- Joined
- Aug 4, 2019
- Messages
- 9
- Reaction score
- 7
Please do not quote this post. Apologies if this is very long winded.
School list as of right now:
OHSU
Literally, that’s it, lol. My primary is already submitted and in the queue. Won't be verified until late July or early August at this point. I submitted it on 6/29, the day before my birthday. I know my MCAT is not the best, nor is my GPA. I figure should only apply to my 1 MD state school and am only good enough for DO, but don’t know where to start. Thank you in advance.
- cGPA: 3.24 / sGPA: 3.69
- BA in Visual Media, minor in Literature: Cinema Studies, graduated 2013 from American University in Washington DC — only took 2 BCPM classes in the original undergrad
- Last semester of senior year, my GPA tanked massively because of what was going on with my mom. I took on an extra job with 17 units plus my work study job to help keep her floating from afar.
- Took a leave of abscence due to my mom losing her job and her health failing her due to no insurance. We were homeless during that time period.
- Original cGPA was a 2.86
- Post-bacc in General Science, Portland State University, will be done Spring 2026, will be graduating Magna Cum Laude — all science classes with some non science taken (2 psych classes)
- Post-bacc cGPA calculated at 3.75 right now
- MCAT: 504 (127/126/124/127)
- State of residence: Oregon
- Currently married to a native Oregonian, own a house here. Moved because of the pandemic, my husband losing his job, my husband’s parents ending up in the hospital during COVID, and my FIL’s growing ailments (diffuse axonal injury, prostate cancer). Husband is an only child and he wanted to get back to his family.
- Strong California ties. Born and raised Bay Area, moved and lived in Central Valley, moved back after college and worked in LA for a number of years. Paternal and maternal family still live in California (parental - Bay Area; maternal - Central Valley near Davis).
- Ethnicity and/or race: Mexican, Low Income
- Long time caretaker for my mom, single parent; dad died by suicide when I was one. She got stable in life once I was 25. Don’t have to worry about her anymore (in a good way!).
- A LOT of economic instability, food instability and housing instability growing up. Welfare, SNAP benefits, free lunches, name it, was on it.
- Always worked while in school (high school and college).
- Pell Grant recipient, work study receiptient, always got max financial aid on everything.
- Didn't consider myself First Gen because my mother went back to the college she dropped out of at 18 years old the same year I started high school. So while I grew up with me actually FGLI, that changed when she went to college same time I started high school. So I put on my primary application just low income SES. No one else in my family has ever gone to school or done anything professional; first of the family to pursue medicine. She barely graduated because of her disease and us getting homeless again when I was 16.
- Do not qualify for FAP as my husband is the breadwinner.
- Clinical experience: 2000 hours
- Volunteering:
- Scribe at Free Clinic serving immigrants, uninsured patients - 150 hours (ongoing)
- NICU - 100 hours
- Paid:
- Part-time PT Aide (Inpatient, Outpatient, SNF) - 1750 hours combined (worked these before and during the pandemic) (Most Meaningful Experience)
- Originally was going to become a PT but the pandemic changed that pretty quick.
- Volunteering:
- Research experience: 900 hours (ongoing) (Most Meaningful Experience)
- Did clinical emergency medicine research, this is ongoing
- 2 posters, 0 presentations as of applying
- Currently working on a first author publication in medical toxicology with the head of the emergency medicine toxicology fellowship and two other fellows. Was part of the study from beginning to its end (roughly 2 years).
- Currently prepping for my first presentation, to be done this August.
- Shadowing experience: 184 hours so far
- Family Medicine, Underserved Urban Areas: 52 hours
- Family Medicine, Rural: 40 hours
- Emergency Medicine (Peds, Tox, Crit Care): 44 hours
- PM&R: 24 hours
- Neonatology: 24 hours
- OBGYN: 24 hours
- Non-clinical volunteering: 500 hours
- Volunteer Yoga Instructor for a library in Whittier for 1.5 years — 150 hours
- Volunteer Pilates and group fitness instructor at a YMCA, a library, and a high school in underserved parts of LA (Gardena, Watts, Inglewood respectively) for about 3 years — 350 hours
- Other extracurricular activities:
- Former social media manager in the entertainment industry (FOX, NHL - LA Kings, NFL - Rams, NBA - Clippers, Olympics campaign to get them to LA), led multi million dollar campaigns, managed 5 to 7 community managers - 8320 hours
- Mental health advocacy work in Portland - 150 hours
- Started a group at my post-bacc school in Portland so students had safe spaces for peer discussions about mental health. Hosted campus wide events about mental health in general, guided students in the accommodations process, and connected students to resources on and off campus. Students pursued diagnoses or accommodations because of the work we did on campus.
- Pilates, yoga and group fitness instructor, paid work at private studios and private clients - 3000 hours
- TA for Gen Chem, Gen Bio, and OChem for 2 years, also helped with my Gen Bio teacher’s STEM education research and tutored all these classes plus English - 850 hours (Most Meaningful Experience)
- Lead trainer for my research group, onboarding new interns, training them in REDCap and EPIC, giving them feedback on how to improve, auditing their data alongside the QA team - 150 hours
- Started internal marketing and social media work for the emergency medicine department in order to get more grants, begins this August, and will also be helping out in writing grants for the tox and ID departments
- Started wellness workshops with the free clinic’s lifestyle medicine physician, been doing this for a year
- Started a health fair last summer for the free clinic, offering blood pressure and glucose screenings, free resources, prizes, and 10 minute sessions of yoga and Pilates to patients, advertising the clinic and letting the community know we exist. Doing it again this July.
- Toured with a very internationally well known metal band for two years. Wrote two published articles for their fan magazine, volunteered for them a few times helping out with live event stuff, QA’ing their website, etc etc etc.
- Relevant honors or awards: Omitted this from my primary app and regret it. I just thought they weren't relevant to being a pre-med student. I was given two awards at work as a social media manager for consistently hitting KPIs and doing excellent work on multi-million dollar campaigns (X-Files revival, Lucifer, Empire, American Idol’s last season before moving, NHL All Star Event, all of FOX Animation - Simpsons, Bob’s Burgers, first season of the Rams back in LA).
- Anything else not listed you think might be important:
- LORs: 3 science professors where I was their TA or Embedded Tutor for, 1 one which I assisted in their STEM education research. 1 LOR from the medical director of the free clinic that I have worked with extensively over the last two years. 1 LOR from my research group: the overseeing research manager of the entire EM research department, alongside the medical director of the entire program, and my direct PI in the research group. I feel like I am missing an LOR here, but don't know what or who else to ask. I would've gotten one from one of the PT clinics, but the person who was my inpatient boss died in the pandemic, and my other boss from outpatient left the industry (but said he was happy to be as a contact to verify he was my boss).
- I was advised to omit from my primary app some long term homeless shelter volunteering (518 hours) that I did in San Jose, Inglewood and Portland. Based on what I’ve read here on SDN, I heavily regret omitting this.
- One reason was because I didn’t have a contact to verify the San Jose and Inglewood homeless shelter volunteering I did. Those hours were done in high school, from 2002 - 2006, with a total of 400 hours. 100 hours were done in Inglewood from 2015 - 2016.
- Another reason was my hours in Inglewood were too low and I also did not have a contact for it.
- I did do some recently in Portland (Fall 2022), but I have only done 18 hours so far. Because of that, I was also advised to omit it.
- With the Portland one, I helped distribute food and led a paper craft/calligraphy sessions with LGBTQAI homeless teens.
- I had to drop the Portland one because I was overexerting myself and it was taking a hit on my grades, which I could not afford with how bad my GPA was.
- I have mentioned the homeless shelter activities in my pre-written secondaries. I will be picking it back up in August now that I have more free time and flexibility. I honestly can’t wait!
- Consequently, when my mom and I ended up homeless again when I was 16 years old, the nearest shelter was the shelter I was volunteering at. We tried to avoid using it, but more than once, it ended up being our only option. That was an interesting experience, heh. Luckily, that only lasted 3 months of my life, whereas the homeless experience at age 8 took 1.5 years, but that was something.
- Signed up for Portland Street Medicine and hoping to start that soon. Will be a Scribe.
- I was also advised to omit from the application volunteering for a chapter of the American Suicide Foundation. From 2012 - 2014, I did about roughly 150 hours for the SF chapter. From 2016 - 2020, I volunteered for the LA chapter and did about roughly 300 hours. I was advised that would be a polarizing topic to talk about in my primary app, as it could be triggering. Also being advised not to do any work in that at all, even though I kind of want to go back again and do it for the Portland chapter.
- I’m 37.
School list as of right now:
OHSU
Literally, that’s it, lol. My primary is already submitted and in the queue. Won't be verified until late July or early August at this point. I submitted it on 6/29, the day before my birthday. I know my MCAT is not the best, nor is my GPA. I figure should only apply to my 1 MD state school and am only good enough for DO, but don’t know where to start. Thank you in advance.
