WAMC (3.3, 521); Needing reapplication advice

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1. sGPA: 3.28 cGPA: 3.31
2. 521 (132, 132, 128, 129)
3. Minnesota (but considering a move to Oregon), strong ties to Montana and Washington
4. WM
5. UMN-TC
6. Currently I have 1500 hours as a psychiatric tech, 150 hours volunteering at an outpatient haem/onc clinic. At time of application, I'm planning to have an additional 1500 hours as a psych tech.
7. 600 hours bench research in chem-bio lab, 1 poster no pubs, and 50 hours in an organic synthesis lab (interrupted by the pandemic).
8. Currently 0, but already have plans to shadow an IM hospitalist. I'm curious how many hours in this category would be impactful.
9. 50 hours serving meals at a homeless shelter. Currently accumulating hours as a volunteer tutor at my former community college, planning on having around 200 hours by time of reapplication.
10. 2300 hours as overnight staff at a homeless shelter. 300 hours as a paid tutor for middle school through college students. 300 hours as a field team leader for a nonpartisan municipal election (basically I planned and managed canvassing operations). Few dozen hours as a reporter for my school newspaper and the president of the math club as well.
11. Nothing of note
12. I have a couple red flags in my application: 2 IAs. The first was for poor academic performance 10 years ago as an 18/19 year old. Totally due to my own immaturity. I dropped out of that school and move across state lines before starting at a community college, where I had a 4.0 over the course of a two year Math AS. I then transferred to a 4 year state school as a chemistry major, where I earned a 4.0 my first semester. My second semester, however, the pandemic hit, and then over the summer and fall there was significant civil unrest in my neighborhood (like military patrolling my block and the stores across the street from me literally burning down). In this context, I had a mental health crisis. There's no way to really dress it up: I just had a mental collapse and my grades again got to the point where I was on academic probation. I have a couple of Fs and plenty of Ws from that 1 year period. I ended up taking 1.5 years off, got involved in political organizing in my hometown, worked at a shelter, healed some of my trauma, and then I returned to school to earn an individualized degree in Psych, Soc, and Poli Sci. My grades unfortunately were never sterling again; I hovered around a 3.5 after returning to school a second time.

Will I be in a strong position to reapply in 2026? Should I wait until 2027? What can I do to overcome the red flags in my application? Are MD schools a realistic possibility for me? What would be a good school list for my profile?

Thanks for your insights in advance!

 

[Faha]

You should accumulate 50 hours of physician shadowing before you submit your application. I suggest these MD schools with your stats:
Minnesota
Iowa
Medical College Wisconsin
Rosalind Franklin
Rush
Loyola
Western Michigan
Oakland Beaumont
Wayne State
Ponce (St. Louis)
Roseman
TCU
St. Louis
Creighton
Alice Walton
Belmont
Tulane
NOVA MD
USF Morsani
Methodist
Wake Forest
Virginia Commonwealth
Eastern Virginia
George Washington
Drexel
Temple
Jefferson
Penn State
Hackensack
New York Medical College
Albany
Vermont
Quinnipiac
Also apply to DO schools and include these:
CCOM
DMU-COM
ATSU-KCOM
KCU-COM
NYITCOM
Touro-NY
PCOM
CUSOM
AZCOM
WESTERN
TUCOM-CA
You are fine to apply in June 2026.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

How did you connect your homeless shelter work with your purpose as a physician? Where did you send applications?

50 hours of physician shadowing will help too.