WAMC 2020 Re-applicant

[Maurelius_]

Hello all, I would love some input into my chances and my school list for this upcoming cycle. I applied this previous cycle with 0 II's to show.
Residency: OH
cGPA: 3.90
sGPA: 3.83
MCAT: (128 | 124 | 128 | 131) 511
Clinical Hours: 150 (Worked as a Patient Companion at a regional hospital)
Shadowing: 50+ (Family Practice, ICU, Ophthalmologist)
Volunteering: 500~ (Founded a summer camp for children of families who cannot afford child care | Soup Kitchen | Community gardening for the undeserved of Washington DC)
Research: 4000+ (Undergrad research with 2000 hours, multiple posters, presentations, and one publication | Post-Bacc at the NIH with a few posters and a talk at a national conference)
Leadership: Volunteer Services executive board position of a University sponsored club

I currently have a clinical volunteering position lined up at a hospital that I will start at in a few weeks. I applied for a leadership position at my current job at the NIH that I *hope* to get.
I understand that I was lacking in my clinical experience and have been actively trying to get more hours and experiences to pull from for this upcoming cycle. I also know that my CARS score will limit schools I should send an application. For the next cycle I plan to apply to DO programs as well as MD programs. Fortunately, getting a letter of rec from a DO physician should be easy as I have shadowed one in the past, and am in frequent contact with them.
Any and all help with a school list, and general advice would be much appreciated, thanks!

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[SleazySalesMed]

It would be beneficial for you to share your old school list. Depending on how bad it was, it could have been the major contributor as to why you didn't hear back

 

[Maurelius_]

Here was my school list:

Toledo
Wright State
Cincinnati
Ohio State
NEOMED
Oakland
Wayne State
Medical College of Wisconsin
Creighton
George Washington
Georgetown
Quinnipiac
Vermont
Wake Forest
SLU
Drexel
Jefferson
Louisville

I knew that with my CARS I shouldn't reach too much so I tried to keep myself within a reasonable range. I know there are some "low yield" schools on the list, but I couldn't really find a way around that.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

You'll have to add DO schools next time. No II's suggests something with your PS is at issue. Nothing on face value seems to be an issue with the number of hours of experience, but I don't know if you did the bare minimum compared to other applicants compared against you. The NIH postbac should help, especially with an upcoming recruitment fair in the summer, but you should also have reached out, especially to in-state schools. To have no interview invitations for Ohio is a little odd given you GPA's, and I don't think you MCAT is disqualifying, even if your CARS is a little lower. Did you reach out to admissions recruiters prior to applying, especially if you were concerned about shifting from pre-dental to premedicine?

 

[Maurelius_]

You'll have to add DO schools next time. No II's suggests something with your PS is at issue. Nothing on face value seems to be an issue with the number of hours of experience, but I don't know if you did the bare minimum compared to other applicants compared against you. The NIH postbac should help, especially with an upcoming recruitment fair in the summer, but you should also have reached out, especially to in-state schools. To have no interview invitations for Ohio is a little odd given you GPA's, and I don't think you MCAT is disqualifying, even if your CARS is a little lower. Did you reach out to admissions recruiters prior to applying, especially if you were concerned about shifting from pre-dental to premedicine?

I had conversations with a few admissions recruiters / committee members of Ohio schools. I went to an Ohio school for undergrad and almost every medical school in the state came to give their pitch to our students. I got a bunch of non-answers on my switch from pre-dental to pre-medical. Saying things such as "we look at applicants holistically and if you have a good application it won't matter". I planned to reach out after rejections but many, if not all, explicitly stated to not ask for advice and to instead talk to a medical school advisor.

I agree that my PS wasn't as strong as it should / could be. For the next cycle I'm going to be much more rigorous in my preparation and review of my essays, running it by advisers I have at NIH, among other things.
Thanks for the input!

 

[Zen Arcade]

I had conversations with a few admissions recruiters / committee members of Ohio schools. I went to an Ohio school for undergrad and almost every medical school in the state came to give their pitch to our students. I got a bunch of non-answers on my switch from pre-dental to pre-medical. Saying things such as "we look at applicants holistically and if you have a good application it won't matter". I planned to reach out after rejections but many, if not all, explicitly stated to not ask for advice and to instead talk to a medical school advisor.

I agree that my PS wasn't as strong as it should / could be. For the next cycle I'm going to be much more rigorous in my preparation and review of my essays, running it by advisers I have at NIH, among other things.
Thanks for the input!

I wonder if you talked up your research too much in your essays. Hours wise it could be easy for an adcom to think your more interested in research then medicine given you have thousands of research hours and really only the bare minimum for clinical volunteering. You can get over this by focusing more on your service and clinical experiences than research in your essays. It will help adcoms view the hours in a different light and make the unbalanced hours seem less of an issue. I have lower stats than you and have a very research heavy app, but received interviews from a number of schools on your list (all of them very service based). I think what I focused on in my essays had something to do with it.

 

[Maurelius_]

I wonder if you talked up your research too much in your essays. Hours wise it could be easy for an adcom to think your more interested in research then medicine given you have thousands of research hours and really only the bare minimum for clinical volunteering. You can get over this by focusing more on your service and clinical experiences than research in your essays.

I definitely have a research focused application, and I agree with your remark about probably focusing on it too much in my app. I have a lot of research based activities I would like to include on my app (professional society involvement, posters and talks, publication etc.), and am contemplating how to present it. I think my number of hours and letter of rec speak for themselves in regards to my interest in research. Can I / should I consolidate some of the aforementioned activities into a single activities section so I have room to focus on other parts of my app?

 

[Zen Arcade]

I definitely have a research focused application, and I agree with your remark about probably focusing on it too much in my app. I have a lot of research based activities I would like to include on my app (professional society involvement, posters and talks, publication etc.), and am contemplating how to present it. I think my number of hours and letter of rec speak for themselves in regards to my interest in research. Can I / should I consolidate some of the aforementioned activities into a single activities section so I have room to focus on other parts of my app?

You have room for 15 activities so just group the activities into research, posters/presentations, awards/grants, and publications. That’s 4 activities so you have 11 spots left for other things. But what I’m really talking about is your PS cause that’s where you synthesize your experiences into a meaningful narrative. If 3/4 of it talks about your love of research and science that’s too much. Have one good story about your research experiences and have 2-3 stories relating to service and patient care. This all has to directly relate to why you want to be a doctor. Founding a summer camp is awesome-talk about a time where your efforts to help someone else paid off and how that sparked a passion to serve others. In the end, a lot of us have key moments that we look back on and say ‘this is what motivates me’. It doesn’t necessarily matter if you have 150 hours or 1000, if the experience gave you something of substance that you carry with you than that is valuable to your app. But adcoms won’t know about these personal anecdotes unless you tell them and you have limited space on the PS to make it count, which is why I suggest limiting the space taken up by research. Also, don’t forget you have 3 meaningful activities... I suggest 2 of those be a service and clinical experience and the remaining one research.

 

[imbesrs]

Clinical Hours: 150 (Worked as a Patient Companion at a regional hospital)

A bit low. your app at face value seems like a phd app versus a med school one (4k hrs vs 150). up your clinical hours, perhaps with a variety of clinical experience to at least ~250. I dont think a 124 is holding you back by THAT much honestly.

you also had a very narrow school list. A goro/faha midtier school list would net you better success. That + your writing may need improvement. I feel like it's hard to have a genuine medical school narrative when you have so few clinical hours in only one setting while in the meantime you have a prolific research profile. You're sitting at right around LM70 which is perfectly good for med school.

edit: i didnt read other users responses before commenting lol. seems like were all saying the same thing!

 

[Maurelius_]

If 3/4 of it talks about your love of research and science that’s too much. Have one good story about your research experiences and have 2-3 stories relating to service and patient care. This all has to directly relate to why you want to be a doctor. Founding a summer camp is awesome-talk about a time where your efforts to help someone else paid off and how that sparked a passion to serve others. In the end, a lot of us have key moments that we look back on and say ‘this is what motivates me’. It doesn’t necessarily matter if you have 150 hours or 1000, if the experience gave you something of substance that you carry with you than that is valuable to your app.

Gotcha, I will take all of this into consideration when formulating my new PS. I do think my previous PS was lacking in connections between my volunteering and clinical experiences to my motivations to becoming a doctor. It was more focused on aspects and influences of my life that lead me to my aspirations to become a doctor. Thanks!

you also had a very narrow school list. A goro/faha midtier school list would net you better success.

Are the goro/faha lists for midtier schools well known? I.e. can I do some searching and find what you are talking about? Thanks!

 

[imbesrs]

Gotcha, I will take all of this into consideration when formulating my new PS. I do think my previous PS was lacking in connections between my volunteering and clinical experiences to my motivations to becoming a doctor. It was more focused on aspects and influences of my life that lead me to my aspirations to become a doctor. Thanks!

Np!

Are the goro/faha lists for midtier schools well known? I.e. can I do some searching and find what you are talking about? Thanks!

Its about just finding a thread that has similar stats to you for a general school list, then you can further tailor it to match your app better. You can also tag them and im sure theyd be happy to help!

Search results for query: wamc 3.7 510

forums.studentdoctor.net

 

[Mr.Smile12]

I'm going to agree with others that you need to get a lot of feedback with your personal essays and maybe your experiences inventory to show your range beyond just your research. The NIH postbac resources are pretty good, but I know they discourage people in the IRTA to do any shadowing or additional clinical experience while in the program. I like the people in the training office, but you need to also expand your network to include current students attending the schools near the top of your list. Yes, admissions folks will tout their holistic review process, but you need to get a sense of their experience with accepting applicants with a similar profile to you, even connecting you with students they think had a similar profile. We in admissions get so many emails asking for feedback that we will default to asking you if you have a prehealth advisor you can talk to... that's normal procedure that happens when you haven't established a strong relationship before applying.

 

[Maurelius_]

I'm going to agree with others that you need to get a lot of feedback with your personal essays and maybe your experiences inventory to show your range beyond just your research. The NIH postbac resources are pretty good, but I know they discourage people in the IRTA to do any shadowing or additional clinical experience while in the program. I like the people in the training office, but you need to also expand your network to include current students attending the schools near the top of your list. Yes, admissions folks will tout their holistic review process, but you need to get a sense of their experience with accepting applicants with a similar profile to you, even connecting you with students they think had a similar profile. We in admissions get so many emails asking for feedback that we will default to asking you if you have a prehealth advisor you can talk to... that's normal procedure that happens when you haven't established a strong relationship before applying.

I sincerely appreciate your advice and insight with my situation. I definitely do not possess these strong relationships you are referring to, mostly because of my late entry into the medical sphere, but also because I simply haven't reached out. If I may ask, how would you navigate this situation in my shoes? Is it best to just email admissions offices / members / chairs, explain my situation, and seek information? Should I attend online information sessions and fairs? All of the above?

Also, I love the Lindor appreciation with your user name. Go Tribe!

 

[Faha]

I suggest these schools when you rapply:
Toledo
Wright State
NEOMED
Ohio State
Cincinnati
Oakland Beaumont
Wayne State
Western Michigan
Medical College Wisconsin
Rosalind Franklin
TCU-UNT
NOVA MD
George Washington
Drexel
Temple
Jefferson
Penn State
Seton Hall
New York Medical College
Albany
Vermont
Quinnipiac
Also apply to at least 6 DO schools and include OUHCOM and MU-COM.