WAMC Rural State/Big Upward Trend

[PremedImmigrant]

1. 3.54 cgpa, 3.4 sgpa with freshman year being 3.6, 3.4 for sophomore and junior year and a 3.98 for my senior year, I was my grandmother's caretaker, she was terminally ill, over covid as I have a single parent and I was unable to balance school and personal responsibilities, I will try and explain my bad grades in my application. Also my last year is packed full of science and math courses so it is not an easy year to boost my gpa.
2. 511 127/127/130/127, deciding on retake my fl average was a 516
3. Mountain state (Wyoming/Montana)
4. Half white/half asian
5. Southern University (Vanderbilt/Wake Forest/Emory) T25
6. 300hrs volunteer in the endoscopy and palliative unit at the local hospital
7. 2 years of wet lab research, only a poster to show for it
8. >100hrs of shadowing OBGYN, IM, Orthopedic surgery, vascular surgery
9. APO service for 400hrs in various events, created and organized multiple fundraisers to fund local school lunches
10. Club golf, intramural soccer, weightlifting, snowboarding, bilingual and can understand some Chinese dialects
11. I think I have a pretty interesting story but I do not know if it is worth it to mention, I was born in south east asia and was a US citizen because of my parent but I lived there between multiple countries for years and saw some interesting things like a military coup, before going through some difficulties while I was 12 such as abuse and homelessness. I then moved to the US and jumped into high school in a rather rural state in the middle of freshman year and had to adapt to a very different culture and getting over personal issues.

I have no idea what schools I should be looking at.

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[chilly_md]

Apply to states that do WWAMI or have seats reserved for Wyoming and Montana residents.

University of Washington
University of Utah
North Dakota’s OOS have been from WY and MT
Perhaps South Dakota

Your stats fit more with schools that place extra emphasis on community service and volunteering for the underserved. Usually this is outside an academic setting eg homeless shelter, working with immigrants or refugees, soup kitchen, food bank. Fundraising events don’t really fit this.

Your story is important. Consider sharing it in the disadvantaged essay section to give a better perspective for admissions.

 

[Faha]

U Washington
Creighton
TCU-UNT
Loyola
Medical College Wisconsin
Loyola
Oakland Beaumont
NOVA MD
Wake Forest
George Washington
Drexel
Temple
Jefferson
Penn State
Seton Hall
Albany
New York Medical College
Vermont
Quinnipiac
Also apply to DO schools and I suggest these:
TUNCOM
AZCOM
KCU-COM
ATSU-KCOM
DMU-COM
MU-COM
UIWSOM
PCOM
NYITCOM
Touro-NY
CUSOM
VCOM (all schools except Monroe)

 

[PremedImmigrant]

Apply to states that do WWAMI or have seats reserved for Wyoming and Montana residents.

University of Washington
University of Utah
North Dakota’s OOS have been from WY and MT
Perhaps South Dakota

Your stats fit more with schools that place extra emphasis on community service and volunteering for the underserved. Usually this is outside an academic setting eg homeless shelter, working with immigrants or refugees, soup kitchen, food bank. Fundraising events don’t really fit this.

Your story is important. Consider sharing it in the disadvantaged essay section to give a better perspective for admissions.

Could I ask why my stats fit more with community service schools? I don’t really have thousands of hours of community service like I see with other applicants who are advised the same. Also should I retake my MCAT, I really want to try and be admitted into an MD school. Thanks.

 

[Faha]

Your GPA limits the number of MD schools where you could receive interviews. A higher MCAT would increase your chances. U Washington is where your best chances are.

 

[PremedImmigrant]

That’s true, I will be applying to all WICHE schools, that’s a lot of in state med schools on the west coast, that should help by a bit. Also maybe they will look more at my last 40hrs of credit, that will really increase my gpa but that depends on the school and I think that should not be counted on.

 

[candbgirl]

Could I ask why my stats fit more with community service schools? I don’t really have thousands of hours of community service like I see with other applicants who are advised the same. Also should I retake my MCAT, I really want to try and be admitted into an MD school. Thanks.

He’s talking about your GPAs and MCAT(stats) not your activities. You really have no nonclinical volunteering. While your fund raising for school lunches is very important and time consuming you aren’t face to face with the unserved/underserved in your community. Now if you were giving your time coaching a team of these kids in a sport, or working with a group of disabled kids that would be great.
Unless you think you can move your MCAT score up significantly don’t do a retake. Two or three points won’t help you, especially with GPAs that are well below average for MD matriculants. At some point you’re going to have to decide if you want to be a doctor or a MD only. There is no harm in applying MD and you should but you should also be realistic.
Good luck as you move forward.

 

[PremedImmigrant]

My non clinical volunteering was primarily centered around volunteering at a food bank and delivering meals to neighbouring underserved communities and at an assisted living facility. That was what my 400 hours mainly constituted as, the fundraiser was just events that I listed to showcase forms of leadership, I apologize for not expanding.

 

[chilly_md]

My non clinical volunteering was primarily centered around volunteering at a food bank and delivering meals to neighbouring underserved communities and at an assisted living facility. That was what my 400 hours mainly constituted as, the fundraiser was just events that I listed to showcase forms of leadership, I apologize for not expanding.

That clarifies things a lot. If you can continue volunteering, that would be great. As candbgirl said, schools with median accepted stats around 510 tend to value service a lot. Schools like Loyola and Oakland often accept applicants with several hundred hours who have worked directly with people who are struggling immensely. The research powerhouses still care about volunteering, but place much more emphasis on prior research experience and high MCAT and GPAs.

Use Faha’s list along with the schools I mentioned that might consider a WY/MT resident in a special pool. For DO, Western has a campus in Oregon and PNWU is in Yakima WA. They may do something similar. They might be better options than UIWSOM.