WAMC & School list 3.81GPA 3.79sGPA 515 MCAT CA Resident

[EfronMan]

Hey guys, looking for any and all feedback here!

I'm a white male, CA resident at a UC.

3.82 GPA and 3.84 sGPA (I know the title says differently, but I'm on the quarter system and just input my classes on the amcas calculator and it spit out these new numbers)

515 MCAT | 129 physical | 127 CARS | 130 Bio | 129 psych |

Experience:
~250 Hours of clinical volunteering in various hospital departments

~100 Hours of shadowing

Research:

Spent ~10-15 hours a week for the last 2 years, including summer, doing relatively advanced techniques in an MCBD lab. Not published.

Leadership/Orgs

Two years on board of a big organization. Gave important speech to donors; hosted/helped plan a charity event

School list as of now (28 total)

JHU
Duke
Cornell
Case Western
NYU
Northwestern
Penn State
Ohio State
Emory
Einstein
Wake Forest
Dartmouth
Rochester
Tufts
Stony Brook
Massachusetts
Saint Louis University
Hofstra
SUNY Downstate
West Virginia

Stanford
UCSF
UCLA
UCSD
USC
UC Irvine
UC Riverside
UC Davis

Any advice/criticism/help is much appreciated! Thanks all!

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[ERDOC555]

You may be tossing away some of your money for those top 20 schools. 515 is good, but typically below median for top schools like Duke, Stanford, Cornell, etc.

It looks like you have a few safety schools* in the list as well but I would recommend adding another 3-4 safety instead of ultra competitive schools. Think of the large private schools with 32 MCAT averages, or even some of the public OOS friendly schools. All in all it looks like a decent list and you would hopefully get in somewhere.

Also, many schools like to see volunteer hours, which I didn't see listed.

*We all know there is no such thing as safety MD schools, but if you apply to several where your stats are above median, you tend to have some sort of cushion if you don't make it into a more prestigious school.

 

[EfronMan]

Thanks for the feedback, I might trade in JHU, Duke, and Cornell for some schools more in my range. Do you have any suggestions? Maybe Creighton, Michigan, Iowa, Central Florida, Indiana? Having trouble finding large private schools with encouraging matriculant data

I'm inclined to keep Stanford and UCSF on my list because I'm a CA resident and even though they're a significant reach, you never know who's going to be reading these applications. Maybe I'll get lucky!

 

[ERDOC555]

Thanks for the feedback, I might trade in JHU, Duke, and Cornell for some schools more in my range. Do you have any suggestions? Maybe Creighton, Michigan, Iowa, Central Florida, Indiana? Having trouble finding large private schools with encouraging matriculant data

I'm inclined to keep Stanford and UCSF on my list because I'm a CA resident and even though they're a significant reach, you never know who's going to be reading these applications. Maybe I'll get lucky!

Those are some good safeties, except for Iowa (although you should add Iowa and Miami as solid schools to apply to)
Possibly:
-MCW
-Georgetown
-Georgewashinton
-VCU
-Indiana (as you mentioned)
There's probably more but those are the ones that come to mind.

 

[EfronMan]

Thank you very much, I appreciate your help Dermpire

 

[ERDOC555]

Thank you very much, I appreciate your help Dermpire

No problem! I'm sure others will be able to give you valuable input as well!

 

[Faha]

You could add more schools such as:
Quinnipiac
Albany
New York Medical College
Drexel
Temple
Jefferson
GW
Georgetown
Oakland Beaumont
Western Michigan
Rosalind Franklin
Creighton
Tulane

 

[EfronMan]

You could add more schools such as:
Quinnipiac
Albany
New York Medical College
Drexel
Temple
Jefferson
GW
Georgetown
Oakland Beaumont
Western Michigan
Rosalind Franklin
Creighton
Tulane

Thanks Faha! I've heard that schools like GWU and Georgetown have a very low yield due to the amount of applicants that apply. Am I incorrect?

 

[Faha]

Thanks Faha! I've heard that schools like GWU and Georgetown have a very low yield due to the amount of applicants that apply. Am I incorrect?

Not as low yield as would appear from the number of applicants. Some never send in the secondaries and they interview well over 1,000 applicants.

 

[EfronMan]

Not as low yield as would appear from the number of applicants. Some never send in the secondaries and they interview well over 1,000 applicants.

Very insightful. Thanks Faha!

 

[EfronMan]

Anyone else have anything to add?

 

[GrapesofRath]

I would add U of Arziona, UIC and Medical College of Wisconsin. Do that and youll have about 15 schools going in that you have a reasonable shot at getting a II at: thatll be plenty if you can interview decently.

All in all this list looks fine, it's just 30+ is getting to be alot, especially for a 3.8/34 app. I would probably look to refine this list a little.

You really dont need to add the NYMC/Drexel/GW's of the world, it's just not a good use of time or energy.
Delete UMass and WVU.
JHU, Northwestern, NYU and Stanford(maybe even Cornell)are going to be low yield and another place you could cut from. The UC's already give you a number of top 20 reaches. If you want a top 20 reach to replace them, I might look at Pitt.
Dont keep UCR if you arent from the relative IE region.
This isnt as high a priority but here are some schools I dont consider particularly high yield even though your stats are ok for them. I would probably remove a few of them:
SUNY Downstate, Stony Brook, Emory, Hofstra, Dartmouth, and Penn State. Maybe even Rochester or Tufts could go here. This could be another way to trim several schools off the list. If you really want a school or two to replace them Miami, Jefferson and Tulane could be solid candidates.

Cutting say Stanford, NYU, JHU, SUNY Downstate, UCR, Stony Brook, WVU, Rochester, UMass, Dartmouth, Emory and Penn State, even if you were to replace with Pitt, UIC, MCW, U of Arizona and Jefferson gets you down to a rather manageable 21 while not really affecting your number of most realistic schools.

 

[EfronMan]

Thank you for the detailed response GrapesofRath, I will take that all into consideration it's very helpful

Everyone's replies have been great so far, if anyone else has anything to add I would love to hear it