Should I reapply, or wait until next cycle?

[bcemslayer]

---

Members do not see this ad.

I am a Canadian applicant, with dual citizenship to the US.
I applied to GWU, Drexel, Albany, NYMC, Brown, MCW, Jefferson, and Penn State, along with my province schools in Canada. I had an old MCAT score (30) and applied with that, and I rewrote in August, so most schools didn't review my application until September.

GPA - 3.75, upward trend
MCAT - 514 (131/125/131/127)

Hospital volunteering and shadowing - 15o
Homeless shelter volunteering - 100
Research - 900, no publications
Student club volunteering - 100
Residence Advisor - 1200 hours
Music - 4000
Gymnastics coaching - 1500
Work experience - 1000s - I've been working for the past 10 years

So I now realize I made a mistake in only applying to low yield schools. I interviewed only at one of two of my province schools U of Alberta and I was waitlisted, and I was also waitlisted at GWU. I'll find out about U of A waitlist on May 30th, but I wanted to get ready for next cycle.

Should I get more clinical exposure and wait until next cycle to apply? Or should I just apply earlier this year, and pick schools more carefully?

 

[bcemslayer]

Bump

 

[bcemslayer]

while the most common mistake among reapplicants is applying again too soon (see school links in thread below), your issue seems to be solely poor school selection and late MCAT rewrite. ....

Thank you so much! I really appreciate the input.

 

[bcemslayer]

Read the school links in the below and see that you have covered all your bases.
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/thr...ear-wamc-advice-please.1191695/#post-17595427

The link is broken 🙁

 

[GrapesofRath]

Tough call here

To give a background on where you stand:

a) Here are average US MD matriculant stats for those whose legal residence is outside the US: GPA: 3.75 MCAT: 33.6 +/-3.4. By comparison for US citizen matriculants, its around 3.68 31.2+/-3.9.
b) For those who legal residence wasnt the US: 1685 applicants 233 matriculants. Note there will be a number of accepted people who simply went to other countries in this stat but by and large it's pretty fair to estimate the odds for Canadian applicant on average are a good bit lower than what they are for in the US
c) Historically the odds for a 3.75/32(average of 2 MCAT scores) applicant from the US are around 70-75%. But 3.75/32 is slightly above average for a US applicant while it's below average for a Canadian applicant who also face far more competition in terms of applicants/matriculant ratio. It's impossible to really give a good estimate for what the historical odds for a canadian applicant with these stats will be. If I had to make a rough(emphasis on rough) guess I might wager something around 50-50 odds, maybe slightly less.
d) There are roughly 20-25 or so US MD schools a Canadian with your stats can seriously consider. Youll be a reapplicant at about 35-40% of them.

Your application is fine for a US applicant. For a Canadian things are obviously tougher and your stats are now below average while also being a reapp at 8 schools. This is still a decent application that can be competitive but now there is a greater need to really stand out and minimize your weaknesses. More clinical experience in addition to more non clinical service with less fortunate populations would certainly help. Waiting a year would help if you are productive in that year off. But is it enough to push a borderline application over the top? There's no clear cut answer to that at all and frankly there's no clear cut answer on whether or not to wait.

Best thing I would say here is:
a) Come up with a plan for how you would spend that year off if you waited another year and how you would address areas of your app that could use the biggest improvement. See how feasible it is and looks on paper. If after doing all this you realize you cant really do that much to specifically address areas of need for you due to whatever reasons then taking another year isnt going to do much for you
b) Assess how competitive you are for Canadian schools as is. Things work completely differently up there, I cant really give input on this part but you should get a good gauge for this. If you are pretty competitive and just had bad luck or a bad strategy for canadian schools that is fixable, Id be more inclined to roll the dice again this fall for both Canadian and US schools. If you arent that competitive for Canadian schools and hence need to rely more on US schools, I would factor that into my decision making here also.
c) Come up with a plan for what you would do if you dont get into a US school in the next year if you reapply now. Would you be willing to consider something like an SMP with direct linkage to a US MD school(ie what a school like RFU has)? Would you consider DO schools? Get a good idea for what your plan would be if after another cycle you arent successful. If you are willing to shake things up such as considering a US SMP with direct linkage or consider DO schools if after another unsuccessful cycle, I might be more inclined to give it another go this cycle without waiting.

You're not going to really find a concrete perfect answer as to whether or not to reapply right away. But I would use questions like the ones I posed above as a guide to figuring out what the best course of action is from here. Btw if you really forced me to give a gut reaction yes/no to this question it would be wait a year. But that's more a very rough gut feeling, hardly something Id say with much confidence/concreteness.

 

[bcemslayer]

Tough call here

To give a background on where you stand:

a) Here are average US MD matriculant stats for those whose legal residence is outside the US: GPA: 3.75 MCAT: 33.6 +/-3.4. By comparison for US citizen matriculants, its around 3.68 31.2+/-3.9.
b) For those who legal residence wasnt the US: 1685 applicants 233 matriculants. Note there will be a number of accepted people who simply went to other countries in this stat but by and large it's pretty fair to estimate the odds for Canadian applicant on average are a good bit lower than what they are for in the US
c) Historically the odds for a 3.75/32(average of 2 MCAT scores) applicant from the US are around 70-75%. But 3.75/32 is slightly above average for a US applicant while it's below average for a Canadian applicant who also face far more competition in terms of applicants/matriculant ratio. It's impossible to really give a good estimate for what the historical odds for a canadian applicant with these stats will be. If I had to make a rough(emphasis on rough) guess I might wager something around 50-50 odds, maybe slightly less.
d) There are roughly 20-25 or so US MD schools a Canadian with your stats can seriously consider. Youll be a reapplicant at about 35-40% of them.

Your application is fine for a US applicant. For a Canadian things are obviously tougher and your stats are now below average while also being a reapp at 8 schools. This is still a decent application that can be competitive but now there is a greater need to really stand out and minimize your weaknesses. More clinical experience in addition to more non clinical service with less fortunate populations would certainly help. Waiting a year would help if you are productive in that year off. But is it enough to push a borderline application over the top? There's no clear cut answer to that at all and frankly there's no clear cut answer on whether or not to wait.

Best thing I would say here is:
a) Come up with a plan for how you would spend that year off if you waited another year and how you would address areas of your app that could use the biggest improvement. See how feasible it is and looks on paper. If after doing all this you realize you cant really do that much to specifically address areas of need for you due to whatever reasons then taking another year isnt going to do much for you
b) Assess how competitive you are for Canadian schools as is. Things work completely differently up there, I cant really give input on this part but you should get a good gauge for this. If you are pretty competitive and just had bad luck or a bad strategy for canadian schools that is fixable, Id be more inclined to roll the dice again this fall for both Canadian and US schools. If you arent that competitive for Canadian schools and hence need to rely more on US schools, I would factor that into my decision making here also.
c) Come up with a plan for what you would do if you dont get into a US school in the next year if you reapply now. Would you be willing to consider something like an SMP with direct linkage to a US MD school(ie what a school like RFU has)? Would you consider DO schools? Get a good idea for what your plan would be if after another cycle you arent successful. If you are willing to shake things up such as considering a US SMP with direct linkage or consider DO schools if after another unsuccessful cycle, I might be more inclined to give it another go this cycle without waiting.

You're not going to really find a concrete perfect answer as to whether or not to reapply right away. But I would use questions like the ones I posed above as a guide to figuring out what the best course of action is from here.

Wow, thank you for all that! I'll definitely take those questions into consideration.
Does it make a difference that I have US citizenship? Or is it primarily residency that holds more weight?