Some help with my school list please! (39 MCAT, 4.0 GPA)

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hvairline

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I am really sorry if this post is too long but I could really use some help with my med-school list. Thank you so much for reading through it and helping me out! Just as an introduction, I finished all of my primary education up until high school in a foreign country and came here for college. I am a US citizen but I consider myself ESL.

MCAT: 10VR 14PS 15BS Composite: 39
cGPA: 4.0 sGPA: 4.0
Cell Biology , Mathematics Minor

Research
2.5 years in Research Lab (nonclinical) and no publications yet but will be working over the summer on my honors thesis project
SURF Grant Recipient + Undergraduate Poster Exhibitions

Volunteer Experiences (CLINICAL)
ER Volunteering in foreign European country, 2 summers, ~ 200 hours: primary role was to act as a translator between the English speaking patients and the ER doctors, but other duties included: getting labs, directing patients, updating records, and any other assistance that I could provide to the ER team.
Co-Organized an free STD clinic in the Residence Halls for the first time on campus
Shadowed 3 doctors (~60 hours): Pediatrician, General Surgeon, Cardiovascular surgeon

Volunteer Experiences (NON-CLINICAL) (~200 hours):
Organized several Food and Clothe Drives in the Residence Halls for local charities and the troops
Helped build houses for poor communities with Habitat for Humanity and also played a leading role in fundraising activities for the organization
Volunteer and fundraised for St. Baldricks foundation; played an important role in organizing a significant fundraiser in the Residence Halls that raised awareness and money for the foundation
A couple other off-campus volunteer experiences (health and non health related)

Leadership Experience
Resident Assistant: +2 years, served on an Advisory Board for one year that was responsible for making proposals that would improve the work conditions of Resident Assistants. I also had the chance to interview future Resident Assistants and Assistant Hall Directors.
National Residence Hall Honorary
Treasurer for a cultural club, 1 year
Leader of the Undergraduate Research Team,1 semester: organized experiments, made sure everyone knew what was going on and instructed new lab members

Miscellaneous
Can speak fluently 2 languages and communicate in a 3rd one: experience translating documents between English and the second language
4.0 GPA awards, Sophomore Honors award and 3rd place in campus wide Calculus competition
I taught myself webdesigning and various online computer platform languages; I opened a Web-Design business with a partner during high school and also created an advanced web-based attendance system for my cultural club
I have sailed for most of my life, and was involved 1 semester with my college sailing team but I had to drop out because of a demanding class schedule

Medical School List
Columbia University- College of Physicians and Surgeons
John Hopkins School of Medicine
Harvard School of Medicine
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
Mayo Medical School
University of Michigan School of Medicine

Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine
University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
New York University School of Medicine
University of Rochester School of Medicine

Dartmouth School of Medicine
Tufts University School of Medicine
Albert Einstein School of Medicine at Yeshiva University (pancreatic cancer research)
Boston University School of Medicine
Georgetown University School of Medicine
University of Connecticut School of Medicine
George Washington University School of Medicine
Stony Brook University School οf Medicine
Jefferson Medical College



Do you think this is a balanced list? Again thank you very much for helping me out!

EDIT: Ok so this is my semi-final list and I would appreciate any input concerning whether or not it is balanced given my background. I have color coded the schools based on my perceived chance of getting in ( RED= Reach ,Yellow= Decent chance, Green= Good chance). Let me know if you agree with this. Again thanks so much for all the input

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You have a pretty great application. Because you have such good stats and interesting EC (where you had cool leadership roles) I think your list is a bit bottom heavy. Would you really be happy at UConn or UMDNJ? If I were you I would take those two schools out and add Cornell, Yale (cool curriculum), Northwestern/U Chicago (if you like Chicago), Penn, Pitt, maybe Duke (cool curriculum)/Michigan/Vanderbilt (I say maybe because it kind of seems like you would want to stay out East). I think you have a good shot at any top school, but even for people with a good shot those schools are a bit of a crapshoot, so it's always good to apply to a bunch of them. You never know when an adcom at one of these schools will read your application and really relate to something (or unfortunately, when they will arbitrarily not be impressed by things that ~90% of adcoms would be impressed by).

Also, I would really try to get a little bit of volunteering in a U.S. hospital some time this spring and keep doing it through the application cycle. Your experience in Europe sounds awesome, but adcoms will want to see you've seen how medicine works in the U.S. too (plus then you can compare the two at interviews in a way that will impress/stand out.

Caveat: I'm just someone who applied this cycle and am going off of my application experience, so don't take my word as stone.

Just saw you did undergrad at UConn. If you like the school and are in-state it would probably be good to keep it on the list. I still don't think you'd be disappointed by adding more schools in the top-20 though.
 
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You have a pretty great application. Because you have such good stats and interesting EC (where you had cool leadership roles) I think your list is a bit bottom heavy. Would you really be happy at UConn or UMDNJ? If I were you I would take those two schools out and add Cornell, Yale (cool curriculum), Northwestern/U Chicago (if you like Chicago), Penn, Pitt, maybe Duke (cool curriculum)/Michigan/Vanderbilt (I say maybe because it kind of seems like you would want to stay out East). I think you have a good shot at any top school, but even for people with a good shot those schools are a bit of a crapshoot, so it's always good to apply to a bunch of them. You never know when an adcom at one of these schools will read your application and really relate to something (or unfortunately, when they will arbitrarily not be impressed by things that ~90% of adcoms would be impressed by).

Also, I would really try to get a little bit of volunteering in a U.S. hospital some time this spring and keep doing it through the application cycle. Your experience in Europe sounds awesome, but adcoms will want to see you've seen how medicine works in the U.S. too (plus then you can compare the two at interviews in a way that will impress/stand out.

Caveat: I'm just someone who applied this cycle and am going off of my application experience, so don't take my word as stone.

Just saw you did undergrad at UConn. If you like the school and are in-state it would probably be good to keep it on the list. I still don't think you'd be disappointed by adding more schools in the top-20 though.

Thank you for your great advice! I am trying to get a volunteer position in a US hospital and I have applied to a couple of hospitals where I could volunteer at for the rest of the application cycle. And I think i may add a couple more schools and maybe remove UMDNJ.
 
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I think you have a good shot at any top school, but even for people with a good shot those schools are a bit of a crapshoot, so it's always good to apply to a bunch of them.

I still don't think you'd be disappointed by adding more schools in the top-20 though.
I agree with this as you might get some sort of merit aid, and this be more likely if you are spreading the net wide.

And, before cutting a less selective school, ask yourself, if you got a full ride, would you take that over the more prestigious school with a big price tag?
 
Apply to wherever you would like to go and perhaps your state schools for the potential tuition benefit. The people here would not help you any more than you can at this point. Good luck!
 
There's no school in the country that's out of the question for you. You just need to look at location and price. Definitely apply to your state schools if you feel like you're going to need tuition help, but if that's not a huge concern for you, apply wherever you want to live. Just don't suck at interviewing and you'll do perfectly fine. Best of luck!
 
There's no school in the country that's out of the question for you. You just need to look at location and price. Definitely apply to your state schools if you feel like you're going to need tuition help, but if that's not a huge concern for you, apply wherever you want to live. Just don't suck at interviewing and you'll do perfectly fine. Best of luck!

Thanks so much! Unfortunately I do not have any state schools since my parents live in a foreign country so pretty much anywhere will be expensive
 
If you're an international student, things will be much more difficult, I'm afraid. Med schools always prefer US applicants over foreign applicants: 40% of US applicants get into at least one medical school, but only 15% of foreign applicants do. Your stats are excellent, so you are still virtually guaranteed to get in somewhere, but you will need to include a lot more lower tier schools in your list to make up for the fact that you are a foreign applicant.

UMDNJ-RWJ is probably not a good school to include on your list because they only admit 10% out-of-state. And probably only 10% of that 10% will be international. I don't know how OOS friendly Connecticut is, so I can't comment on that. All of the other schools you have on your list are very competitive, so I would recommend adding some public schools that are very OOS friendly: Vermont, Virginia, etc. Also try adding some less competitive privates: Rochester, Jefferson, St. Louis, and so on.

EDIT: Just to clarify - if you are not a citizen or a permanent resident, you fall into the international student category. Canadian applicants tend to do a bit better than applicants from other countries, but they are still at a big disadvantage compared to US applicants.
 
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Add some other schools too just in case. Maybe some public medical schools.
 
If you're an international student, things will be much more difficult, I'm afraid. Med schools always prefer US applicants over foreign applicants: 40% of US applicants get into at least one medical school, but only 15% of foreign applicants do. Your stats are excellent, so you are still virtually guaranteed to get in somewhere, but you will need to include a lot more lower tier schools in your list to make up for the fact that you are a foreign applicant.

UMDNJ-RWJ is probably not a good school to include on your list because they only admit 10% out-of-state. And probably only 10% of that 10% will be international. I don't know how OOS friendly Connecticut is, so I can't comment on that. All of the other schools you have on your list are very competitive, so I would recommend adding some public schools that are very OOS friendly: Vermont, Virginia, etc. Also try adding some less competitive privates: Rochester, Jefferson, St. Louis, and so on.

EDIT: Just to clarify - if you are not a citizen or a permanent resident, you fall into the international student category. Canadian applicants tend to do a bit better than applicants from other countries, but they are still at a big disadvantage compared to US applicants.
Just to clarify I am a United States Citizen, I just did my primary schooling in a foreign country.
 
Just to clarify I am a United States Citizen, I just did my primary schooling in a foreign country.

You should be fine then. I still wouldn't recommend applying to UMDNJ-RWJ. Apply to Vermont instead. You'll have much better chances there.
 
Wow. Your app looks insanely similar to mine. Same MCAT with same score breakdown, same major, same GPA (almost), I was also an RA, I was also treasurer for a cultural club... Oh and I also lived abroad and all my family lives in another country, although I am a US citizen.

I agree with others, you should add more reach schools. Your app is basically a better version of mine (I applied this previous cycle) and honestly I got a lot more attention from big name research schools than from mid-tiers.
 
Wow. Your app looks insanely similar to mine. Same MCAT with same score breakdown, same major, same GPA (almost), I was also an RA, I was also treasurer for a cultural club... Oh and I also lived abroad and all my family lives in another country, although I am a US citizen.

I agree with others, you should add more reach schools. Your app is basically a better version of mine (I applied this previous cycle) and honestly I got a lot more attention from big name research schools than from mid-tiers.

Wow, thanks! Congrats on your app cycle! Yes I have decided to add a couple more reach schools and more mid-tiers.
 
Updated list of schools, would appreciate any input on the final list!
Thanks
 
Add some other schools too just in case. Maybe some public medical schools.

did you graduate high school yet? stick to what you know, don't just parrot things you read on the internet
 
Wow, thanks! Congrats on your app cycle! Yes I have decided to add a couple more reach schools and more mid-tiers.

apply wherever you realistically would like to go, there's nothing in your app that is going to hold you back, except maybe your age if you're really only 20.
 
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And while it' might be worth applying to a school like dartmouth, do keep in mind that it is is a very very very different location than some of your other schools. Maybe you went to dartmouth for UG, but otherwise, I'd try to look at places that you want to be. Like, when we mean "choose where you want to go," I think its a combination of which school do you want to go, and where do you want to live? I'd probably throw Emory into that mix-lots of friends have said positive things about the place. I would also second putting in case western and some of the chicago schools as well. Maybe Vandy?

IMO, unless you've visited all of the schools already, applying to more of them also helps you determine good fit. (I actually enjoyed the traveling-yes the interviews were boring, but hey, whatever) I did not even imagine that my school was going to be my top choice after interviewing, but hey, that's part of the experience of interviewing and seeing the school climate. Having a larger net casted does help with that.
 
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