WAMC/ School List (3.36 cGPA, 3.62 sGPA, 525 MCAT) VA ORM

[Arnlo]

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Hi everyone! I'm planning to apply in the upcoming 2025-2026 cycle and have been having trouble gauging which schools I should remove or add from my list due to my stats and background. I originally planned to be a software engineer but pivoted in 4th year of ugrad, so I'm sort of non-traditional but not fully. Would also be open to apply to DO! Any help would be greatly appreciated!

1. 3.36 (cGPA) and 3.62 (sGPA). Majored in Computer Science at MIT/Stanford/CMU/UCB and tried to double major in Computational Biology and overloaded lots of semesters, resulting in low GPA. Took most of the premed requirements in senior year and in DIY post bacc (18 credits), other years had mostly CS or Electrical Engineering courses but some premed reqs because of my planned comp bio major. cGPA Trend: (3.47/ 3.23/ 3.02/ 3.27 / 3.37 after DIY post bacc), got 4.0 in senior year and in postbacc (which were all upper div science courses or prereq labs). Postbacc courses were taken at state school (for free and at night, because I worked full time in a lab at that state school).
   
   Upper div courses/ grades:
   Quantitative Genetics: B
   Fluid Dynamics and Drug Delivery: B
   Cell Biology: B
   Organic I: B
   Organic II: A
   Biochemistry: A
   Computational Biology: A
   Quantum Physics: A
   Electromagnetics: A
   Cancer Biology: A
   Microbiology: A
   Medical Microbiology: A
   Molecular Biology: A
   Chem I/ II: A
   Physics I: A
   Bio Lab I/ II: A
   Physics Lab: A
   Chemistry Lab I/ II: A
2. 525 (131/131/132/131) MCAT (August 2023)
3. Virginia
4. Asian, Male
5. Undergrad school: MIT/Stanford/CMU/UCB Computer Science, minor in biological sciences
6. 200 hrs volunteering as an ER assistant, and starting outpatient medical scribe job in April (20 hrs/week, 160 hrs by application time)
7. Research experience and productivity: 1.5 years in Neurobiology lab (BCI, Neural networks and cortical signaling), 3000 hrs. No publications or posters, lab works with large animals so publishing is slow. But have lots of projects I've worked on and can talk about. Also used computational skills in this lab so it was a nice blend of my skillset and interest in medicine. Planning to find another lab so might be able to do more research during the cycle.
8. Shadowing experience:
   20 hrs Palliative care
   10 hrs Infectious Disease
   50 hrs Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery
9. Non-clinical volunteering:
   250 hrs as volunteer tutor for students in underrepresented backgrounds
   Planning to do some non-tutoring volunteering after I move in April
10. Extracurriculars:
    300 hrs as MCAT Tutor for 3rd party company
    Co-founder of community gaming club at undergrad college
    Computational biology personal projects (DNA sequencing algorithm, protein folding simulation and dynamics, integrative recurrent neural networks)
    Indie game design and hackathons with my friends, still like programming a lot 🙂
    Piano (idk how relevant)
11. Relevant honors or awards
    Dean's list in freshman year and senior year, but not much else.

Here are the schools I'm currently considering, but would like to get rid of 5-8 (currently 48 schools) of them so I'm not overwhelmed by secondaries. Also not sure if list is too top heavy or not due to stats, but also not sure what criteria to use to get rid of top heavy schools other than location, and curious if there are any compatible schools that I may be missing. Thanks very much!

EVMS
University of Rochester
New York Medical College
Virginia Tech
Chicago Medical School at Rosalind Franklin
Drexel
University of Vermont Larner
Quinnipiac
University of Illinois
GW
Carle Illinois
Boston University
Penn State
Georgetown
Temple
Albany Medical College
University of Cincinnati
Sidney Kimmel at Thomas Jefferson
VCU
Arizona - Phoenix
Hackensack
Icahn at Mt. Sinai
Emory
UCLA (I lived in CA for 14 yrs, but did not graduate HS there or live there now so unsure if worth applying)
UCSF
Dartmouth
Tufts
Albert Einstein
Brown
UPitt
UMiami
Kaiser
UVA
Hofstra
Nova Southeastern
Oakland William Beaumont
WashU
Stanford
Columbia
Harvard
Duke
Cornell
U Chicago
Yale

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Welcome to the forums.

You have no service orientation activities in your description. Tutoring, teaching, and mentoring are academic activities that every prehealth applicant has, so it doesn't help you stand out. However, having zero service orientation activities will put your application at risk of getting screened out at most schools no matter how high your MCAT is. You must have 150 hours at submission involving direct social service to those in need: e.g., food distribution, shelter volunteer, job/tax preparation, transportation services, or housing rehabilitation.

You are also coming in research-heavy, so I wonder why not Ph.D. There is a great need for computational biologists/scientists, even while AI takes a hold.

 

[Faha]

You should accumulate 150+ hours of non clinical volunteering such as food bank, homeless shelter, etc. before you submit your application. Otherwise, you could be screened out at some schools. I suggest these schools with your stats:
U Virginia
Virginia Tech
Virginia Commonwealth
Eastern Virginia
West Virginia
Cincinnati
George Washington
Pittsburgh
Jefferson
Temple
Hofstra
Einstein (free tuition)
Mount Sinai
New York Medical College
Rochester
Vermont
Dartmouth
Brown
Tufts
UMass
Boston University
U Michigan
Illinois
Iowa
Northwestern
Washington University (in St. Louis)
Mayo
Arizona (Phoenix)
Arizona State (when it opens)
Colorado
Carle Illinois
USF Morsani
Miami
Emory
Kaiser