MD WAMC + Last Minute School List Additions? ORM 3.97 cGPA, 3.97 sGPA, 519 MCAT

[blimpslayer]

Hi all, thank you in advance for your feedback I'm currently applying for the 2023-2024 cycle. I started second guessing my school list while waiting for interviews and am wondering what my chances are and whether I should consider adding other schools now as there is still time to apply.

Stats
cGPA: 3.97, sGPA: 3.97, MCAT: 519 (C/P: 130, CARS: 130, B/B: 129, P/S: 130)

Demographics: CA, Asian ORM

Undergrad: UCLA

Clinical Experience: 2050 hrs (and counting) paid Medical Practice Manager/Clinical Assistant for neuropsychology private practice

Research Experience: 260 hrs Research Assistant (neurobiology/memory), 600 hrs Lab Assistant (integrative biology), No publications, Currently working as a Research Assistant at CHOC (oncology)

Shadowing: 45 hrs (high school, CHLA program - multiple specialties like radiology, cardiology, oncology, emergency med), 30 hrs (high school, Keck Neuro ICU while volunteering), 50 hrs (shadowing at the private practice where I work) - Worried as most of my shadowing was done in high school, but I feel like I got a lot of exposure to different specialties early on so I just focused on my clinical work once I got into college.

Non-clinical Volunteering: 360 hrs (LEADERSHIP role, teaching/working with underserved communities), 170 hrs (fostering animals/advocacy),

Extracurriculars
Worked for a non-profit medical association (kind of like ABFM, ABP, ABMS)
- 900 hrs as an assistant for annual conferences hosted by this organization (CE workshops, CE certifications, worked on APA Homestudy application)
- 1260 hrs as an assistant for the board certification process (essentially managing the process, reviewing applications for basic info, acting as a liaison between applicant and examiners)
Astronomy Club
- 60 hrs as a club member, but I mentioned this as my hobby/non-medical interest in some my secondaries
Working for family small business
- 700 hrs

School List (took the preview, didn't take casper)
- Received and submitted secondaries for all of these schools already (took 20 days on average to submit) but looking to add a few more to the list to raise my chances (is it even worth it to apply to more now or is it too late? thoughts?)
UCLA David Geffen
UC Irvine
UC Davis (no family living in norcal, but a family member is an alumni for undergrad)
UC Riverside
UC San Diego
USC
UCSF
Kaiser Permanente
Stanford
George Washington
Rosalind Franklin
Sidney Kimmel
Tufts
Tulane
Albany
Johns Hopkins
Albert Einstein (family member is alumni of med school)
Icahn
UMichigan
URochester
UPittsburgh
UChicago Pritzker

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[Mr.Smile12]

Great stats, but I wonder why you are second-guessing your list. How many II's have you gotten? How did you do on PREview?

I'm not worried about your shadowing occurring in high school since you have over 2000 hours working in a clinical environment.

I do worry about your non-clinical volunteering. Tutoring/teaching goes into a different category compared to service orientation activities which would show your ability to stretch out of your comfort zone in humble service alleviating others' distress. As it stands, animal fostering doesn't really fit this category, and tutoring even underserved students is an overrepresented activity among premeds so it does not bear as much weight.

Do you grow up in the Inland Empire? If so, UC Riverside should come calling? Indeed many of the UC schools prefer a proportion of students with a strong community connection to those who live in the counties surrounding their campuses. UC schools probably won't give you much allowance for any family member ties, and I wonder if an extended relative alumnus of the med school at Einstein is strong enough.

I don't get a strong sense of your mission fit, but I don't know what your community service says about your passion to help people. Your experiences point towards a strong interest in becoming a physician, but is psychology where your clinical interests lie? What activities connect you to the mental health needs of the communities you want to help most? I'm guessing you have more to say but didn't.

 

[blimpslayer]

Great stats, but I wonder why you are second-guessing your list. How many II's have you gotten? How did you do on PREview?

I'm not worried about your shadowing occurring in high school since you have over 2000 hours working in a clinical environment.

I do worry about your non-clinical volunteering. Tutoring/teaching goes into a different category compared to service orientation activities which would show your ability to stretch out of your comfort zone in humble service alleviating others' distress. As it stands, animal fostering doesn't really fit this category, and tutoring even underserved students is an overrepresented activity among premeds so it does not bear as much weight.

Do you grow up in the Inland Empire? If so, UC Riverside should come calling? Indeed many of the UC schools prefer a proportion of students with a strong community connection to those who live in the counties surrounding their campuses. UC schools probably won't give you much allowance for any family member ties, and I wonder if an extended relative alumnus of the med school at Einstein is strong enough.

I don't get a strong sense of your mission fit, but I don't know what your community service says about your passion to help people. Your experiences point towards a strong interest in becoming a physician, but is psychology where your clinical interests lie? What activities connect you to the mental health needs of the communities you want to help most? I'm guessing you have more to say but didn't.

Thanks for the feedback! I guess I am worried about my school list mainly because I am aware that it is quite top-heavy and I haven't received any interview invites yet. I got a 9 on the Preview.

To clarify, my non-clinical volunteering involves teaching at underserved assisted living facilities and I think I have pretty decent narrative connecting my family background as low-income immigrants to providing more culturally-aware/multilingual educational resources through this activity so hopefully my elaboration in secondaries can make up for it. Please let me know if this would still be too much of generic activity though!

I did not grow up in the Inland Empire, but I have a relative who does. Would that be relevant? And no interview from UCR yet :'(

In terms of the neuropsychology focus, I did mention in secondaries that I helped develop a mental health program for adolescents as part of my work at the private practice. In secondaries, I connected this program to my own family's experiences with a lack of healthcare accessibility and mental health stigma and also elaborated on how I secured scholarships to help low-income participants of our program. I can definitely see how my clinical experiences may come off as more psych-related but it did give me a lot of insight on working in a clinical setting and the administrative aspects of what patients encounter when seeking treatment. Do you have any recommendations on how I could emphasize the medical side of this experience? Do you think there will be potential problems with it being my main clinical experience?

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Thanks for the feedback! I guess I am worried about my school list mainly because I am aware that it is quite top-heavy and I haven't received any interview invites yet. I got a 9 on the Preview.

To clarify, my non-clinical volunteering involves teaching at underserved assisted living facilities and I think I have pretty decent narrative connecting my family background as low-income immigrants to providing more culturally-aware/multilingual educational resources through this activity so hopefully my elaboration in secondaries can make up for it. Please let me know if this would still be too much of generic activity though!

I did not grow up in the Inland Empire, but I have a relative who does. Would that be relevant? And no interview from UCR yet :'(

In terms of the neuropsychology focus, I did mention in secondaries that I helped develop a mental health program for adolescents as part of my work at the private practice. In secondaries, I connected this program to my own family's experiences with a lack of healthcare accessibility and mental health stigma and also elaborated on how I secured scholarships to help low-income participants of our program. I can definitely see how my clinical experiences may come off as more psych-related but it did give me a lot of insight on working in a clinical setting and the administrative aspects of what patients encounter when seeking treatment. Do you have any recommendations on how I could emphasize the medical side of this experience? Do you think there will be potential problems with it being my main clinical experience?

Great! At this point, if all of your secondaries are submitted, you just have to wait and trust the process. If you had asked for our help 3-6 months ago, we could have made some suggestions. You're close to being "late" if you submit secondaries to those new schools. I don't think it's worth applying to DO schools.

Many schools on your list have opportunities to work with refugees and new immigrants so I presume they are your best mission fit) plus geographic fit). Hopefully they see the connection.

Did you network with medical student groups before applying? Attended recruiting talks?

 

[Faha]

You could add a few more schools and I suggest these:
Hofstra
USF Morsani
Miami
St. Louis
Washington University (in St. Louis)
Cincinnati