Should I be worried?

[sharpincapacity10]

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I'm an applicant for the 2025-2026 applicant pool and I wanted some thoughts on my application. I'm a ORM, I've taken then the MCAT twice (516 the first time to a 514 the second) and my GPA is a 4.0. I retook my MCAT because I was a reserach-heavy applicant and I was on the lower end of MCATs for research-heavy schools. As of right now, I have 1 II with 4 R. Here are some other things about my application.

Clinical Hours-- 900 hours as a medical assistant/scribe
Nonclinical volunteering- 250 hours with Red Cross, 250 hours with Crisis Text Line
TA and LA- 500 hours
Reserach- 3000 hours in 2 labs, 3 publications

This is my school list, should I be worried? I'm concerned my second MCAT attempt is hurting my app. I tried to select schools which look at the highest score. Any advice/thoughts would be appreciated.

Wake Forest
Michigan
Hofstra
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
UChicago (rejected)
Stanford (rejected)
Sidney Kimmel
Darmouth
Tufts
Albert Einstein
Virginia Common Wealth University
USF Morsani
University of Central Florida
University of Miami
University of Rochester (rejected)
Cornell
Mayo Clinic (rejected)
Drexel University
University of Cincinati
Univeristy of Pittsburgh
MCG (interview)
UCLA
Case Western
Boston
Rosalind Franklin
Emory
Duke
University of Colorado
Brown

 

[PickaGodnPray]

Way too top heavy. Even if you only had the 516 on the record, you are below the 50th percentile at 90% of the schools you applied to. The others are incredibly low yield, receive a ton of applicants, and aren't research focused (Drexel for example). You realistically have 2-3 baseline schools, but that is nowhere near enough. You could still come out of this with an A from Georgia or get other IIs, but do more research on schools besides just looking at admit.org's top 50 if you need to reapply. There is a great research program without the insane research focused stats that you left out which is how I know you built list off rankings.

 

[chilly_md]

You may receive another interview or two from some of the schools on your list. There is nothing you can do at this point but wait and see.

 

[sharpincapacity10]

Way too top heavy. Even if you only had the 516 on the record, you are below the 50th percentile at 90% of the schools you applied to. The others are incredibly low yield, receive a ton of applicants, and aren't research focused (Drexel for example). You realistically have 2-3 baseline schools, but that is nowhere near enough. You could still come out of this with an A from Georgia or get other IIs, but do more research on schools besides just looking at admit.org's top 50 if you need to reapply. There is a great research program without the insane research focused stats that you left out which is how I know you built list off rankings.

Thank you for your reply. I used reddit to look at the research heavy schools. What school did I miss?

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Are you a Georgia resident? Focus on the interview you have. You have made your bed so I hope other schools see your mission alignment. Trust the process.

Of course you could throw in an application to any new schools that pop up. If you fit their mission too.

 

[polymerization]

You have a 100th percentile GPA and 90th percentile MCAT. I genuinely do not believe that metrics are your problem. Similarly, I think you've met most of the baseline requirements for ECs. I think the lack of traction is mostly just reflective of the quality of the applicant pool and timing. When did you send out the bulk of your secondaries?

As things become increasingly competitive, the old markers of competitiveness (metrics, hours) are now just the price of admission to compete. The new, harder challenge is to have narrative alignment to school missions, delivered in a way that feels cohesive and compelling.

I applied with a 3.5/506 and a lot of people told me I was insane for starting my writing an entire year in advance. For each school, I was watching at least one admissions interview with their dean, reading their strategic plan, and noticing trends in what the school values by analyzing their news articles. For many schools, there has been an emerging interest in AI technologies and the construction and legal durability of the broader healthcare system in the US, which was something I could talk about given my experiences, and emphasized in my application.

The real challenge is finding the intersection: what do you have that medical schools want? Everyone is going to have the typical experiences, you have to figure out what your distinct flavor as an applicant will be, and then lean into that.

 

[sharpincapacity10]

You have a 100th percentile GPA and 90th percentile MCAT. I genuinely do not believe that metrics are your problem. Similarly, I think you've met most of the baseline requirements for ECs. I think the lack of traction is mostly just reflective of the quality of the applicant pool and timing. When did you send out the bulk of your secondaries?

As things become increasingly competitive, the old markers of competitiveness (metrics, hours) are now just the price of admission to compete. The new, harder challenge is to have narrative alignment to school missions, delivered in a way that feels cohesive and compelling.

I applied with a 3.5/506 and a lot of people told me I was insane for starting my writing an entire year in advance. For each school, I was watching at least one admissions interview with their dean, reading their strategic plan, and noticing trends in what the school values by analyzing their news articles. For many schools, there has been an emerging interest in AI technologies and the construction and legal durability of the broader healthcare system in the US, which was something I could talk about given my experiences, and emphasized in my application.

The real challenge is finding the intersection: what do you have that medical schools want? Everyone is going to have the typical experiences, you have to figure out what your distinct flavor as an applicant will be, and then lean into that.

I sent out a bulk of my secondaries in mid-July to mid-August.

 

[polymerization]

I sent out a bulk of my secondaries in mid-July to mid-August.

I did, too. I can't give you more information because I'm just reading tea leaves as an applicant here—but at least from my own experience/observations, most of the IIs I received were from schools I sent secondaries to as soon as I could in early July. There really wasn't any rhyme or reason to it, they were just a few schools I knew I would apply to anyway and they got back to me pretty early in late August-early September.

The bulk of my apps from mid July-early August have not gotten back to me at all. I've been fortunate to receive IIs at the top tier so I know it isn't just an application competitiveness thing... I do think that schools get inundated with more apps than they can reasonably review at a particular point in the cycle, and Type A premeds apply early, so that happens to be pretty early on. The way I see it, I (and probably you) sent applications that are sitting in a stack in a room somewhere and nobody has even acknowledged their presence yet.

We've got to be patient (I know, easier said than done). Remember there's always November... (and January and even February for IIs!) It really does only take one.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

You have a 100th percentile GPA and 90th percentile MCAT. I genuinely do not believe that metrics are your problem. Similarly, I think you've met most of the baseline requirements for ECs. I think the lack of traction is mostly just reflective of the quality of the applicant pool and timing. When did you send out the bulk of your secondaries?

As things become increasingly competitive, the old markers of competitiveness (metrics, hours) are now just the price of admission to compete. The new, harder challenge is to have narrative alignment to school missions, delivered in a way that feels cohesive and compelling.

I applied with a 3.5/506 and a lot of people told me I was insane for starting my writing an entire year in advance. For each school, I was watching at least one admissions interview with their dean, reading their strategic plan, and noticing trends in what the school values by analyzing their news articles. For many schools, there has been an emerging interest in AI technologies and the construction and legal durability of the broader healthcare system in the US, which was something I could talk about given my experiences, and emphasized in my application.

The real challenge is finding the intersection: what do you have that medical schools want? Everyone is going to have the typical experiences, you have to figure out what your distinct flavor as an applicant will be, and then lean into that.

(Becoming a Student Doctor also helps with this.)

OP: Focus on your one interview. If another comes along, it will.