WAMC 3.93/523 MSTP

[mallcat]

cGPA and sGPA as calculated by AMCAS or AACOMAS: Don't know yet but GPA right now is 3.93
MCAT: 523 130/130/131/132
Residence: California
Ethnicity and/or race: ORM
Undergraduate institution or category: T20
Clinical experience (volunteer and non-volunteer): Hospital volunteering - 140 hours completed, will probably get to around 300 during my gap year
Research experience and productivity: 3.5 years in one lab (~2000 hours upon grad and 2000ish more during gap year), multiple school-wide undergraduate posters/presentations, poster + talk at large international conference + 1st author abstract from this. No pubs aside from several abstracts I have authorship on from others in my lab :/ I'll be on two manuscripts as second author but not before I apply. I am pretty much independent but projects are all related to grad student mentor's work.
Shadowing experience and specialties represented: 60 hours - pediatrics, outpatient neurology, neurosurgery
Non-clinical volunteering: 80 hours free resources organization at time of application will probably get 100 more hours during gap
Other extracurricular activities: reviewer for undergrad research journal, co-founder + director of recruitment LGBTQ+ interest org, tutor for program focusing on underserved students (paid), writer for school newspaper
Relevant honors or awards: nothing crazy just dean's honors list + major related stuff
Other: will be continuing in same lab during my gap year continuing independent research but won't be under a grad student anymore. I will have two strong LORs from PIs + two more from other professors

Hopefully this is enough info to be useful! I know I have pretty low volunteering hours but I could get those up if it's going to be a big problem applying to MD-PhD programs

School list ordered by GPA of matriculants descending (from what I could find online)
Northwestern
Harvard
Emory
UPenn
UCSF
Vanderbilt
UChicago
Tri-I
Duke
Columbia
Stanford
MC Wisconsin
Yale
WashU
UCLA Caltech
U Washington
Tufts
UNC
UCSD
CWRU
Pittsburgh/CMU
Icahn
UCD
UVA
Boston University
Rutgers/Princeton
UMass-Chan
UCI
CU Anschutz
Albert Einstein

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[Mr.Smile12]

What is your purpose as an MD/PhD? Metrics should be fine, but you must be picky where you want to live for the next decade of your life.

 

[mallcat]

What is your purpose as an MD/PhD? Metrics should be fine, but you must be picky where you want to live for the next decade of your life.

I mean I feel like my purpose is the same as every other MD/PhD applicant haha. If you're asking more so about sentiments behind the why MD-PhD essay, I became interested in this path because the field of my research is in a disease that doesn't really have successful treatments and low survival rates so it was clear to me why physician scientists are so important (to put it briefly)

Also yeah I know my list is pretty all over the place but I was actually trying not to be too picky because I wanted to apply as broadly as possible since I still can't tell if I'm competitive enough + not sure how this cycle is going to go

 

[Mr.Smile12]

I mean I feel like my purpose is the same as every other MD/PhD applicant haha. If you're asking more so about sentiments behind the why MD-PhD essay, I became interested in this path because the field of my research is in a disease that doesn't really have successful treatments and low survival rates so it was clear to me why physician scientists are so important (to put it briefly)

Also yeah I know my list is pretty all over the place but I was actually trying not to be too picky because I wanted to apply as broadly as possible since I still can't tell if I'm competitive enough + not sure how this cycle is going to go

That's not a purpose why you want to be a physician scientist. We need solid researchers too. You could include programs that incorporate a research/scholarship year and still fulfill this purpose. Many of them you have on your list. So what's the difference to you? Why spend 8 years of your life rather than 4 years (and get more than a grad student salary for 4)?

It appears to me you are solid talking about your work and hopefully have solid mentorship letters. What I don't know is what 8 years would give you over 4. The disease isn't going to be cured before you are done with medical school or MD/PhD.

Also, be aware that PI's can move or they can lose funding. It sounds like you know the field of your research, so you should have an idea why you list specific schools due to that research community. I would encourage you to look bigger too (department, career support, research infrastructure).

 

[mallcat]

That's not a purpose why you want to be a physician scientist. We need solid researchers too. You could include programs that incorporate a research/scholarship year and still fulfill this purpose. Many of them you have on your list. So what's the difference to you? Why spend 8 years of your life rather than 4 years (and get more than a grad student salary for 4)?

It appears to me you are solid talking about your work and hopefully have solid mentorship letters. What I don't know is what 8 years would give you over 4. The disease isn't going to be cured before you are done with medical school or MD/PhD.

Also, be aware that PI's can move or they can lose funding. It sounds like you know the field of your research, so you should have an idea why you list specific schools due to that research community. I would encourage you to look bigger too (department, career support, research infrastructure).

Thanks for the input—I’m obviously not going to explain every detail on this forum but I talk about all of that in my essays since I know MDs can still do research. But I appreciate the response, it helps with perspective and I might adjust how I frame things in my app

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Also don't forget to ask the Research Scientists forum here. That's where many of our MSTP's hang out.