WAMC: 4.0 GPA, 522 MCAT

[premedstudent2243]

Hi everyone!! I am a current junior who is hoping to get some advice on whether to apply next cycle (2024-2025) or not. I'm open to a gap year, but don't necessarily want to take one if I don't have to.

1. cGPA: 4.0, sGPA: 4.0 (not expecting this to change much over the next school year)
2. MCAT score(s): 522 (131/132/128/131)
3. State of residence: IL
4. Ethnicity and/or race: ORM / white
5. Undergraduate: T50 private, major: public health, minors: urban studies, spanish
6. Clinical experience (volunteer and non-volunteer)
   1. Paid summer internship at pediatric office w/ MA duties: 400 hrs
   2. Hospital patient transport volunteering: 75 hrs (by time of application)
   3. *also hope to work as MA next summer and possibly do some different volunteering this spring
7. Research experience
   1. Research assistant for cardiovascular study: 480 hrs (by time of app) - unsure if pubs / posters will happen
   2. 1 semester research project on food security that I plan to continue as senior thesis: 150 hrs (by time of app)
8. Shadowing experience
   1. 15 hrs peds
   2. 5 hrs (+5 more projected) family med
   3. 4 hrs ophthalmology
   4. 4 hrs projected neonatal
   5. Hoping to get to around 50 hrs by time of apps
9. Non-clinical volunteering
   1. 2 different community orgs focused on food insecurity (free pantry + urban farm): 100 hrs (by time of app)
   2. Campus health promotion volunteer: 100 hrs (by time of app)
10. Other extracurricular activities
    1. Paid leadership position for campus health promotion organization: 150 hrs (by time of app) - implementing new nutrition workshop, cool position in my opinion
    2. TA + tutoring for intro bio class: 400 hrs (by time of app)
    3. Club soccer, some other random hobbies
11. Relevant honors or awards
    1. Full-tuition 4-year scholarship at my university, not sure if relevant
12. Other: studied abroad for a semester on a public health focused program - has given me some unique healthcare perspectives and high level of Spanish proficiency

Any advice or school list recommendations would be so appreciated! I think that I have a solid app with a theme around public health, specifically nutrition / food security, but my hour counts aren't super high. Would prefer to consider schools in big cities because I'm really interested in urban health

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[Mr.Smile12]

It looks like you are double dipping your campus health promo organization hours as community service and leadership. Your off-campus food pantry/urban garden activity has more gravitas to me, and you need to get to at least 150 hours to avoid getting screened out at most schools.

Service heavy schools like the ones you want will want at least 500 hours of service orientation activity.

Shadowing is definitely light, though you acknowledge you must get to 50 hours minimum.

Research is really light, and I'm not sure you will actually do 150 hours for your thesis. That's not a lot.

Read up on mission fit.

Building Your Best School List - SDN

The Student Doctor Network provides free tools, resources, and advising services to help students become health professionals.

www.studentdoctor.net

Mission Fit: Key to Your Success - SDN

The Student Doctor Network provides free tools, resources, and advising services to help students become health professionals.

www.studentdoctor.net

Application Tips: Showing a Global Health Focus - SDN

The Student Doctor Network provides free tools, resources, and advising services to help students become health professionals.

www.studentdoctor.net

 

[atriablack]

Imo, your research hours (630 between both of them) and clinical hours are fine. I recommend you buff up the community orgs focused on food insecurity unto 200 hours (min. 150). Specifically the urban farm since you state you are really interested in urban health. It will allow you to lean into that narrative and give you a better standing to state which areas of medicine you want to practice in.

I think that I have a solid app with a theme around public health, specifically nutrition / food security

Yes. Tell this story clearly and hit on these themes.

but my hour counts aren't super high.

Honestly it's the non clinical community service and the shadowing that is low. Both are things you still could fix in time to apply.

 

[Faha]

I suggest these schools with your stats:
U Illinois
Southern Illinois
Rosalind Franklin
Northwestern
U Chicago
Washington University (in St. Louis-almost a guaranteed interview with your stats)
St. Louis
Western Michigan
U Michigan
Case Western
Cincinnati
Vanderbilt
Miami
USF Morsani
Duke
Jefferson
Johns Hopkins
U Penn
Pittsburgh
Hofstra
Einstein
Mount Sinai
Cornell
Columbia
NYU
Rochester
Tufts
Boston University
Harvard
Brown
Yale
Kaiser

 

[premedstudent2243]

It looks like you are double dipping your campus health promo organization hours as community service and leadership. Your off-campus food pantry/urban garden activity has more gravitas to me, and you need to get to at least 150 hours to avoid getting screened out at most schools.

Service heavy schools like the ones you want will want at least 500 hours of service orientation activity.

Shadowing is definitely light, though you acknowledge you must get to 50 hours minimum.

Research is really light, and I'm not sure you will actually do 150 hours for your thesis. That's not a lot.

Read up on mission fit.

Building Your Best School List - SDN

The Student Doctor Network provides free tools, resources, and advising services to help students become health professionals.

www.studentdoctor.net

Mission Fit: Key to Your Success - SDN

The Student Doctor Network provides free tools, resources, and advising services to help students become health professionals.

www.studentdoctor.net

Application Tips: Showing a Global Health Focus - SDN

The Student Doctor Network provides free tools, resources, and advising services to help students become health professionals.

www.studentdoctor.net

Thanks for your feedback! For the campus health promo org I actually changed roles from a volunteer position to a paid leadership position, each with very different responsibilities. I'll try to get as many hours as possible at the food pantry/urban garden! Realistically 500 service hours is probably not going to happen for me but my research does focus on underserved communities. To me it seems that some of the hour totals they expect are not realistic, especially for traditional students, but that's just how it is I guess.

 

[premedstudent2243]

I suggest these schools with your stats:
U Illinois
Southern Illinois
Rosalind Franklin
Northwestern
U Chicago
Washington University (in St. Louis-almost a guaranteed interview with your stats)
St. Louis
Western Michigan
U Michigan
Case Western
Cincinnati
Vanderbilt
Miami
USF Morsani
Duke
Jefferson
Johns Hopkins
U Penn
Pittsburgh
Hofstra
Einstein
Mount Sinai
Cornell
Columbia
NYU
Rochester
Tufts
Boston University
Harvard
Brown
Yale
Kaiser

Thank you so much! I would love to be in Chicago and was considering applying to Rush but would you suggest staying away from it due to its heavy service focus?

 

[premedstudent2243]

Imo, your research hours (630 between both of them) and clinical hours are fine. I recommend you buff up the community orgs focused on food insecurity unto 200 hours (min. 150). Specifically the urban farm since you state you are really interested in urban health. It will allow you to lean into that narrative and give you a better standing to state which areas of medicine you want to practice in.

Yes. Tell this story clearly and hit on these themes.

Honestly it's the non clinical community service and the shadowing that is low. Both are things you still could fix in time to apply.

Thank you, will try to get as many hours volunteering and shadowing as possible! Sometimes there's just not enough hours in the day

 

[Faha]

Thank you so much! I would love to be in Chicago and was considering applying to Rush but would you suggest staying away from it due to its heavy service focus?

Rush is looking for applicants with far more non clinical volunteering hours than you have.

 

[Psyched*Out]

Imo, your research hours (630 between both of them) and clinical hours are fine. I recommend you buff up the community orgs focused on food insecurity unto 200 hours (min. 150). Specifically the urban farm since you state you are really interested in urban health. It will allow you to lean into that narrative and give you a better standing to state which areas of medicine you want to practice in.

Yes. Tell this story clearly and hit on these themes.

Honestly it's the non clinical community service and the shadowing that is low. Both are things you still could fix in time to apply.

How exactly do you lean into a narrative without sounding fully committed to that aspect of medicine and seeming like you don't care about the other parts of medicine?

 

[atriablack]

How exactly do you lean into a narrative without sounding fully committed to that aspect of medicine and seeming like you don't care about the other parts of medicine?

A balancing act. Also, I when I say a narrative I mean a story centered around a theme not necessarily a specialty. You can have a vision of how you want your future practice to look like without restricting yourself to a specialty. In fact, even though I am interested in surgery, unless asked directly, I rarely mention it. Even then I keep it vague and acknowledge how I'm looking forward to rotations to clarify my interests.

Themes can be applied broadly so you better be able to practice all aspects of medicine. Urban health, rural health, disparity, biomedical intersection etc can all act as themes. Looking at school with areas of concentrations or elective tracts can help you get inspired for what a theme can look like too.

Edit: Also, you can have multiple themes! And by default you are then caring about multiple facets of medicine.

That said, not everyone has a theme and that's okay. You can make your theme "your story" the specific path that you walked that leads you to how you will impact medicine in X, Y, and Z spheres.

 

[LeaveNoTrace]

Get some kind of clinical volunteering - and be clear just how much of your summer was MA duties vs. other internship work. You need 150 hours of bona fide clinical experience just to check the box, plus the same amount of nonclinical volunteering, preferably in person. For top 20s, you'll want more like 300. Your stats are great, and you're close to being T20 pack fodder - but without those boxes checked it's a pretty big handicap.