Should I apply to more T20s or to DO schools? WAMC + School List? MCAT: 526, GPA: 3.85, Medical Withdrawal and no leadership.

[aech]

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cGPA: ~3.85, sGPA: ~3.8

MCAT: 526 (132/132/131/131)

State: TX but grew up in VA

Race: ORM

School: Large Public University, not very notable
Clinical experience (volunteer and non-volunteer):
~1000 hrs EMT (911 and IFT, lots of high acuity 911 calls)
~300 hrs ER tech (hopefully this year)

Research experience and productivity:
~600 hrs Intern -> RA in pediatric clinical research, 2 platform presentations in well known pediatrics conferences, but no pubs (due to medical leave)

Shadowing:
~60 hrs Neonatology, Gen Peds, and ER

Non-clinical volunteering (some of these are projected for when I apply):
~50 hrs homeless shelter
~200-300 hrs working with low SES children with developmental delays and their parents
~200 hrs of working as a CASA (court advocate for foster children)

Other extracurricular activities:
No formal leadership, club involvement, teaching, etc.

Awards:
Trainee Award at one of the conferences.

Red Flags:
Had to take a medical withdrawal last semester and backed out from all my classes (documented as a WI, or withdrawal due to illness, on my transcript) and responsibilities including research. Therefore, my LORs will likely not be exactly glowing, also don't have any special relationship with any professor because my school is a very large university and I am a math major, so fewer classes to make that relationship with science professors.


I would really appreciate some guidance on how to form my school list as my MCAT is very high and I have lots of clinical work, but there are some negatives to my application such as low research productivity, no leadership, no campus involvement, and the medical withdrawal. I am planning to apply this upcoming May. I have included my current school list below. I am applying to all the TMDSAS schools and included the more stat-whorish T20s. Should I include more or all of the T20s? Should I have more OOS mid-tiers? Should I include some DO schools? I am not really concerned with prestige and I want to do peds or child psych, so I am open to anything. I just want to get into medical school.

Johns Hopkins
NYU Grossman
NYU Langone
Einstein
Columbia
Penn (Perelman)
Yale
Mayo
Vanderbilt
WashU
Virginia Tech (grew up in the small town VT is at)
UTSW
Baylor
Long
McGovern
Sam Houston
U of H
TCOM
UTMB
UTRGV
UTyler
Texas A&M
Texas Tech
UTSA
UTA
TCU
Boston University (I like Boston)

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Welcome to the forums.

You are presenting with 3.8/526, but I fail to see the logic here.

Had to take a medical withdrawal last semester and backed out from all my classes (documented as a WI, or withdrawal due to illness, on my transcript) and responsibilities including research. Therefore, my LORs will likely not be exactly glowing, also don't have any special relationship with any professor because my school is a very large university and I am a math major, so fewer classes to make that relationship with science professors.

With little/no campus involvement at a large-population university, how did you spend your time? You got a trainee award for your research (for what it's worth).

To me, the math professors who know you best are likely your most glowing references. Your research supervisor also knows you well, I presume.

That said, you're presenting as cannon fodder who just wants to get into medical school, so while others give you lists, I encourage you to add Carle Illinois and Texas A&M EnMed given your math major/quantitative background. Look and see if you have their qualifications. But the important part of this comment is that you sound like a checklist with no purpose or vision about caring for community needs as a physician. The lack of team-oriented activities or campus impact is a challenge from the WAMC. What do you have to convince a medical school it MUST have you as a student? Computers don't admit students.

The logic of your list is odd. You like Boston, but I only see one Boston school (and it's not Harvard!). You are a Virginia applicant, but you only list VT-Carillion (I presume); seriously, not UVa???. I know you can check all the boxes on TMDSAS, but don't expect any calls from the regional Texas campuses (RGV, Tyler). How did you come up with this list?

 

[wysdoc]

You say you are applying "this upcoming May"
Does this mean May 2025 or May 2026?

I think you should add UVA, and VCU if you like Virginia
Add Tufts and Harvard in Boston.
Texas residents often make too big a list of OOS schools; I recommend applying to some in places you would go to knowing the tuition may be 2-3 times what you would pay in Texas.

Best of luck in your application year, you have some very responsible non-clinical volunteering activities that most other applicants don't have

 

[aech]

Welcome to the forums.

You are presenting with 3.8/526, but I fail to see the logic here.


With little/no campus involvement at a large-population university, how did you spend your time? You got a trainee award for your research (for what it's worth).

To me, the math professors who know you best are likely your most glowing references. Your research supervisor also knows you well, I presume.

That said, you're presenting as cannon fodder who just wants to get into medical school, so while others give you lists, I encourage you to add Carle Illinois and Texas A&M EnMed given your math major/quantitative background. Look and see if you have their qualifications. But the important part of this comment is that you sound like a checklist with no purpose or vision about caring for community needs as a physician. The lack of team-oriented activities or campus impact is a challenge from the WAMC. What do you have to convince a medical school it MUST have you as a student? Computers don't admit students.

The logic of your list is odd. You like Boston, but I only see one Boston school (and it's not Harvard!). You are a Virginia applicant, but you only list VT-Carillion (I presume); seriously, not UVa???. I know you can check all the boxes on TMDSAS, but don't expect any calls from the regional Texas campuses (RGV, Tyler). How did you come up with this list?

Hi, thank you for the detailed and critical response! It’s exactly what I was looking for.


I honestly didn’t find any organization in my campus that addressed the portion of the population that I was passionate about, helping vulnerable children. Furthermore, I started out at a community college and only moved to this university last year, so I didn’t think it was realistically possible to start an organization from the ground up, as I didn’t have much time and could not find people that shared my values (I’m a math major and don’t really end up interacting with those interested in this niche). I also only decided on being premed at the beginning of sophomore year, I certainly didn’t have the typical premed ambition going into college as many do. Most of my time in undergrad was spent with family, taking care of younger children in my extended family (we are low SES and most of my weekends were spent on this). Once I turned 21 just recently, a lot of volunteer opportunities that weren’t previously available became possible. I hope those will show my passion for underserved children, in addition to my research in peds. Also, what better shows wanting to help your community as a clinician than actually helping your community as a clinician (I do 911 EMS in my county)? Additionally, I honestly don’t understand how being involved on campus would make any impact on my community. From what I saw, almost all the organizations on campus made no real change, and I wanted to spend that time doing things that I felt made an impact.

As for my school list, I have my reasons for not wanting to go to UVa and Tufts. As you said, I know I’m not changing the world with my application, which is why I thought it was a waste to apply to Harvard. As for why apply to all the Texas schools, its because I want to maximize my chances in state personally know some med students that didn’t have much of a focus with the hispanic and rural populations that matriculated to RGV and Tyler.

I hope this response doesn’t come off aggressive, I did actually put a lot of thought into what I did, so I want to know how I can show that in my application. I appreciate your help 🙂.

 

[aech]

You say you are applying "this upcoming May"
Does this mean May 2025 or May 2026?

I think you should add UVA, and VCU if you like Virginia
Add Tufts and Harvard in Boston.
Texas residents often make too big a list of OOS schools; I recommend applying to some in places you would go to knowing the tuition may be 2-3 times what you would pay in Texas.

Best of luck in your application year, you have some very responsible non-clinical volunteering activities that most other applicants don't have

Thank you for the advice! I mean I am applying May 2026. I ideally want to stay in Texas because of the tuition, however I am on the Pell grant so I am hoping I will receive FAP, meaning applying to a lot of schools shouldn’t cost too much. Thank you for the well wishes 🙂.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

So you weren't on FAP when you studied for the MCAT? Just clarifying. Also, I wanted to be sure you had approvals first in case you have to take Casper (Texas) or PREview.