(WAMC) No IIs 2023 Cycle, Reapply this year or wait until 2024?

[YoungDaggy]

Graduated in Spring 2022 with a 4.00 GPA; currently taking a gap year. I took the MCAT twice (never did CARS practice):

• 503 (129/121/126/127) in 04/21; ran out of time at the end of C/P and skipped ~4.5 CARS passages. I didn’t really study for it and took it during a semester, dumb mistake I know.
• 512 (129/125/130/128) in 01/22; ran out of time at the end of C/P and skipped 3 CARS passages. This time, I studied for ~1 month during winter break. I did study a little bit during the summer in between the two but it wasn't really serious.

Experiences:

— Trauma Emergency Volunteer: 300 hours.
— Food Bank Volunteer: 115 hours.
— Teaching/Learning Assistant: 140 hours.
— Other Volunteering (1 place): 200 hours.

-- the above experiences were completed between 2019 and August 2022.

— 650 hours and counting of being an MA/Scribe since 09/02/22. I didn’t have this experience at the time of app submission, but I updated it later. I just got promoted to be the Assistant Manager role alongisde my previous roles.
—— Lived in the war in Syria prior to immigrating to the US in late 2013.

School List (I know it's not great and that I should've spent more time on it; only MDs):

— UMaryland: [TOP SCHOOL; MD resident].
— UCLA, Emory, Howard, Sidney Kimmel, Loyola (Stritch), UMiami, Ohio State University, Lewis Katz (Temple), Brown, Rush, Morehouse, Marshall, Hofstra, TCU, Virginia Tech, Icahn, Michigan State (wrote garbage essays for MSU), GW, Drexel, and West Virginia.

*I finished most secondaries early on. However, my university's pre-med committee did not send out our LORs/packet until early September, so my apps were not 'complete' until then.


Now, for the future plan. In addition to applying to DO schools, what else should I work on?

— My writing probably needs to be worked on; I did recycle essays between schools because it was quite challenging to write that many essays.
— I plan to continue working at my job to gain more clinical experience; I will have over 1000 hours by the time the next cycle begins. I know that research is quite important but I honestly can't see myself finding a research job anytime soon, which worries me a little bit.
— I thought of volunteering at a refugee-related organization to put more emphasis on my background.
— As for my MCAT, I don't know if it's really worth retaking, but I'm not really sure. If I don't apply this upcoming cycle and wait until 2024, then I feel like retaking it will be imminent.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated

Ps. Parts of this post were copied from my post on Reddit a while ago.

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[Faha]

Did you have any interviews ?

 

[YoungDaggy]

Did you have any interviews ?

Sadly, no. I was put on hold at GW, Drexel, UMaryland, and WVU, but nothing else really.

I think it was a combination of the late completion and my lack of clinical experiences.

 

[Faha]

You need 50 hours of in person physician shadowing before you reapply. I suggest these schools:
U Maryland
George Washington
Georgetown
Virginia Commonwealth
Eastern Virginia
West Virginia
Wake Forest
Penn State
Drexel
Temple
Jefferson
Hackensack
New York Medical College
Albany
Vermont
Quinnipiac
NOVA MD
Tulane
TCU
Creighton
St. Louis
Rosalind Franklin
Loyola
Medical College Wisconsin
Western Michigan
Oakland Beaumont
Wayne State
Belmont (when it opens)
for DO schools I suggest these:
Touro-NY
NYITCOM
PCOM
MU-COM
DMU-COM
KCU-COM
ATSU-KCOM
CUSOM

Apply in June and submit all your secondaries by July.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

So what advice have you received from your prehealth team and Reddit?

 

[YoungDaggy]

So what advice have you received from your prehealth team and Reddit?

A redditor advised me to volunteer at a refugee org because that would support my background. Otherwise, people just said that my school list wasn’t great.
My school’s pre-health team is essentially nonexistent so no help from them sadly.

Do you have any advice for me?

 

[YoungDaggy]

You need 50 hours of in person physician shadowing before you reapply. I suggest these schools:
U Maryland
George Washington
Georgetown
Virginia Commonwealth
Eastern Virginia
West Virginia
Wake Forest
Penn State
Drexel
Temple
Jefferson
Hackensack
New York Medical College
Albany
Vermont
Quinnipiac
NOVA MD
Tulane
TCU
Creighton
St. Louis
Rosalind Franklin
Loyola
Medical College Wisconsin
Western Michigan
Oakland Beaumont
Wayne State
Belmont (when it opens)
for DO schools I suggest these:
Touro-NY
NYITCOM
PCOM
MU-COM
DMU-COM
KCU-COM
ATSU-KCOM
CUSOM

Apply in June and submit all your secondaries by July.

Thank you so much!
Do you think I would still have a decent chance even without any research?

 

[Faha]

Thank you so much!
Do you think I would still have a decent chance even without any research?

Yes.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

A redditor advised me to volunteer at a refugee org because that would support my background. Otherwise, people just said that my school list wasn’t great.
My school’s pre-health team is essentially nonexistent so no help from them sadly.

Do you have any advice for me?

What are you doing for community service? You left the details out for 200 hours. If you aren't focused on research schools, you need more community service that is not clinical, or teaching.

You could choose to work with refugees if that is your background, but which schools on your list work with refugees, and how? It's better to stretch beyond your comfort zone. You need to pick schools in locations that can support learners from your background. Have you looked at the AMMSA?

With your MA experience and more nonclinical community service, you probably will be more successful. The lack of experience is likely the biggest reason why you had no interviews IMO.

Start Pre-writing.

Write Your Secondary Essays First - SDN

The Student Doctor Network provides free tools, resources, and advising services to help students become health professionals.

www.studentdoctor.net

 

[YoungDaggy]

What are you doing for community service? You left the details out for 200 hours. If you aren't focused on research schools, you need more community service that is not clinical, or teaching.

You could choose to work with refugees if that is your background, but which schools on your list work with refugees, and how? It's better to stretch beyond your comfort zone. You need to pick schools in locations that can support learners from your background. Have you looked at the AMMSA?

With your MA experience and more nonclinical community service, you probably will be more successful. The lack of experience is likely the biggest reason why you had no interviews IMO.

Start Pre-writing.

Write Your Secondary Essays First - SDN

The Student Doctor Network provides free tools, resources, and advising services to help students become health professionals.

www.studentdoctor.net

The 200 hours were volunteering at a mosque. What type of community service would you recommend?

Out of the schools @fara listed, would you say any are essentially impossible to get into without any research?

I haven’t heard of AMMSA before but I’ll look into it now!

Ps. I apologize for the delayed response but for some reason, I am not getting any notifications from SDN.

 

[YoungDaggy]

Yes.

Hello Doctor,

What other community service volunteering do you think I could do? @Mr.Smile12 recommended I do more but I’m not 100% sure what else to do.

 

[Faha]

Hello Doctor,

What other community service volunteering do you think I could do? @Mr.Smile12 recommended I do more but I’m not 100% sure what else to do.

More hours at the Food Bank would be helpful.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

I write a lot about food distribution, shelter work, job placement services, non-clinical transportation services, and housing renovation. The more different the people you serve are from you, the better.

 

[YoungDaggy]

I write a lot about food distribution, shelter work, job placement services, non-clinical transportation services, and housing renovation. The more different the people you serve are from you, the better.

Thank you! I will look into getting such experiences.

Quick question in regards to research, would working on a case study matter to schools or do they not care about that type of research?

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Thank you! I will look into getting such experiences.

Quick question in regards to research, would working on a case study matter to schools or do they not care about that type of research?

You are doing a lot with your mosque, but narrow down to one of the partnering organizations and focus there. Example would be about finding housing for displaced refugees and helping them take care of where they live and getting settled. Better would be to do something more independent from your mosque but in the same set of priorities. LGBTQ youth shelters might appeal.

To your question on case studies, I don't think many of the faculty who have more of a biomedical research background would be impressed. Clinical faculty don't seem to get excited about case studies (that's good but we'll teach you how to do it our way). That said, as educational institutions, academic physicians like case studies since that's what they have to do to prep students and residents for big tests.

For the question on whether case studies ever moves the needle on an application,... not really from my experience.

 

[YoungDaggy]

You are doing a lot with your mosque, but narrow down to one of the partnering organizations and focus there. Example would be about finding housing for displaced refugees and helping them take care of where they live and getting settled. Better would be to do something more independent from your mosque but in the same set of priorities. LGBTQ youth shelters might appeal.

To your question on case studies, I don't think many of the faculty who have more of a biomedical research background would be impressed. Clinical faculty don't seem to get excited about case studies (that's good but we'll teach you how to do it our way). That said, as educational institutions, academic physicians like case studies since that's what they have to do to prep students and residents for big tests.

For the question on whether case studies ever moves the needle on an application,... not really from my experience.

Thank you again!

I figured case studies wouldn’t really do much so I guess I better spend my time elsewhere.

On a side note, my friend and I had the opportunity to join a research group that does clinical trials. However, our roles would be to just go through records to find qualified candidates and to do shipments and stuff like that — more like office duties I guess. It’s important to note that we would only help 0-1 times per week so not many hours. I was told that this type of research isn’t really considered good quality research experience by most adcom, what are your thoughts on that?

 

[chilly_md]

On a side note, my friend and I had the opportunity to join a research group that does clinical trials. However, our roles would be to just go through records to find qualified candidates and to do shipments and stuff like that — more like office duties I guess. It’s important to note that we would only help 0-1 times per week so not many hours. I was told that this type of research isn’t really considered good quality research experience by most adcom, what are your thoughts on that?

Research won’t help your application for schools like Wayne State, Oakland, Rosalind Franklin. And the low hours and office nature of the work would make it seem like a fluff activity.

 

[YoungDaggy]

Research won’t help your application for schools like Wayne State, Oakland, Rosalind Franklin. And the low hours and office nature of the work would make it seem like a fluff activity.

Thank you for your input; and I agree with you that it’d just seem like fluff. My top school is UMaryland and I’m worried that they won’t accept me without any research.