MD WAMC: Reapplicant 523/3.91 cGPA, School list help

[WhatisMedicine]

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1.) cGPA and sGPA as calculated by AMCAS or AACOMAS

cGPA: 3.91 sGPA: 3.95

2.) MCAT score(s) and breakdown. Include all (non-voided) attempts.

June 2019: 519: (130/130/131/128)
January 2025: 523 (132/130/131/130)

3.) State of residence or country of citizenship (if non-US)

US Citizen, Connecticut

4.) Ethnicity and/or race

ORM

5.) Undergraduate institution or category

Mid-tier state school

6.) Clinical experience (volunteer and non-volunteer)

~1500 hours clinical volunteering as an EMT-B
~500 hours as IFT/911 EMT-B
~500 hours as a 911 only municipal EMT-B (current job)

7.) Research experience and productivity

~6000 hours at local medical school doing research, 4 publications
~2000 hours at pharma company doing drug development

1. Shadowing experience and specialties represented

40 hours shadowing, only vascular surgeon

8.) Non-clinical volunteering

~750 hours as assistant chef at local soup kitchen in the city, preparing and serving food to people who are unable to afford food.

9.) Other extracurricular activities (including athletics, military service, gap year activities, leadership, teaching, etc)

Played D1-A rugby in college, language learning as a hobby, also traveling a lot as a hobby as well, also about 2000 hours tutoring college students (paid).

Been taking "gap years" since 2019 to beef up my app and live life too!

10.) Relevant honors or awards

Deans list every semester in college, Phi Beta Kappa.

11.) Anything else not listed you think might be important

Unsuccessful app cycle in 2019 (with a 3.9 and 519), think it was due to poor writing, top heavy school list, and many more projected than realized hours. I'm excited to reapply, and am wondering what you think a school list for me would look like? I'm a FAP recipient so so far I have the 20 schools below:

Yale
Harvard
JHU
Stanford
Duke

Pitt
Northwestern
Mount Sinai
Case Western
Emory
UMich
UCLA
Dartmouth
Tufts
Albert Einstein

UConn
UMass
NYMC
Drexel
Quinnipiac

I would appreciate any help I could get prior to my reapplication this cycle on anything I should bolster/any schools I should swap out.

Also please don't quote for privacy reasons, appreciate all of you!

 

[PLsPLsPLs]

How many schools did you apply to your first cycle? Your app is pretty insane and I would say apply to every T20 you'd actually want to attend, then some lower ranked schools as well. I personally shot for >30 schools and think that is a good number

 

[Faha]

Remove Drexel and NYMC since they will "yield protect" with your stats. You could add these schools:
Washington University (in St. Louis-almost a guaranteed interview with your stats)
Vanderbilt
NYU (free tuition)
Brown
Hofstra
U Virginia

 

[WhatisMedicine]

How many schools did you apply to your first cycle? Your app is pretty insane and I would say apply to every T20 you'd actually want to attend, then some lower ranked schools as well. I personally shot for >30 schools and think that is a good number

I applied to 20 schools, I gotta say I was younger and overconfident in my writing, and definitely had a very top heavy list.

Even with a 3.90 and 519, applying to 15 top 20s out of my 20 schools was a mistake. I should've had people look over my writing, and I will not make those mistakes again.

With FAP I'm thinking about applying to 35-40 schools, I'm willing to spend money to get this "show on the road" so to speak. At least I got to travel/save money, and I'm (hopefully) more mature this go around.

 

[WhatisMedicine]

Remove Drexel and NYMC since they will "yield protect" with your stats. You could add these schools:
Washington University (in St. Louis-almost a guaranteed interview with your stats)
Vanderbilt
NYU (free tuition)
Brown
Hofstra
U Virginia

Appreciate it! Will make these changes.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Your first application was out of college before you had built up the additional EMT hours or worked in the kitchen? I'm not sure your mistake was just about being top-heavy. You're in a much stronger position, and adcoms love applicants who have an interesting post-bac journey.

 

[LunaOri]

You could also add UVM, which has a CT campus, if you want to be in CT.

 

[deleted1180326]

Talk about Dartmouth's CT rotation (for OBGYN, i think) in your secondary!!

I would add USF Morsani also

 

[WhatisMedicine]

Your first application was out of college before you had built up the additional EMT hours or worked in the kitchen? I'm not sure your mistake was just about being top-heavy. You're in a much stronger position, and adcoms love applicants who have an interesting post-bac journey.

I think I could've made my list more suited for my lack of ECs, but you are correct that I had about 150 soup kitchen, and 200 EMT hours, along with only 5-600 research hours. I just think with a 3.9 and 519 I might've been able to sneak in to a lower tier school even with worse ECs, which would make me a resident now. I know the journey is important, just hard watching my friends already where I want to be at.

You could also add UVM, which has a CT campus, if you want to be in CT.

I have to say I was unaware of this! I read into it and it's in the "nice" area of CT. I'll def apply based on the fact that it's in CT, but I'm lucky enough to be able to go anywhere in the US that I get into. Can't say I wouldn't mind staying in the land of steady habits a bit longer though.

Talk about Dartmouth's CT rotation (for OBGYN, i think) in your secondary!!

I would add USF Morsani also

I'll add USF! Also thank you for letting me know about the OBGYN rotation at Hartford Hospital! Definitely have plenty experience being around there and it'd be cool to do a rotation somewhere that I'm familiar with.