Things I should change??

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Nalsjewels

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I am wondering, if I need to reapply next year, what are things I should change about my application? I am a California resident from a very small rural town who graduated from undergrad in 2015 from a top 10 school and applied this cycle. So far I only have one II and lots of rejections/silences.

1800+ hours of working as an EMT-B with my university's 911 service
120 hours of doing clinical hours in the ED, peds ED and maternity word as part of the clinical requirements of the EMT-Intermediate course, working alongside physicians and nurses: took pt histories, vital signs, IV's, med admins, etc)
1 yr of working in the Middle East as high school science teacher for disadvantaged/displaced communities
1 yr volunteering with locally resettled refugees, teaching English and helping them settle into their new communities
Two summers in the Middle East interning with development/human rights NGOs
3 years working in biology research lab but no publications
2 years working on research project concerned with refugee health issues, paper currently in progress with a professor and fellow student and completed extensive field work with health related NGOs

My cGPA is 3.61 and MCAT is 510. My undergrad sGPA is a 3.45, with a strong upward trend during my last 2 years. I completed 6 post bacc courses in physics and advanced bio courses at my local university (UCSD) and received A's in all those courses.
(I had a C+ in Ochem 1 and a B- in inorganic chem 2, but there was significant personal challenges I had to overcome, as described in my personal statement. My personal statement was read over by several people, all said it was very strong)

I know I submitted my application on the later side (AMCAS verified Aug 25, secondaries submitted from September-end of October).

My school list:

II:
Iowa (Carver)

hold (pre II):
GW

Secondary Submitted/waiting for II:
UVM (they said I'm in the small pool)
UCSD
UC Riverside
UC Irvine
Tufts
Minnesota
Einstein
Jefferson
Rosalind Franklin
Emory
Brown
Dartmouth (Geisel)
University of Maryland
Duke
V Tech
U of Colorado


rejected:
Tulane
BU
UC Davis
Wake Forest
Pitt
UCSF
USC
UCLA/Drew

If I end up having to reapply, what are areas of my application to improve? The premed advisor at my university is new so I am not sure how much much weight I should give her advice. She said I should do something clinical since I haven't done anything clinical since I graduated, apply day 1 and pre-write my secondaries to make them better. Is there anything else I should be thinking about? Rethink my list of schools? Retake the MCAT (I am confident my score could be better based on practice tests)? Any advice appreciated.

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what is your breakdown of the 510? and what do your lors look like?

I'd recommend:
- throwing in some shadowing experience despite many EMT clinical exposure hours.
- absolutely applying day 1.
- potentially throwing in additional healthcare-related volunteering or general volunteering in the states (it seems yours are mostly overseas, which isn't a bad thing but since we're talking about things to add).
- getting more people to critique and give you feedback for your personal statement and secondaries.
- making sure your secondary turnaround time is a few days.
- adding some schools in the lower tiered region.
 
Ok thanks for your input, I hadn't thought about adding healthcare volunteer hours in the US. Gotta ease up on that expat bug :p

My breakdown is 127 127 129 127.

I am pretty sure my LORs are good. An advisor I am close with wrote my committee letter and I have LORs from my two research advisors (in both the biological sciences and anthropology) and I know wrote great ones. I also have one from my professor who I was working with to develop the university refugee tutoring program and my anatomy/physiology professor...that's the only one I think could be a little generic, however he still knows me decently well.

Would it be advisable to do more clinical work besides the shadowing?

And any lower tier schools in particular?
 
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Do you have actual shadowing experiences? Non-job related I mean.
 
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