WAMC/School list 3.43 uGPA 512 MCAT

[uu22]

1. Undergrad cGPA: 3.43 (upward trend?) -- traditional engineering background
2. Grad GPA (master in engineering): 3.89
3. MCAT score(s): 512 (129/125/130/128) -- planning on retake in May
4. State of residence or country of citizenship: NY (permanent resident)
5. Ethnicity and/or race: ORM
6. Undergraduate institution or category: Non-HYP Ivy
7. Clinical experience (volunteer and non-volunteer):
   
   • First responder training: ~80 hours
   • Clinical volunteer: 150 hours (about 300 hours by the time applying)
8. Research experience and productivity
   
   • Undergrad research: received honors and poster awards, no publication: ~1560 hours
   • Gap year research: submitted abstract to a national conference, ~ 2095 hours
9. Shadowing experience and specialties represented
   • General surgery: ~105 hours clinical preceptorship
   • Primary Care: 20 hours
   • Anesthesiology: 5 hours
   • Orthopedics: 8 hours
   • Vascular Surgery: 8 hours
   • Pathology: 8 hours
   • Virtual shadowing (multiple specialities): 124 hours
10. Non-clinical volunteering:
    
    • Rare disease data extractor: 110 hours
    • Food bank distributor: 240 hours
    • Student ambassador: 40 hours
11. Other extracurricular activities (including athletics, military service, gap year activities, leadership, teaching, etc)
    • Teaching assistant: 640 hours
    • Extra-curricular engineering club (making sustainable medical device for people in developing countries): 480 hours
    • Graduate project: project about finding novel solutions to current treatments in the orthopedic field
12. Relevant honors or awards
    • Graduated with honors in the major (one of the two recipients)
13. Anything else not listed you think might be important
    • During college, I didn't start with a pre-med track, I came from an engineering background and decided to pursue a career in medicine after receiving care on a critical illness. Later from my exposure as a first responder, I realized what a medical professional care provide to the patient and decided to continue my pre-med journey.

School list:
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Boston University School of Medicine
Carle Illinois College of Medicine
Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons
Dartmouth
Drexel University College of Medicine
Duke University School of Medicine
Emory University School of Medicine
Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine
George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Science
Georgetown University School of Medicine
Harvard Medical School
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California
Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University
New York University Grossman School of Medicine
Northwestern University the Feinberg School of Medicine
Quinnipiac University
Saint Louis University School of Medicine
Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University
State University of New York Upstate Medical University
Stony Brook University School of Medicine
SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University
The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University
Tufts University School of Medicine
Tulane University
University of California, Davis
University of California, Irvine, School of Medicine
University of Chicago Division of the Biological Sciences the Pritzker School of Medicine
University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine
University of Pennsylvania (Perelman)
University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
Vanderbilt University School of Medicine
Wake Forest
Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine
Weill Cornell Medicine
Yale School of Medicine

Update:
I decide to include my year by year GPA here as suggested by Goro and Mr.Smile12

	cGPA	sGPA
Freshman	2.94	2.74
Sophomore	3.32	3.10
Junior	3.54	3.25
Senior	3.82	3.93

Master Degree in BME gpa: 3.89

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Faha]

You do not need to retake a MCAT of 512. Also, do not include virtual shadowing since it has very little value and you have more than enough in person shadowing hours. You have many reaches on your list as well as state public schools that admit very few (if any) non residents with your stats and no connection to the state (UC Davis admits only 2 or 3 per year). I suggest these schools with your stats:
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Carle Illinois College of Medicine
Dartmouth
Drexel University College of Medicine
George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Science
Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University
Quinnipiac University
Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University
State University of New York Upstate Medical University
Stony Brook University School of Medicine
SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University
Tufts University School of Medicine
Tulane University
University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine
Wake Forest
You could add these schools to your application:
SUNY Buffalo
Vermont
Hackensack
Penn State
Virginia Commonwealth
Eastern Virginia
NOVA MD
Belmont
Alice Walton (when it opens)
Creighton
Rosalind Franklin
Medical College Wisconsin
Western Michigan
Oakland Beaumont

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Do not include the 80 hours you were trained to be a responder. If you hit 300 hours by application, focus on that.

Can you explain how being a rare disease data extractor is non-clinical volunteering separate from your research?

 

[Angler]

MCAT score(s): 512 (129/125/130/128) -- planning on retake in May

I agree completely with @Faha here. Unless you are 99.9% certain that you can get a substantially better score (>516), don't do it. You'll have to prepare a lot. Also, note that CARS is the subsection that is the most difficult to improve, and there is little room for improvement in your other subsections.

Your own school list has a lot of reach schools. That's probably why you want to retake the MCAT. So, be really careful. If you don't improve your score, you'll be worse off.

UCD and UCI won't look at you, based on your post.

 

[uu22]

You do not need to retake a MCAT of 512. Also, do not include virtual shadowing since it has very little value and you have more than enough in person shadowing hours. You have many reaches on your list as well as state public schools that admit very few (if any) non residents with your stats and no connection to the state (UC Davis admits only 2 or 3 per year). I suggest these schools with your stats:
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Carle Illinois College of Medicine
Dartmouth
Drexel University College of Medicine
George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Science
Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University
Quinnipiac University
Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University
State University of New York Upstate Medical University
Stony Brook University School of Medicine
SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University
Tufts University School of Medicine
Tulane University
University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine
Wake Forest
You could add these schools to your application:
SUNY Buffalo
Vermont
Hackensack
Penn State
Virginia Commonwealth
Eastern Virginia
NOVA MD
Belmont
Alice Walton (when it opens)
Creighton
Rosalind Franklin
Medical College Wisconsin
Western Michigan
Oakland Beaumont

Thank you Faha, your list is very helpful! I will try to revise my school list from your suggestions.

 

[uu22]

Do not include the 80 hours you were trained to be a responder. If you hit 300 hours by application, focus on that.

Can you explain how being a rare disease data extractor is non-clinical volunteering separate from your research?

Thank you Mr.Smile12, I am trying to include my 80 hours because I feel my clinical hours were a little short (?) (since I am taking 2 gap years), and the rare disease data extractor was part of an extra-curricular activity that wasn't intended for research but for making a website that demonstrate current problems and treatments on rare diseases.
I hope that explains them a little, thank you so much for your comments!

​

 

[uu22]

I agree completely with @Faha here. Unless you are 99.9% certain that you can get a substantially better score (>516), don't do it. You'll have to prepare a lot. Also, note that CARS is the subsection that is the most difficult to improve, and there is little room for improvement in your other subsections.

Your own school list has a lot of reach schools. That's probably why you want to retake the MCAT. So, be really careful. If you don't improve your score, you'll be worse off.

UCD and UCI won't look at you, based on your post.

Hi Angler, thank you! I rushed to take my MCAT without doing any practice exam and I believe I could improve my score (especially in the P/S section) after doing more practices. Thank you for your suggestions and I will remove UCD and UCI from my list.

 

[uu22]

You do not need to retake a MCAT of 512. Also, do not include virtual shadowing since it has very little value and you have more than enough in person shadowing hours. You have many reaches on your list as well as state public schools that admit very few (if any) non residents with your stats and no connection to the state (UC Davis admits only 2 or 3 per year). I suggest these schools with your stats:
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Carle Illinois College of Medicine
Dartmouth
Drexel University College of Medicine
George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Science
Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University
Quinnipiac University
Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University
State University of New York Upstate Medical University
Stony Brook University School of Medicine
SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University
Tufts University School of Medicine
Tulane University
University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine
Wake Forest
You could add these schools to your application:
SUNY Buffalo
Vermont
Hackensack
Penn State
Virginia Commonwealth
Eastern Virginia
NOVA MD
Belmont
Alice Walton (when it opens)
Creighton
Rosalind Franklin
Medical College Wisconsin
Western Michigan
Oakland Beaumont

Hi Faha, thank you for your suggestions. Just a quick follow-up question, I am wondering why would you remove Geisinger and Georgetown and how would you feel about adding Virginia Tech to my list?

 

[Faha]

Hi Faha, thank you for your suggestions. Just a quick follow-up question, I am wondering why would you remove Geisinger and Georgetown and how would you feel about adding Virginia Tech to my list?

Geisinger admits few applicants who are not from that region. Georgetown is looking for applicants with far more clinical and non clinical hours than you have. Virginia Tech also has an instate and regional preference.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Thank you Mr.Smile12, I am trying to include my 80 hours because I feel my clinical hours were a little short (?) (since I am taking 2 gap years), and the rare disease data extractor was part of an extra-curricular activity that wasn't intended for research but for making a website that demonstrate current problems and treatments on rare diseases.
I hope that explains them a little, thank you so much for your comments!

Understand that screeners will likely be told to disregard your training hours, so if you are trying to embellish your actual time working in your role as a first responder... It might not be a ton of hours that will raise a flag, but be aware how admissions will categorize training.

I think you can include your role as rare disease data extractor, but it doesn't work as "non-clinical volunteering" in the usual definition of serving others in distress. As this doesn't fit research, I suggest classifying as "other" and letting the screeners at each of the schools decide how this fits. I can see how it could be part of advocacy if you are ultimately raising awareness of rare diseases/zebras.

 

[uu22]

Geisinger admits few applicants who are not from that region. Georgetown is looking for applicants with far more clinical and non clinical hours than you have. Virginia Tech also has an instate and regional preference.

Thank you Faha, that helps a lot, I will not include these in my school list

 

[uu22]

Understand that screeners will likely be told to disregard your training hours, so if you are trying to embellish your actual time working in your role as a first responder... It might not be a ton of hours that will raise a flag, but be aware how admissions will categorize training.

I think you can include your role as rare disease data extractor, but it doesn't work as "non-clinical volunteering" in the usual definition of serving others in distress. As this doesn't fit research, I suggest classifying as "other" and letting the screeners at each of the schools decide how this fits. I can see how it could be part of advocacy if you are ultimately raising awareness of rare diseases/zebras.

Hi Mr.Smile12, yes that makes sense, I will be more careful when list this in my activity section, thank you so much

 

[uu22]

Update:

I am also trying to make a school list for DO programs, could you please take a look at my list?

Current:
Campbell University COM
Michigan State University COM
Touro University California COM
Des Moines University COM

Just wondering if there are some schools that I can try adding to this list? (Plan to make a total of 8-10 schools)

Thank you so much!

 

[uu22]

@Faha @Mr.Smile12

 

[uu22]

In addition, I am also wondering if I can add
Albany Medical College
New York Medical College
OHSU (for their MD-MPH program)
to my MD school list?

 

[Faha]

Michigan State has very high non resident tuition. Consider any of these schools:
Touro-NY
NYITCOM
PCOM
KCU-COM
ATSU-KCOM
TUNCOM
LECOM

 

[Mr.Smile12]

In addition, I am also wondering if I can add
Albany Medical College
New York Medical College
OHSU (for their MD-MPH program)
to my MD school list?

As a NY resident, I'd consider Albany and NYMC if you have a strong interest in opportunities that fit your purpose. OHSU as an OOS is a harder sell. Explain why you are interested in their MD/MPH.