WAMC 514/3.67 GPA applying MD + School List

[Username88]

23, Asian male who graduated in May 2022, CA resident (up until going to college, so 17 years). REAPPLICANT (applied 2022-2023, rejected by all, no interviews)
Graduated from Purdue in May 2022 in public health

3.67 cGPA, 3.35 sGPA, 3x Dean's List

Highest, most recent MCAT is 514 (129/126/131/128)/ Had a 506 and 507 before htat.

1 gap year currently working in human research conducting study visits, which includes pulmonary function testing, CAT scan analyses and chart reviews (participating eligibility/more info on clearing participants if they have strokes/heart attacks, etc.), totaling about 1000 hours so far (started full time mid-August). Have a publication that I am on through this, but am about the eighth or ninth author as I was one of the most recent hires despite being one of three main people working on this study (the rest are backups). I was required to learn how to do CPR, phlebotomy, and to administer Narcan as part of training for this job.

I am organizing shadowing starting around June, so I should have about 40 hours of shadowing lined up after I submit my primary. Currently one is organized for 2 days at the MICU of a local hospital.

Extracurriculars (clinical facing):
~80 hours volunteering in the ER (ongoing, clinical). Dealt with transporting many patients who could not speak English, patients newly arriving from ambulances, etc. Noncritical states though, mostly walk-ins.
~400 hours fixing a local hospital's dementia ward's high fall rate as a club member - had to submit reformatted incident forms for the hospital to use to aid data, ended up having solutions implemented at ward to reduce high fall rates

Extracurriculars (other)
~400 hours doing grant writing for a non-for-profit
~240 hours being an intern at a med school program's outreach program (was new and was collecting med company data) - note that this was fully remote
~144 hours transcribing interviews in undergrad as part of research (ended up pausing and never restarting due to COVID)
~400 hours in a pre-professional club where we also did volunteering to help clean up elderly people's homes to prep for winter
~800 hours in an Asian American club at my university to prep local student events

Worked for one semester at my uni's dining court part time in sophomore year

The reason for the low cGPA and sGPA is because I was an engineering freshman in another uni that really did not work out well and was mainly science based, and due to that uni's rules I could not retake it. I did end up getting Dean's list for the next 3 years once I transferred uni and major. I was hoping my higher MCAT scores could make up for this low cGPA and sGPA.

I am thinking of applying to 63 med schools this cycle. It's a lot, but I know last year I messed up my personal statement and work/activities (I didn't understand to put much of the extracurriculars in the right category and/or how to phrase things well) and no shadowing, so I am unsure if I should spend so much money on getting into one.

I was wondering if I should post the full list here or not, but basically all the MD med schools in CA and med schools from 508-518 that accept at least about half of out of state applicants. Think many schools like Northeastern Ohio, Drexel, Indiana University, Rosalind Franklin, University of Pittsburgh, and a few reach schools like Harvard and Stanford just to see if I can try.

Any advice on how to shore up my application or to trim down my med school list would be great!

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[chilly_md]

What state are you a resident of now?

It does not sound like you interacted with patients as part of the dementia ward from what you shared. Your clinical research however could be since you seem to be running pulmonary testing and may have asked patients about their history.

63 schools is too many. Unfortunately, engineering is a difficult major, but admissions won’t be able to give you much benefit of the doubt if your sGPA is a 3.35. That is near the 10th percentile for most MD schools and with schools averaging MCAT scores, you have closer to your original 506.

 

[Faha]

The reason for your lack of interviews is your low clinical volunteering hours (only 80 with patient contact and you need 200+) and your complete lack of shadowing. You are not ready to apply again to MD schools until you have 50 hours of shadowing and 200+ hours of clinical volunteering on yoiur application (not projected hours). Unless you can accumulate those hours prior to submitting your application you should wait until June 2024 to apply.