WAMC? Am I competitve?

[Goofy Goober]

I would appreciate any advice. I had more research planned last spring and summer, but it all got cancelled due to covid.

1. GPA: cGPA 3.97 and sGPA 3.90

2. MCAT: 521 (129/129/132/131)

3. Residence: Illinois resident (I attend a small, rural, liberal arts college.

4. Ethnicity: White male, ORM

5. Clinical experience: 400 hours as EMT basic and 400 hours ER tech (800 hours TOTAL)

6. Research: 1.5 years (400 hours) on two projects with one presentation at an ACS conference... I will have an REU experience with another 400 hours with a presentation at another institution or my home college (my backup). (900 hours, 3 projects, and 2 presentations TOTAL)

7. Shadowing: None, but I have formed connections and have shadowing set up for early this upcoming summer and fall with local physicians (covid ****ed things up here.

8. Volunteering: 3 years and 300 hours of local volunteer firefighting (some of this is clinical and some nonclinical)

9. Misc: Collegiate athlete (Tennis), Premed Club President and member for 3 years, TA for chemistry department for a year (100 hours), worked for a genetic crop engineering company for 3 years during the summers as a crew leader (2000 hours). My hobbies also include lifting heavy things and then putting them back down.

10. Honors: Deans list 6X

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[Latteandaprayer]

Looks good to me overall! I am not very qualified to critique lol, but I think your weakness is going to be research. 18 months is the minimum to be considered (or the guideline), so you're cutting it close. However, if you can write strongly about what you did and how your work advances your field, you'll be alright I think.

 

[Fencer]

Do not worry about the lack of shadowing at the moment. Once the pandemic is over, you might want to prioritize 20-40 hours of hospital/ED shadowing service. Your firefighter experience has some clinical embedded into it.

Now, state of residency doesn't matter for MSTPs or the overwhelming majority of MD/PhD programs. You should have a lot of interest, but apply broadly with 10 dream MSTPs, and at least 10 mid-west MSTPs. You might want to include a couple of smaller programs that up and coming nearby.