WAMC (MD/PhD) - cGPA 3.95, MCAT 523

[crustywonton]

Planning on applying to MD/PhD programs this coming cycle and I'm in a bit of a pickle as to narrowing down the school list. Just for context here's a bit about my stats/where I'm at:

Current junior at T20, ORM
sGPA 3.93, cGPA 3.95 (not counting this semester), MCAT 523 (130/130/131/132)

3 years of bench research, split 1 year in 1 lab and the last 2 in my current lab (3000 hours total). No pubs, and intended to present at an ug research symposium until covid. Will have my name on an abstract, but it'll be published in a school compilation. Will be doing computational work this summer as part of my independent project.

Clinical is kind of a weak point- I have about 100 hours of volunteering (about half in a hospital and half in hospice) but only 50-60 of shadowing.

Other activities - resident advisor, healthcare interest fraternity, Tau Beta Pi (the engineering honor society), tutoring. I love running and have done two halfs and am training for a full marathon

I want to pursue the PhD in cell biology or immunology and my LORs reflect that.


My school list is currently:

Northeast: Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Cornell, NYU, Columbia, Yale, UPenn, Mount Sinai, Pittsburgh
Midwest: Michigan, Northwestern, UChicago, Mayo, WashU
South: Vandy, Duke, UNC, Emory
West Coast: Stanford, UCSF, UCLA, UCSD, UW

It's ambitious imo, and I'm trying to decide whether I should try for lower-ranked schools or take the gap year in the event that I don't get in this cycle. Any thoughts are appreciated!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Planning on applying to MD/PhD programs this coming cycle and I'm in a bit of a pickle as to narrowing down the school list. Just for context here's a bit about my stats/where I'm at:

Current junior at T20, ORM
sGPA 3.93, cGPA 3.95 (not counting this semester), MCAT 523 (130/130/131/132)

3 years of bench research, split 1 year in 1 lab and the last 2 in my current lab (3000 hours total). No pubs, and intended to present at an ug research symposium until covid. Will have my name on an abstract, but it'll be published in a school compilation. Will be doing computational work this summer as part of my independent project.

Clinical is kind of a weak point- I have about 100 hours of volunteering (about half in a hospital and half in hospice) but only 50-60 of shadowing.

Other activities - resident advisor, healthcare interest fraternity, Tau Beta Pi (the engineering honor society), tutoring. I love running and have done two halfs and am training for a full marathon

I want to pursue the PhD in cell biology or immunology and my LORs reflect that.

It's ambitious imo, and I'm trying to decide whether I should try for lower-ranked schools or take the gap year in the event that I don't get in this cycle. Any thoughts are appreciated!

Great job! I think you have a solid application for MD/PhD, even if you don't have a publication. You do need to understand what clinical/translational research is and why it's an essential part of your career plan in academic medicine.

That said, if you apply to one MSTP program, you should consider yourself applying to all of them, even if you only apply for a handful. They're all going to be equally as challenging. You should try to get more clinical experience, yes (may be your only other weak point), but with an engineering major with that high a GPA, you're going to get some attention.

I would look at many schools or programs that have a research emphasis in the curriculum without you having to go with an MD/PhD. CWRU does have the CCLCM track which is also a research-emphasis MD, for example.