WAMC How competitive am I really for T20s? [Great Stats, Mid ECs]

[marquee_moon]

Hello all, I think I need feedback for the kind of school list I should build. To be clear: I do believe that I am a very strong candidate overall, but I'm unsure if I should focus on mid-tier schools or I'm competitive enough to gun for the T20s. Based on what I've heard from parents and peers, as well as my LizzyM and WARS scores, I've already created a general school list that is extremely top-heavy and OOS, but I would like some basic guidance on how I should revise it (and maybe the rest of my apps too).

Note: I am a senior, so I will be applying this cycle with 1 gap year.

My application going in will be:

Basic Stats: TX resident, ORM (Asian M), T20 undergrad, 3.96 cGPA, 3.95 sGPA, 526 MCAT

Research: >2000 hours over two labs, no publications (potential pub during the cycle) but 2 poster presentations at my undergrad

Clinical Volunteering: 250 hours in the ER and ICU units, with lots of patient interaction

Shadowing: 110 hours across three specialties

Non-Clinical Volunteering: ~170 hours spread across 4 activities:
1) food bank (70 hours)
2) handing out meals to homeless people with a political org (60 hours)
3) pet shelter (30 hours)
4) teaching classes at a women's shelter (10 hours)

Leadership: 60 hours of TA experience, 150 hours as a personal advisor to freshman at my undergrad (over 1 year)
Aside: Do these count as leadership?

Extracurriculars: Managed and sang backup vocals for a local band, played 3 shows to audiences of 100+, was responsible for securing these gigs

Additionally, I am confident that I will have (moderate to) strong LORs, and strong essays. I gained extremely valuable experience in all of these activities (i.e. research wasn't just washing glasses, and clin volunteering wasn't just restocking items), and I will definitely be able to write about with great detail and pull clear lessons out of each of them.

School List: Harvard, Johns Hopkins, UPenn, Columbia, Duke, Stanford, UCSF, Vanderbilt, WashU, Weill Cornell, NYU, Yale, Mayo, Northwestern, Pitt, Mount Sinai, Baylor, UTSW, UChicago, Emory, UCLA, Michigan, CWRU, UVA, USF, USC, Brown, Boston, Albert Einstein, Colorado, UT San Antonio, UT McGovern, UT Dell

Right now, I definitely believe that the weakest parts of my application are my limited volunteering hours and leadership experience – please let me know your thoughts on these, in particular. Thank you all for your time, and please don't hold back.

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[Faha]

You are competitive for all your Texas schools. You would benefit from another 50+ hours at the food bank or homeless shelter.

 

[marquee_moon]

You are competitive for all your Texas schools. You would benefit from another 50+ hours at the food bank or homeless shelter.

Thank you for your reply. In that case then, do you think I am fine in the regards of securing at least one acceptance and that I don't need to include any more "safe" schools in my list?

I'll aim to get more hours in non-clinical volunteering, but I'm not sure if 50 additional hours is feasible. The hours I've written on the original post project out to June 1 (so I would have these hours prior to submitting my application, but I don't have these hours at the moment).

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Great job! If you are going to play in the major leagues, here's my advice. I'm not holding back... you deserve the best critique.

Your non-clinical community service as reported is low. I eliminate activities where you spent fewer than 100 hours (for your situation) because you intend to play in a world where Shohei Otani will beat you with a fastball and a homer in the same inning. That puts your non-clinical service orientation activities at zero. Stick to one activity (not the pet shelter) and go long... at least 250 hours minimum to stay in the ballpark and not get benched. 150 is enough to avoid getting screened out at most schools, but you're trying to score the home run as Texas OOS. You'll get the attention, but that guarantees nothing (without having your essays).

Your clinical hours may be satisfactory, but I assume you will boost this in your gap year.

Your TA and peer advisor "leadership" is an academic activity, not leadership. Every premed has academic competency activities like tutoring, teaching, or mentoring. They won't help you stand out.

Point to me the activities where you have thrived in uncomfortable situations or with very uncomfortable people for an extended period of time. Why are you successful?

I expect your letters to be strong. You're not going to ask for a LOR if your professor is the type of person who withholds giving a first-place HOF vote to Ichiro Suzuki out of spite. Don't skimp here.

Your extracurriculars... what are you trying to tell me if you were a backup singer for 3 band shows?

What is your purpose as a physician? Like the Miss Universe pageant, everyone's a superlative who wants the crown (though there are dozens of crowns). Why should anyone want you as a student? What would make you happy to be there as a student even if it means getting up at 4am every morning?

 

[marquee_moon]

Great job! If you are going to play in the major leagues, here's my advice. I'm not holding back... you deserve the best critique.

Your non-clinical community service as reported is low. I eliminate activities where you spent fewer than 100 hours (for your situation) because you intend to play in a world where Shohei Otani will beat you with a fastball and a homer in the same inning. That puts your non-clinical service orientation activities at zero. Stick to one activity (not the pet shelter) and go long... at least 250 hours minimum to stay in the ballpark and not get benched. 150 is enough to avoid getting screened out at most schools, but you're trying to score the home run as Texas OOS. You'll get the attention, but that guarantees nothing (without having your essays).

Your clinical hours may be satisfactory, but I assume you will boost this in your gap year.

Your TA and peer advisor "leadership" is an academic activity, not leadership. Every premed has academic competency activities like tutoring, teaching, or mentoring. They won't help you stand out.

Point to me the activities where you have thrived in uncomfortable situations or with very uncomfortable people for an extended period of time. Why are you successful?

I expect your letters to be strong. You're not going to ask for a LOR if your professor is the type of person who withholds giving a first-place HOF vote to Ichiro Suzuki out of spite. Don't skimp here.

Your extracurriculars... what are you trying to tell me if you were a backup singer for 3 band shows?

What is your purpose as a physician? Like the Miss Universe pageant, everyone's a superlative who wants the crown (though there are dozens of crowns). Why should anyone want you as a student? What would make you happy to be there as a student even if it means getting up at 4am every morning?

Thank you for your wonderful response – I really appreciate you digging deep here. Also, I'm not a baseball fan, but I get what you're trying to get at with the metaphors.

I did have a few questions:
1) Would the 250 hours include projected hours during the application cycle, like after I've already submitted my primary? If so, then I definitely think I would be able to commit myself to this – I really enjoy my experience delivering meals to homeless people, so it would likely be that one that I pursue. However, if it doesn't include projected hours, then I don't think this will be feasible. I might (huge emphasis on might) be able to get 250 hours cumulatively across the four activities but definitely not in a single one. If that's the case, how would that affect my overall app?
2) If the TA and peer advisor activities don't count as leadership, then I basically don't have any leadership. Will this be a huge black hole in my application? I guess my prior understanding (from reading posts on Reddit) was that schools valued leadership skills over leadership titles per se, and that you could describe the skills you learned from an experience even if it's not a formal leadership position.
Aside: Could I use the band extracurricular for leadership? Despite only being a backup singer (I suffer from intense stage fright, only when it comes to live music for some reason), I was a major creative and logistical force for the band, as I wrote all of our songs, secured us all of the gigs, and organized auditions and rehearsals.
3) How strong do the LORs have to be collectively? I am confident that I will have two strong letters from professors and PIs that I have worked with directly and have built strong personal connections with. My third letter – well, I have a good grade in his class and am very engaged in every lecture by asking questions, but I doubt that it will be a Ichiro Suzuki- (or Nikola Jokic-, from my sport of choice) level letter.
4) Finally, even with all of the critiques you've provided here, would you still say that I am a competitive applicant for T20s/30s, especially if I work towards implementing your advice in the upcoming months?

Thank you again for your advice! It's definitely given me a lot of direction already.

 

[LindaAccepted]

Hello all, I think I need feedback for the kind of school list I should build. To be clear: I do believe that I am a very strong candidate overall, but I'm unsure if I should focus on mid-tier schools or I'm competitive enough to gun for the T20s. Based on what I've heard from parents and peers, as well as my LizzyM and WARS scores, I've already created a general school list that is extremely top-heavy and OOS, but I would like some basic guidance on how I should revise it (and maybe the rest of my apps too).

Note: I am a senior, so I will be applying this cycle with 1 gap year.

My application going in will be:

Basic Stats: TX resident, ORM (Asian M), T20 undergrad, 3.96 cGPA, 3.95 sGPA, 526 MCAT

Research: >2000 hours over two labs, no publications (potential pub during the cycle) but 2 poster presentations at my undergrad

Clinical Volunteering: 250 hours in the ER and ICU units, with lots of patient interaction

Shadowing: 110 hours across three specialties

Non-Clinical Volunteering: ~170 hours spread across 4 activities:
1) food bank (70 hours)
2) handing out meals to homeless people with a political org (60 hours)
3) pet shelter (30 hours)
4) teaching classes at a women's shelter (10 hours)

Leadership: 60 hours of TA experience, 150 hours as a personal advisor to freshman at my undergrad (over 1 year)
Aside: Do these count as leadership?

Extracurriculars: Managed and sang backup vocals for a local band, played 3 shows to audiences of 100+, was responsible for securing these gigs

Additionally, I am confident that I will have (moderate to) strong LORs, and strong essays. I gained extremely valuable experience in all of these activities (i.e. research wasn't just washing glasses, and clin volunteering wasn't just restocking items), and I will definitely be able to write about with great detail and pull clear lessons out of each of them.

School List: Harvard, Johns Hopkins, UPenn, Columbia, Duke, Stanford, UCSF, Vanderbilt, WashU, Weill Cornell, NYU, Yale, Mayo, Northwestern, Pitt, Mount Sinai, Baylor, UTSW, UChicago, Emory, UCLA, Michigan, CWRU, UVA, USF, USC, Brown, Boston, Albert Einstein, Colorado, UT San Antonio, UT McGovern, UT Dell

Right now, I definitely believe that the weakest parts of my application are my limited volunteering hours and leadership experience – please let me know your thoughts on these, in particular. Thank you all for your time, and please don't hold back.

You have put together a strong list of schools. You're applying appropriately. Perhaps a tad top heavy, but you're not crazy.

I agree that you should increase your non-clinical volunteering and as @Mr.Smile12 advised do something you stick with or just continue doing something that you're already doing to show a more serious and long-term commitment. I would also like to see more clinical volunteering. 250 hours is OK, in terms of hours it seems like you were more committed to research that clinical medicine. Focus a more on the latter going forward.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

I did have a few questions:
1) Would the 250 hours include projected hours during the application cycle, like after I've already submitted my primary? If so, then I definitely think I would be able to commit myself to this – I really enjoy my experience delivering meals to homeless people, so it would likely be that one that I pursue. However, if it doesn't include projected hours, then I don't think this will be feasible. I might (huge emphasis on might) be able to get 250 hours cumulatively across the four activities but definitely not in a single one. If that's the case, how would that affect my overall app?

Projected hours will not help you. If you are going for superstar applicant OOS status, I suggest you have as many banked hours (250 is my recommendation) of non-clinical service orientation activities as possible. While you can leverage your aggregate hours, I don't know your narrative for committing to serve your community's health needs which are often tied into their ability to access social services.

It may be less critical if you want a research/academic-oriented path like MD/PhD, but you must avoid weaknesses that an admissions committee member could use to drop you down a notch (or a step level on the staircase model). I usually eliminate activities with fewer than 50 hours in general (that's 1 hour a week for a year). Not every adcom has such a low threshold. We adcoms have to find some way to get the applicant pool down to the top 10% of desired applications, no matter how superficial the means.

2) If the TA and peer advisor activities don't count as leadership, then I basically don't have any leadership. Will this be a huge black hole in my application? I guess my prior understanding (from reading posts on Reddit) was that schools valued leadership skills over leadership titles per se, and that you could describe the skills you learned from an experience even if it's not a formal leadership position.
Aside: Could I use the band extracurricular for leadership? Despite only being a backup singer (I suffer from intense stage fright, only when it comes to live music for some reason), I was a major creative and logistical force for the band, as I wrote all of our songs, secured us all of the gigs, and organized auditions and rehearsals.

I think you would be reaching if your band extracurricular is leadership... partly because I don't think you have a ton of hours there. I guess you can be a manager or list being a songwriter... but with all due respect to songwriters, that's not leadership in the same sense we look for in healthcare providers. I have a Forbes article book excerpt staring at me: Leadership is influencing thought and behavior to achieve desired results in this author's book. You can probably spin any activity regarding leadership, but the leadership my teams have looked for comes with impact.

Will it be a black hole in your application? If you're doing MD/PhD, I don't think so much (they want research productivity or acceptance of the culture of being in academia as a starving student for 8 years). But it makes a difference to understand why we should look on you (and all doctors in your philosophy) as leaders. With leadership comes vision, and with vision is purpose. What is your purpose as a physician, and have you demonstrated it? That's going to be the question that determines if this is a gaping vulnerability that undermines stellar stats. Again, don't give adcoms a reason to lower your profile down a step further from an II or offer.

3) How strong do the LORs have to be collectively? I am confident that I will have two strong letters from professors and PIs that I have worked with directly and have built strong personal connections with. My third letter – well, I have a good grade in his class and am very engaged in every lecture by asking questions, but I doubt that it will be a Ichiro Suzuki- (or Nikola Jokic-, from my sport of choice) level letter.
4) Finally, even with all of the critiques you've provided here, would you still say that I am a competitive applicant for T20s/30s, especially if I work towards implementing your advice in the upcoming months?

The answer is going to differ if you want to focus on MD/PhD vs. strict MD, but for the common answer, that depends on your research PI letters. Again, I don't have any reason why any professor would deliberately sabotage your chances with a poor letter unless you clearly have no relationship with them. In general, the professors want to know if you would be a good student and future colleague.

Just like the Ghosts of Christmas to Scrooge, this is advice based on what you shared. Many more factors will determine how successful you will be. But you have the great advantage of clearing standard hurdles about whether you would have the academic metrics to show potential completion of medical school (pre-writing secondaries, choosing schools, application timing).

 

[soapapple]

I think you should apply for all TX schools and Top 20. If you get into Baylor/UTSW, you may even decide not to go to schools that are > T10 OOS unless you get good scholarship. Most probably, either you will go to one of T10 or Baylor/UTSW. But, just for safe side, apply to T20.