WAMC School List - 3.7/523

[narcomoeba]

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Hi everyone! I just started my senior year of college, and I was wondering if I could get feedback on my school list. I'll be applying in May and taking a gap year. My list is really top-heavy, so please let me know what I should cut/add.

1. cGPA: 3.7, sGPA: 3.6 (1 more year left, hoping to get these to 3.78 and 3.74 respectively)
2. MCAT: 523 (131/130/131/131)
3. Residence: NY
4. Race/Ethnicity: White/Middle Eastern/North African
5. Undergrad Institution: T10
6. Clinical:

• 400 hours as a Medical Assistant in an oncology clinic in NYC
  • Roomed patients, assisted in examinations, and occasionally helped with moving patients

1. Research:

• 1 3rd author publication
• Honors thesis: 300 hrs
  • hoping to have at least 1 poster and 1 competition with this

1. Shadowing: 100 hrs total

• 60 hrs: Gynecological Oncology Surgery
• 40 hrs: Maternal Fetal Medicine

1. Non-clinical volunteering:

• Mentoring local high school students who are interested in health careers: 100 hrs
• Volunteering at local dog shelter: 200 hrs

1. Other extracurricular activities

• Treasurer and then President of campus social organization: ~1000 hrs
• Involved in University Gaming/Esports club

1. Relevant honors or awards

• Dean’s list

1. Extra info:

• I spent my first 3 semesters of college as an engineering major not focused on medicine. My GPA from these first 3 semesters is a 3.3. My GPA afterwards is over 3.9

School list:
NYU Grossman
Weill Cornell
Albert Einstein
Mount Sinai
Duke
Stanford
Columbia
Yale
Northwestern
Harvard
UPenn
USC Keck
University of Michigan
Johns Hopkins
UCLA
Dartmouth
Boston University
Stony Brook
SUNY Downstate
Buffalo
Brown
UChicago Pritzker
UNC Chapel Hill
SUNY Upstate
New York Medical College
Emory
Hofstra
Vanderbilt
Albany Medical College

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Welcome to the forums.

First, what is your purpose as a physician? What has informed you that being a physician is what you want to do? I'll credit you with your oncology exposure, but your perspective on healthcare seems rather limited.

Also your non-clinical volunteering is typical for most prehealth applicants as you have most of your hours in tutoring or promoting science. That won't help you stand out. Animal rescue is noble, but it doesn't fit service orientation that most adcoms want to see. You must have at least 150 hours of food distribution, (human) shelter volunteering, job/tax preparation, legal support, transportation services, or housing rehabilitation to avoid getting your application screened out at most schools where you have no strong mission alignment. As I see it, you have zero, which puts you at serious risk of getting denied without interview at many places regardless of your mission fit.

Most of your hours seem involved with your campus social organization, but it seems that you have made little impact with your campus community (because you don't say anything). In short, nothing in this profile is compelling enough for me to interview you.

 

[Faha]

Your lack of non clinical volunteering will limit your chances for interviews, especially at top tier schools. Accumulate 250+ hours in activities such as food bank, homeless shelter before you submit your application. Add Washington University to your list (almost a guaranteed interview with your MCAT of 523).

 

[narcomoeba]

Welcome to the forums.

First, what is your purpose as a physician? What has informed you that being a physician is what you want to do? I'll credit you with your oncology exposure, but your perspective on healthcare seems rather limited.

Also your non-clinical volunteering is typical for most prehealth applicants as you have most of your hours in tutoring or promoting science. That won't help you stand out. Animal rescue is noble, but it doesn't fit service orientation that most adcoms want to see. You must have at least 150 hours of food distribution, (human) shelter volunteering, job/tax preparation, legal support, transportation services, or housing rehabilitation to avoid getting your application screened out at most schools where you have no strong mission alignment. As I see it, you have zero, which puts you at serious risk of getting denied without interview at many places regardless of your mission fit.

Most of your hours seem involved with your campus social organization, but it seems that you have made little impact with your campus community (because you don't say anything). In short, nothing in this profile is compelling enough for me to interview you.

Thank you for your response!
I've found the counseling aspect of being a physician to be the most compelling part. I admired the ability of the physician I worked under in the oncology clinic to seemingly make any patient feel better emotionally, even in the face of a cancer diagnosis. The people-facing portion of the job is the most important to me. I think that I will always enjoy meeting new people and trying to help them in whatever way I can. I have many hours of experience working in food preparation/delivery for cancer patients, but a majority of those hours were accumulated during high school, so I hesitate to include that on my application. However, I am aware of a few volunteering opportunities I can participate in this year before I apply. As for the campus social organization, we are involved in a few campus and local advocacy initiatives (which I have tried to increase during my tenure as president).
Also, thank you for the feedback, I've been having issues finding people who will be honest with me about my application. It is good to hear that my GPA is not the biggest red flag.

 

[narcomoeba]

Your lack of non clinical volunteering will limit your chances for interviews, especially at top tier schools. Accumulate 250+ hours in activities such as food bank, homeless shelter before you submit your application. Add Washington University to your list (almost a guaranteed interview with your MCAT of 523).

Thank you! I will try to get these before I submit. Do you feel that my list needs to be altered significantly even after increasing volunteering?

 

[Faha]

Thank you! I will try to get these before I submit. Do you feel that my list needs to be altered significantly even after increasing volunteering?

Remove UNC since they admit few non residents with no connection to the state. You could add Tufts, UMass, Rochester and Pittsburgh.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Thank you for your response!
I've found the counseling aspect of being a physician to be the most compelling part. I admired the ability of the physician I worked under in the oncology clinic to seemingly make any patient feel better emotionally, even in the face of a cancer diagnosis. The people-facing portion of the job is the most important to me. I think that I will always enjoy meeting new people and trying to help them in whatever way I can. I have many hours of experience working in food preparation/delivery for cancer patients, but a majority of those hours were accumulated during high school, so I hesitate to include that on my application. However, I am aware of a few volunteering opportunities I can participate in this year before I apply. As for the campus social organization, we are involved in a few campus and local advocacy initiatives (which I have tried to increase during my tenure as president).
Also, thank you for the feedback, I've been having issues finding people who will be honest with me about my application. It is good to hear that my GPA is not the biggest red flag.

Noting your shadowing, would you consider helping at a maternal health clinic (something that doesn't have to do directly with oncology)? Something like Planned Parenthood? Alternatively, assisted living/hospice? I want to make sure you back up this statement in more of your clinical activities than just oncology.

So you know you're neither a proceduralist nor a diagnostician (think radiology)... but physicians usually have just 8 minutes to "counsel" patients. Other professions have more contact time with patients. Check your school list to see if medical students get significant exposure as patient navigators or community health workers.

 

[polymerization]

In addition to what has already been said, I think you also lack a social mission that would support your candidacy to schools like UCLA, Dartmouth, Boston, Brown, UChicago, Duke, Emory, Michigan, and Mt. Sinai—who focus a great deal of effort on raising those kinds of physicians. Your numbers are good enough, the issue is that once you start looking into writing secondaries, you're going to be asked in a million different ways how you personally are contributing to addressing the fundamental problem of social inequality. And it's not a vision statement, it's not about writing to the future—they want to know the work you've already done.

Conversely, schools like WashU, USF, and Vanderbilt literally could not care less. They want psychopath physicians (only half kidding ). In all seriousness, though, I would say the rest of the schools might fall somewhere in between those two extremes... which means schools that are not considerate of social mission are more the exception to the rule than the rule.

More broadly, though, start thinking about how you're going to frame what you do have. If you're applying in May, well, we're practically in November and most opportunities have a hiring freeze over the holidays. It's unlikely anything you could do while you are preparing your personal statement and hopefully pre-writing for secondaries will be enough to radically alter your chances.

I cannot say this enough: apply as early as you can. Do NOT write general essays addressing vague topics. Literally go through the SDN school-specific forums and answer the specific secondary prompts. Realizing that my pre-written "master" essays did not necessarily fit school prompts or character limits in mid-July meant a lot more stress and panic than was necessary at that point in the cycle. You want to get early IIs in August so you can be one of the first As in October. I cannot emphasize enough how brutal all of this feels once it comes time to play the waiting game.