Medical Should I reapply next year?

[TheBoneDoctah]

I posted this on reddit earlier this week, but wanted to ask the community here as well. Need some advice. Career changer, graduated from a top UC with a psych degree and did a premed career-changer post-bacc program at another UC.

My stats:

CA ORM

Applied to 50 MD schools, applied very very broad, mostly private schools with high OOS acceptance and within my stats, and didn’t do too many reach schools

App processed on July 8

All secondaries were sent in late July-September and within 5 days of receiving them. Usually a 2-3 day turnaround though.

Cumulative GPA: 3.85, science GPA: 3.82 MCAT: 510 (127,128,127,128)

Hospital volunteer hours: 2 hospitals, 678 hours total. Did the cope health scholar program and care extenders at the same time during undergrad

Nonmedical volunteer hours: 300 hours at an animal shelter. Since submitting my app I’ve been volunteering with a local food pantry and homeless shelter, so these hours aren’t counted

Shadowing/current scribing job: 2300 hours at an internist/family medicine office

Current science research job: 2000 hours, no publication. Work in cell and developmental bio research

2 previous undergrad psych research labs: 400 + 400, 1 poster presentation. One lab was health psychology, another was social psychology

5 LOR: non-science prof from undergrad, psych professor who’s class I took and worked in her lab, science prof from time in post-bacc, my post-bacc program, and the MD internist I scribe for.

I haven’t heard from 31 schools yet, one “app is in re-review, rest I’ve gotten post-secondary R’s. Should I reapply next year? I’m in my late 20’s so I don’t want to wait another year before reapplying if I can. Would really appreciate if anyone could look at my app/give advice on how I should proceed from here because I’m at a loss.

Being a California applicant is tough. You have good stats. One area I feel you are weak in is your non-clinical hours where you work with and help people less fortunate than yourself. I know you started doing this but it wasn’t factored into your hours.

If you have to reapply next year, make sure to throw in DO schools.

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[Goro]

50 schools was overkill. I'll wager many of them were donations, esp. if you targeted OOS public schools, which highly favor the home team.

With 50 apps, I'll also wager that the quality of your essay/prompt writing went downhill from fatigue.

What was your school list?

 

[Goro]

I mean at this point they were all donations And most of my OOS schools were private ones. I did a lot of research and unless I really felt that I clicked with their mission, I applied to only ones that had high OOS acceptances.


Albany Medical College
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Boston University School of Medicine
California University of Science and Medicine
Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
Chicago Medical School at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine & Science
Creighton University School of Medicine
Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell
Drexel University College of Medicine
Emory University School of Medicine
Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth
Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine
George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences
Georgetown University School of Medicine
Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine
Indiana University School of Medicine
Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine
Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California
Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University Medical College of Wisconsin
New York Medical College
Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine Ohio State University College of Medicine
Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine
Robert Larner, M.D., College of Medicine at the University of Vermont
Rush Medical College of Rush University Medical Center Rutgers New Jersey Medical School
Rutgers, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School
Saint Louis University School of Medicine
Stanford University School of Medicine
The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University
Tufts University School of Medicine
Tulane University School of Medicine
UCLA/Drew Medical Education Program
University of Arizona College of Medicine - Phoenix
University of California, Davis, School of Medicine
University of California, Irvine, School of Medicine
University of California, Los Angeles David Geffen School of Medicine
University of California, Riverside School of Medicine University of California, San Diego School of Medicine University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine University of Colorado School of Medicine
University of Hawaii, John A. Burns School of Medicine
University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine University of Maryland School of Medicine
University of Massachusetts Medical School
University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine University of Michigan Medical School
University of Nebraska College of Medicine
University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry
University of Washington School of Medicine
Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine
Wake Forest School of Medicine of Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center
Wayne State University School of Medicine
West Virginia University School of Medicine
Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine

I'm surprised that you didn't get some love! But it has been a very competitive cycle.

The above schools were indeed donations. Did you not know that OR HS highly favors OR residents? That Drew is a historically Black College? You can't merely look at OOS seated, you have to compare OOS apps vs invites vs those seated.

Here is a more realistic list:


Rochester (maybe)
U ILL (maybe)
Emory
U CO
Tufts
CUSM
Nova MD
U WI
U VM
Miami
George Washington
Georgetown
SLU
Albany
Rush
Rosy Franklin
NYMC
MCW
VCU
EVMS
Wayne State
Wake Forest
Netter
Jefferson
Temple
Drexel
Creighton
Tulane
Loyola
Uniformed Services University/Hebert (just be aware of the military service commitment)
Oakland-B
Seton Hall
TCU/UNT
UCD
UCR IF you're from the Inland Empire

Any DO program. Include UNECOM. I can't recommend ARCOM, RVU, Nova, BCOM, ICOM and LUCOM, for different reasons. MSUCOM? Read up on Larry Nasser and you decide. LMU has an accreditation warning, which concerns me. CUHS is too new and appears to be too limited in rotations sites.

 

[Goro]

For next cycle:
1) Rewrite all essays and have multiple eyeballs vet them
2) Get in service to others less fortunate than yourself

 

[Goro]

I really appreciate the advice and modified school list! I'm not interested in DO, but thank you.

And regarding Oregon, I have a lot of family who live there.

Ties to ORHS don't count. They want residents.

Beggars can't be choosy. You've already lost one year of clinician salary. Hence, you need to have DO schools on your list.