WAMC: 3.96/524 (+diversifying school list)

[achen91]

Hi, I would appreciate any comments / suggestions about my school list. I'm trying not to apply to more than 25 (for financial / time reasons) and am struggling to create a diverse + reasonable list.

Academic background: Junior at T15 private research school, graduating 1 semester early (Traditional applicant). Biology major, Spanish + statistics minors
State of residence: CA / ORM
cGPA: 3.96, sGPA: 3.96
MCAT: 524 (131/131/131/131)

Research: ~1500 hours in one lab for 2.5 years so far, will continue until after graduation. 1 national poster presentation / short talk, a couple regional poster presentations. Received a fellowship of $7500 over 3 years to pursue an independent project. PI is writing a LOR. 1 upcoming paper, but won't be submitted / approved before applying b/c of COVID19 lab shutdowns.

Clinical Volunteering: Doing art therapy (~70 hours). ER volunteer (~50 hours). Miscellaneous bits of working with low vision patients and volunteering in waiting rooms (~70 hours). I was planning to go hard on all things clinical this semester but probably won't be able to continue for a while.

Physician shadowing: ~40 hours total w/ ER, cardiothoracic surgeon, ophthalmologist. Definitely my weak point.

Non-clinical volunteering: Mentoring inner city middle schoolers in STEM (~200 hours), supervised 4 other mentors. Homeless shelter (~40 hours).

Other ECs: Magic (~200 hours), my ~unique~ EC. Biology Honors Society (~60 hours), will be co-Pres. Writing tests / proctoring events for Science Olympiad tournaments (~60 hours). Events coordinator for a club that raises awareness for / serves the low vision community (split between clinical / non-clinical volunteering)

Employment: Mentoring 2 peers / semester to improve study skills + if applicable, get off academic probation (~70 hours). Developed curriculum for a STEM summer program targeted to attract at-risk youth (~80 hours).

Other: I'm really interested in Spanish / working with Spanish speaking patients, and have taken Medical Spanish, if that's useful info.

My prehealth advisor said I could use some of the UCs as "safeties" but I would like a more diverse list since I feel like it's pretty top heavy. I'm a bit afraid of yield protection and a lot of state schools are not OOS friendly, so I welcome any + all advice!

School list:
In CA:
Stanford
USC Keck
UCSF
UCLA
UCSD
UCD - what's up with the new SJT requirement??
UCI
Kaiser

Other:
Columbia
NYU
Cornell
Mt. Sinai
UChicago
Northwestern
Vandy
WashU
Hopkins
Mayo (Alix)
UMich
Duke
Albert Einstein
UPitt
USF Morsani

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[Faha]

You could add these schools:
Rochester
Case Western
Ohio State
Miami
Harvard
Yale

 

[achen91]

You could add these schools:
Rochester
Case Western
Ohio State
Miami
Harvard
Yale

Thanks! I will look into those. Is there any school on my list that you would recommend taking off? (Do you think it's balanced enough?)
Also, will my less than desirable shadowing hours greatly impact my application?

 

[Faha]

Your school list is good. 50 hours of shadowing is the recommendation so you are a little below average but it should not matter.

 

[achen91]

Great, thank you!

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Pretty much all options are on the table for you including private OOS schools and some publics where you may have a specific interest. The SJT is like CASPR or an online MMI.

 

[achen91]

Thanks for the vote of confidence!
Any specific schools you would recommend?
Also, do you have any thoughts on why AAMC is trying out SJT instead of just doing CASPR?

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Also, do you have any thoughts on why AAMC is trying out SJT instead of just doing CASPR?

CASPR is a private assessment product used by a lot of different graduate programs. The AAMC SJT is meant to assess the entering competencies and is specifically designed for that purpose. This is a pilot year, and only 2-3? schools are part of it.