them. I would also not be shocked if you got into most of them. Look at the MDApps site for a better idea of your chances. Find some easier to get into schools (your state schools) that you also like and apply to a few of those too this year.
 
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Just because you have awesome stats doesn't mean you will get into one of those top 15 schools. I know people from Hopkins who had numbers like yours but still ends up getting rejected from everywhere. People who do end up in those top schools these days tend to be older. Many of them spent a few years working so they get a sense of what the real world is like before entering med school. Adcoms like that and those extra years can be extremely valuable.
 
Tryonetic said:
Just because you have awesome stats doesn't mean you will get into one of those top 15 schools. I know people from Hopkins who had numbers like yours but still ends up getting rejected from everywhere. People who do end up in those top schools these days tend to be older. Many of them spent a few years working so they get a sense of what the real world is like before entering med school. Adcoms like that and those extra years can be extremely valuable.
Click to expand...

:rolleyes: x 11ty

Apply. See what happens. I don't think the school you go to matters that much that you should restrict yourself to "top 10", "top 15", or "top 25". To an uncertain extent rankings are arbitrary and uninformative. The criteria are not representative of...well, anything. For example, USNews considers how much money alumni donate as a significant factor in their ranking of undergraduate schools :laugh:.
 
Going to a top tier school is nice but in my opinion taking the fastest path is best. You are only young once so I wouldn't give up one of the best years of your life for something as trivial as going to #8 vs. #20. If anything I would take the year off and do something cool instead. You already have enough academic accomplishments I don't think a masters would add very much.
 
With the top 10 or bust attitude you might want to remove UCLA and replace it with Stanford.

Welcome to 2009 :p
 
Man you have great stats and look well rounded, but so does everyone at the top schools. I think you should wait a year and do something that will show how devoted you are to working with patients. Get a clinical job (should be easy since you have EMT training), write about it convincingly in your PS, and get a letter of rec from one of the docs you worked with and ask that person to validate your clinical experience in the letter.

Or you could just apply this year and get into a great school somewhere. May not be top 10 (but might be) but still darn good.
 
Wtf? Am I in the wrong forum? :-\
 
This is the dumbest thread I have ever read (ok, maybe not the dumbest but pretty stupid). Are you serious? You need to be #$%%^ slapped. Do you want to be a doctor or not? WTF is the difference between a top 10 school and number 15, or 20, or 30? Those rankings are stupid and somewhat arbitrary, and certainly don't reflect where you will be happy. I think you have some serious maturing to do, and I am sure that will come accross to adcoms.
 
troll

who will most likey be a ****ty doctor, too, b/c of his arrogance
 
corbis11 said:
troll

who will most likey be a ****ty doctor, too, b/c of his arrogance
Click to expand...

:laugh:

Is there a "Godwin's Law"-type rule that defines this sort of response?

Anyway the OP is setting themself up for failure, obviuosly. Sometimes you have to make the choice: What do I want more: to be a doctor, or go to a top 15 school?
 
corbis11 said:
troll

who will most likey be a ****ty doctor, too, b/c of his arrogance
Click to expand...
:thumbup:
It's ok, though, many very humbling experiences await him in the medical profession
 
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Ok, you may find this useful. Today I reviewed a guy who is going to interview for my job. He has a 3.9 GPA and just graduated from Northeastern University. He has 2000 hours in five different hospitals, authorships in two papers and one of them is in Nature and the other one he is a first author. On top of that, he has a freaking patent and he can speak like a comedian. I don't know his MCAT scores but the rest of his CV is like 5 pages long and filled with insane amount of activities. All his references said he is pretty much a genius. But guess what, he applied for the same cycle that I did, and he is still on two wait lists and no acceptance anywhere.
 
Pompacil said:
:laugh:

Is there a "Godwin's Law"-type rule that defines this sort of response?

Anyway the OP is setting themself up for failure, obviuosly. Sometimes you have to make the choice: What do I want more: to be a doctor, or go to a top 15 school?
Click to expand...

I think there is, it's called Burnett's law. As the length of a thread increases, the probability that a poster will be told " you won't be a good doctor b/c of X" approaches 1. Strangely seen in pre-allo, where the non-doctors are busy telling each other how bad they're going to be.
 
copy/paste troll from MD apps?
 
Tryonetic said:
Ok, you may find this useful. Today I reviewed a guy who is going to interview for my job. He has a 3.9 GPA and just graduated from Northeastern University. He has 2000 hours in five different hospitals, authorships in two papers and one of them is in Nature and the other one he is a first author. On top of that, he has a freaking patent and he can speak like a comedian. I don't know his MCAT scores but the rest of his CV is like 5 pages long and filled with insane amount of activities. All his references said he is pretty much a genius. But guess what, he applied for the same cycle that I did, and he is still on two wait lists and no acceptance anywhere.
Click to expand...

The nationwide average accepted GPA is 3.5 and the average matriculating MCAT ~30-31. That speaks more than any personal anecdotes.
 
OP, you remind me of every person I know who is miserable in med school. Trust me, right now you think life is all about prestige, prestige prestige, but in 5 years you'll realize that really it's money that's important. Go find a hedge fund to work for.
 
Vader1990 said:
Hi,

I'm now a rising senior Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. I've been wanting to do Medicine since my Sophomore year here.

Hopkins has like an AWESOME Pre-Professional Society thing, but I was a knuckle-head and like never went to them for advice, and now its down to the wire

So, my fundamental question is should I start applying this round--starting now to early weeks of my Fall Senior--or wait and pursue a Hopkins 5-year combined BS/MS and then go to Med School?

My stats:

BS: Biomedical Engineering
Minors: Computer Integrated Surgery
Mathematics

GPA [overall-inclusive of ALL Pre-Med Requirements]: 3.82/4.00

MCAT: 39S [only took it once] (Physical: 14, Bio: 13, Eng: 12, Writing: S)

EC:
*Research in BME Labs for a few semesters and a summer term
*Internship [summer] at NIH
*I'm a Tenor in an A Cappella Group [we do a lot of charity work for 3rd World Countries]
*Certified EMT-B and part of Rescue Organization on Campus, and during summer with Firefighters in my community
*Minor volunteering with the Hopkins Hospital
*TA for Orgo Lab, and a Computer Science Class
*Part of Biomedical Engineering Society [BMES]
*I have taken a LOT of design [Grad Level] courses and have a ton of research projects to talk about


I want to get a MD, and I REALLY want to go to a Top 10 Med School!

So basically I'm ONLY going to apply to:
Harvard,
JHU
U Penn
UCSF
UCLA
Yale/Columbia
I guess a state school safety or two...

So do you guys think I should wait and get a MSE before applying to Med School or just send my app out now?

Thanks guys, I really appreciate your inputs!

p.s. Feel free to tell me which school I have an alive chance of acceptance and which schools I should stop dreaming about!
Click to expand...
For your sake, I hope you are a troll.
 
geogil said:
I think there is, it's called Burnett's law. As the length of a thread increases, the probability that a poster will be told " you won't be a good doctor b/c of X" approaches 1. Strangely seen in pre-allo, where the non-doctors are busy telling each other how bad they're going to be.
Click to expand...
"burnett's law" is correct. geogil gets a cookie. :)

and this thread does not belong in the Allo forum, so I'm moving it to pre-allo/WAMC.
 
I completely support your first choice OP. I vote you apply immediately - you have a STELLAR application, probably the greatest this network has EVER seen.

That being said, I think you should only apply to the top 10 schools - you will definitely get in to at least half of them, maybe even all of them!

Don't waste money on state schools, you are too, like awesome.

Good luck!!












































































Please come back later and post how you blew every interview due to your attitude problem. :)
 
jeez you guys are being mean to OP

s/he clearly is applying to state schools for "safeties".. yes the pompous title is misleading

OP:
honestly, you have a good shot at any top school with your stats (as in your stats make you competitive) but nothing is a lock. *I* dont sense any unusual arrogance or sense of entitlement in your post but you WILL NEED to lose any type of poor attitude or you will shoot yourself in the foot at interviews.

PS plenty of people with great stats apply to those top schools (IN FACT you are the 3rd hopkins bme who is applying this cycle to post on here with at least a 39 mcat..). just applying to all of them because of your stats seems like a recipe for disaster.

id say make sure you will be a good fit for the universities you are applying to (mission statement and resources match with your background and future interests). if the schools dont think you are a good fit, and dont think you are likely to matriculate, you can bet you wont be accepted.

i vote for taking the gap year and getting the MSE and solidifying what your career plans are and what you are looking for in your med school experience.

finally, GO and meet dr. verrier if you havent.. you now have a year to get to know the office and ask for advice so dont make the same mistake twice.
 
I'd apply asap....but why not add Washington U, U of Wash, Mich, Chicago? And I would definitely go MD/PhD or MD/JD, MD/MBA if you can. :thumbup:
 
Yes we get it. The OP sounds like a pompous jackass blah blah blah; but there are worse things in the world that a person can be (like someone who cowardly berates people on an internet forum).

Vader, if you really want to go to med school, then the time is ripe. Your stats are solid, and you seem like a well-rounded candidate. It would probably be smart to expand your school selection. Just remember that this isn't like applying to colleges. You're not a guarantee anywhere. None of us are. You'll probably get a lot of interviews. As long as you leave a better impression than you did with these cats in this thread, you should be fine. Remember, confidence and humility are not mutually exclusive.

With that said, I wish this thread a quick and painless death.
 
Thanks all for the responses. I think I'm going to wait for a year and work at NIH for year before applying. I apologize if I came off as rude/arrogant/all that stuff, it wasn't my intention. I do however like prestige, I know I need this to change.

Furthermore, I'm only 19 years old [I skipped 4th grade and graduated HS in 3 years], so I still have a lot of time to grow as an individual. Maybe I'm still immature and need more time to learn humility--that's what my mom always says--she thinks I'm kind of a jerk, lol, she only only says it so that I become a better person.

Anyway, thanks a lot guys, I'm going to finish my UG at JHU and then work at NIH the lapse year when I apply to Med Schools.
 
Vader1990 said:
Thanks all for the responses. I think I'm going to wait for a year and work at NIH for year before applying. I apologize if I came off as rude/arrogant/all that stuff, it wasn't my intention. I do however like prestige, I know I need this to change.

Furthermore, I'm only 19 years old [I skipped 4th grade and graduated HS in 3 years], so I still have a lot of time to grow as an individual. Maybe I'm still immature and need more time to learn humility--that's what my mom always says--she thinks I'm kind of a jerk, lol, she only only says it so that I become a better person.

Anyway, thanks a lot guys, I'm going to finish my UG at JHU and then work at NIH the lapse year when I apply to Med Schools.
Click to expand...
yes. i was in your shoes not too long ago, but as you grow older you realize there are ALWAYS people who rock out harder than you.
 
WellWornLad said:
OP, you remind me of every person I know who is miserable in med school. Trust me, right now you think life is all about prestige, prestige prestige, but in 5 years you'll realize that really it's money that's important. Go find a hedge fund to work for.
Click to expand...
I'll second that. I know a lot of people who went to top tier schools because of the name and are now miserable. Apply around and see where you "fit" during interviews. Which is going to make you happier in the end, being at a top 10 school and hating it or being at a top 30 school that's a good "fit" for you?
 
bleargh said:
yes. i was in your shoes not too long ago, but as you grow older you realize there are ALWAYS people who rock out harder than you.
Click to expand...

like me :cool:
i dont even get older.
 
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