WAMC (3.93 / 524), Senior taking gap year

[med12443i]

Hi, I am currently a senior in college, and I am planning on applying in the upcoming cycle next May.

cGPA: 3.93, sGPA: 3.93
MCAT: 524 (130 BB, 132 CARS, 130 CP, 132 PS)
State of residence: NJ
Ethnicity and/or race: ORM Asian
Undergraduate: T50
*All hours are expected hours at time of application (end of May)

Clinical experience (volunteer and non-volunteer)

• volunteer EMT (500 hours)
• medical assistant or scribe (600 hours)
  • I will be graduating early, so I will be working full time from Jan onwards

Research Experience:

• Neuroscience research since freshman year (2700 hours)
• Very involved, led an independent project since sophomore year
• 2 posters at big international conference, 1 poster at smaller conference, 1 department talk (all first-author)
• First author pre-print on bioxriv

Shadowing experience and specialties represented

• 50 hours shadowing primary care physician/geriatrician

Open to getting more shadowing if necessary

Non-clinical volunteering

• Big Brother Big Sister (100 hours)
• Hospice companionship volunteer (100 hours)
• Tutored inmates studying for their GED (50 hours)
• Mentored fellow college students with autism (weekly meetings) for 3 sems (40 hours)

Open to starting more non clinical volunteering (food bank etc.) but will be tough due to schedule and how close it is to May.

Other extracurricular activities (including athletics, military service, gap year activities, leadership, teaching, etc):

• Intro to computer science TA (50 hours)

Relevant honors or awards:

• 2 college merit scholarshps
• Summer research fellowship
• Competitive travel award for international conference

Many of my non clinical activities involve making close 1 on 1 relationships, and so I want my application to focus on the importance of making strong human connections. Also, I am worried that I lack any formal leadership roles, although I do believe I was a leader in certain situations such as in my research leading my own project. Will this be an issue?

Thanks for taking the time read this!

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[chilly_md]

I suggest:

Your NJ schools
Hofstra
Rochester
Einstein
NYU
Cornell
Columbia
Sinai
Penn
Jefferson
Brown
Yale
Vanderbilt
Duke
UVA
Johns Hopkins
Emory
Miami
WUSTL
Michigan
Case
Iowa
Northwestern
University of Chicago
Mayo
Stanford
Keck
UCLA

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Open to starting more non clinical volunteering (food bank etc.) but will be tough due to schedule and how close it is to May.

So if you are serious, bulk up on the activities you are doing now with BBBS and hospice. Drop your tutoring (because you'll do that anyway once you're done with college). Give yourself a chance to demonstrate (more) service orientation before you submit your application.

 

[med12443i]

So if you are serious, bulk up on the activities you are doing now with BBBS and hospice. Drop your tutoring (because you'll do that anyway once you're done with college). Give yourself a chance to demonstrate (more) service orientation before you submit your application.

Thanks for advice. I'll see if I can do that. Not sure how much more I can do per week with those however. Do you think it would be worth it to start a new volunteer position even if I can only get 50 hours in that?

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Thanks for advice. I'll see if I can do that. Not sure how much more I can do per week with those however. Do you think it would be worth it to start a new volunteer position even if I can only get 50 hours in that?

I tend to disregard activities with fewer than 50 hours (unless it's shadowing). Again, bulk up on the activities with BBBS or hospice. If you feel you can give a 150+ hour commitment with your GED work, you can try that, but don't add more tutoring. Get off campus and out of your comfort zone.