WAMC and School List Help (3.8/525)

[kinaree]

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Hi everyone, I’ve been working on a school list for 2026-2027 cycle. I’d like help narrowing down, and choosing/identifying reach schools. Any thoughts or help would be very appreciated. Thank you in advance!

Stats

GPA: 3.8 cumulative GPA, 3.71 science GPA
MCAT: 525 (131/131/132/131)
UC Davis for undergrad, also grew up in Northern California (SF Bay Area) & currently working there during my gap year
Major: Physiology
Asian/white female, non-first gen

Paid Clinical Experience

• 1200 hours working full time as an EMT in San Francisco. Lots of experience working with the city’s homeless population, + substance use, LGBT+ folks, immigrants, etc.

Clinical Volunteering

• 100 hours volunteering at a student run clinic with UC Davis that targets underserved populations. Specifically people with substance use issues, unhoused, and the trans community (includes some hours of non-clinical activities like organizing outreach efforts and health education events)

Non-Clinical Volunteering

• 200 hours volunteering at an LGBT+ community center. Serves underprivileged members of urban San Francisco who I directly work with (helping them get healthcare, find shelter, food, hygiene supplies, etc)
• 150 hours cooking and serving food at a community center (in undergrad) that provides freshly cooked meals for low income and homeless families
• 100 hours volunteering to help teach students and support instructors at an EMT school

Research

• 400 hours non-clinical research on a project involving statistics and video games (2 presentations, with a middle author publication in the works)
• 100 hours of healthcare related research including lit reviews on macrophages and anticoagulants, and screening samples for blood clots

Other Work Experience/Activities

• 1000 hours working part time as a tutor for my university while in undergrad (bio, chem, physics, statistics etc.)

Shadowing

• 40 hours across multiple specialties (primary care, internal medicine, interventional cardiology, anaesthesia)
• I want to get some emergency medicine shadowing under my belt to complement my EMS focus and see what emergency medicine is like on the physician’s end.

Notes:

• Some family in Massachusetts

My current working list:

UCSF
UC Davis
UCI
UCLA
UCSD
Loma Linda
Stanford
CUSM
Keck
Einstein
U of Nevada Reno
Rush
Boston University
UMass Chan
Stritch Loyola
Temple
NYMC
Penn State
Thomas Jefferson
Drexel
Penn State
University of Illinois
George Washington
Georgetown

Considering:

NYU Grossman
Columbia
UPenn
Harvard
Duke
Sinai
UCR
OHSU
Tufts
Old Dominion Eastern Virginia
JSMBS
Geisinger
Washington State
Emory
Pitt SOM
SUNY Upstate and Downstate

 

[morak]

Congrats on your fantastic MCAT score! I can't say much about many of these schools (though I am confused by some of the choices, eg why are you considering Old Dominion and Illinois?). However, I can say for sure that you should be applying to every T20, because many lower tier schools might pass you over given your stats and great profile overall (assuming rightfully that you'll end up at a better school). All the best for your apps!