WAMC 25-26 cycle - looking for advice on building a school list and refining ECs

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[Faha]

You should accumulate 150+ hours of non clinical volunteering such as food bank, homeless shelter, etc. before you apply. Otherwise, you will be screened out at some schools. I suggest these schools if you accumulate those hours:
OHSU
USC
UCLA
Washington University (in St. Louis-almost a guaranteed interview with your stats)
Vanderbilt
Northwestern
U Michigan
Iowa
Emory
Duke
U Virginia
Case Western
Ohio State
Cincinnati
Pittsburgh
Jefferson
Rochester
Hofstra
Einstein
Mount Sinai
Columbia
Cornell
Johns Hopkins
Harvard
Yale
Dartmouth
Brown
Boston University
Tufts
Mayo

 

[Mr.Smile12]

1. Non-clinical volunteering
   • 20 hours (expect ~150 by application submission). I recognize this as a critical weakness in my application as it stands right now. I would greatly appreciate advice on how to best focus my efforts here in the coming months prior to application but do recognize the limitations associated with the timing here.

It would help knowing what you are doing with non-clinical volunteering, but whatever you are doing, you are likely going to fall short. You must have 150 hours by submission, but given your high metrics, you are trying to play in the deep end of the pool where having hundreds of hours keeps you in play (at least 250, recommend getting closer to 500 as others will have hundreds to thousands of hours).

Furthermore, the small amount of non-clinical volunteering makes it difficult to draw a narrative around caring for others in your community, which will be a draw for the next and lower tiers of medical schools.

You do have to chew gum and walk at the same time now that you are going into a growth year. You have to find the time now that you don't have the excuse of studying for classes or (presumably) the MCAT.

It doesn't sound like you have talked with others about MD/PhD, but our Research Scientists forum will help you there (as well as the APSA). I'm not sold that you have a solid MSTP profile, but the others in that forum may be better convinced. Regardless, you do have to jump over the typical medical school expectations including some non-clinical volunteering.

Food distribution, shelter volunteer, job/tax preparation, transportation services, and housing rehabilitation. In-person not virtual. Do the work on the front lines for the people, and fundraising won't help you here. Hit the SDN articles, especially regarding your purpose and the competency rubrics. It's clear your metrics won't stop you, but your lack of a mission-aligned purpose will.