WAMC: Non Trad Career Switch w/ 3.9 and 510

[matcharocks123]

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1. cGPA: 3.93 sGPA: 3.85
2. MCAT: 510 (127/129/126/128)
3. CA/NY
4. Asian, first-gen
5. Big State Public School + MS bioinformatics
6. Clinical experience: Hospice (50 hrs) + MA in underserved primary care clinic (300 hrs)
7. Research experience: Various public health + digital health + genomics research (collective 1000 hrs.) + current job includes research
8. Shadowing: OBGYN (40 hrs)+ Primary (40 hrs)
9. Non-clinical volunteering: Alumni Association (100 hr) + Food Pantry (50 hrs)
10. Other extracurricular activities: Tech Job (5000+ hrs), SWE Job (250 hrs), Various Internship (500 hrs), Club Sport Leader (500 hrs), health educator (50 hrs)
11. Relevant honors or awards: Case competition winner, research awards in undergrad, club sport medals

Albany
Albert Einstein
California Northstate University
California University of Science and Medicine
Charles R Drew University
Chicago Medical School
Columbia
Dartmouth (NONTRAD)
Donald and Barbara Zucker
Drexel
Frank H. Netter
Geisinger
George Washington
Georgetown
Kaiser
Keck
Lewis Katz Temple
Loyola University Chicago
Medical College of Wisconsin
New York Medical College
NYU
Oakland
Oregon Health
Penn State
Renaissance Stony Brook
Rush
Rutgers
Rutgers
Sidney Kimmel Thomas Jefferson
Stanford
SUNY Downstate
SUNY Upstate
Tufts
Tulane
UC Davis
UC Irvine
UC Los Angeles
UC Riverside
UC San Diego
UC San Francisco
University of Illinois College of Medicine
University of Miami
University of Washington School of Medicine
Wayne State
Weill Cornell

 

[Mr.Smile12]

How did you come up with this list?

 

[matcharocks123]

How did you come up with this list?

I went through MSAR and added schools within range and then schools in CA/NY. Any feedback would be appreciated!

 

[Mr.Smile12]

I went through MSAR and added schools within range and then schools in CA/NY. Any feedback would be appreciated!

Within what range? I don't know if your 510 MCAT is "within range" that is common rule-of-thumb by most applicants. Your best chances at an interview are at schools where your 510 hits the 75th percentile of the incoming class. Mission fit is much more important if your metrics fall below the 50th percentile. What is your purpose as a physician? I say that because you don't give me details that tell me you would be a good fit with many of the schools on your list.

Clinical hours seems light: 300 hours MA in a "underserved primary care clinic" tells me nothing. You could be doing data entry or janitorial services (cleaning the exam rooms after visits). How many years have you been doing this? Hospice 50 hours is 1 hour a week for a year, so it doesn't impress me. Neither does food pantry 50 hours. Alumni association work doesn't count as community service for medical school admissions.

I get that your job takes up a lot of your time, but you need to show a dedication to pivot to a healthcare career and becoming a community advocate. Chicago schools (Rush, Loyola, CMS, UIC) want much more community service than your profile suggests. UC schools are well-known to select people who have a commitment to serve patients in the communities closest to their campuses. MCAT is likely too low for the prestige names (Einstein, Columbia, Dartmouth, Stanford, Cornell).

I'm guess you wish to leverage your bioinformatics background, but you didn't use it to inform your school list? How do you intend to use this as a physician (if you wanted to)?

 

[Faha]

You can claim only one state of residence on your application. Which one will you choose?

 

[polymerization]

Outside of the state schools, you have a few schools that won't even look at your application:

UW, for example, only considers applicants from the WWAMI region.

Drew is a historically Black/Hispanic-serving school. It has a lower average MCAT on MSAR because their target population trends lower in those metrics statistically and they are heavily recruiting from that group. You can apply as an Asian obviously, but your chances of even receiving a secondary are low (they prescreen and value service).

NYU is one of the most stat-sensitive schools out there. I think their MCAT average was ~523 or something absurd like that. It's also even more competitive than you would think within the T10 because they're tuition-free and a transitioning (or have already implemented) a 3-year MD model.

Jesuit schools (Loyola, Georgetown) want thousands and thousands of hours in community service and an application organized around that service. I would probably put Tulane, Wayne, and Tufts in roughly the same category, as more social justice-oriented programs.

I'm guessing you have OR, NJ schools because you want IS advantage at more than just two states, but their surrounding states as well? I don't think it would benefit you at all to apply as a CA applicant at all.

I get that there's probably a part of you that is going to want to shoot your shot at reaches anyway, and that's valid, but you would be doing yourself a disservice if you don't apply to some of the newer schools just in case your plan to be IS at all 50 states does not pan out (Belmont, AWSOM, Roseman, Methodist, etc.)

You are in a very uneven position since you don't have the MCAT score that would complement your tech/research experiences at research powerhouses, but you also don't have the strong social justice angle that could rescue you from that MCAT, either. I hated myself for overapplying (it's painful work), but I really suggest you apply as broadly as you can, across a realistic gradient of schools.