MD & DO WAMC/School List 3.9X/514 CA ORM

[icamefromreddit]

Hi everyone! This is actually my first time posting on SDN 😯 I'm a first-time applicant, and I plan on sending apps to 25-30 schools (MD and open to DO). I've spent a lot of time trying to put a school list together by balancing mission fit, median MCAT, median GPA, location, etc. but I've come to a point where I need someone to suggest schools to take out/add. Any help is appreciated 🙂

1. cGPA: 3.9X and sGPA: 3.9X
2. MCAT: 514 (128/127/129/130)
3. Southern California resident and US citizen
4. ORM South Asian and LGBT
5. Rising senior at university in Los Angeles. Major: Health Science-related
6. Clinical experience (~200 hrs)
   1. Hospital volunteering with lots of patient contact/interaction
      • had to stop due to COVID-19 but I plan on getting more hours (~80-100) later this year and next
      • Kinda insecure about the number of hours but I couldn't do anything in-person bc I've lived with an elderly relative/parents all during quarantine
7. Research experience and productivity (>1000 hrs)
   1. I have been a part of a public health lab (not benchwork) since my freshman year. I have been pretty involved and I got to interview members of the community for our research.
      • Produced a poster that I presented at a symposium hosted by my university
      • No pubs in a journal but produced 2 evaluation reports
8. Shadowing experience and specialties represented
   1. In-person shadowing (1 specialty) = 30 hrs
      • had to stop due to COVID-19 and will plan on shadowing more this year and next
   2. Virtual shadowing >65 hrs
      • Several specialties
9. Non-clinical volunteering
   1. (~300 hrs) Public health service club since freshman year; I planned health awareness events and volunteered with low-income communities
   2. (~150 hrs) Curriculum developer for online English curriculum for Spanish-speaking students
      • Something I joined over quarantine
   3. (~60 hrs) Red Cross volunteer during freshman year
10. Leadership
    1. (>250 hrs) Instructor/team leader for teaching science to local elementary school kids; really passionate about this
    2. (>250 hrs) President of outdoor hobby club that I'm passionate about too
11. Relevant honors or awards
    1. Dean's List (>3.5 GPA)
    2. Achievement award from university for > 3.75 GPA
    3. 3rd party scholarship recipient (not a "big name" scholarship or anything)
12. Anything else not listed you think might be important
    1. I'm gay and this is a big part of my identity/motivation for me to pursue medicine. I have an unaccepting family which is also something I talk about.
    2. I'm concerned about my number of in-person shadowing hours. I know everyone has been affected by the pandemic, so I want to get more when things open back up. I had shadowing opportunities lined up right before the pandemic hit oof.
    3. My WARS is in the B/C range but I'm not sure if I agree with that. Wanted to include it just in case.
    4. It would be nice to be in a metropolitan area like Chicago/NY/Philly but staying in CA would be cool too.
    5. I feel like a lot of schools that I'm competitive for are the so-called low-yield schools. Should this be the case and is this an issue?

MD School List (no particular order):

1. Albany
2. Penn State
3. Stritch
4. Rosalind Franklin
5. Hackensack
6. Stony Brook
7. UCSF (high reach but the program interests me)
8. Keck
9. Rush (I've seen a lot of threads about how they like A LOT of community service)
10. Tufts
11. NYU (high high high high reach but thought I'd try? Might just be donating to them haha) removed 5/21/21
12. Albert Einstein
13. UCLA
14. UC Irvine
15. UC Davis
16. UC Riverside
17. Kaiser (Tyson)
18. NYMC
19. Wake Forest
20. George Washington (I would LOVE to be in DC)
21. Thomas Jefferson (Kimmel)
22. Brown (Alpert)

DO School List (no particular order; how should I choose DO schools?):

1. Western (Pomona)
2. NYIT-COM
3. Touro - California (not sure how I feel about the location but could help to get a CA residency?)
4. PCOM

Sorry for the long post. Any and all advice is appreciated!!!

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[Faha]

You could add these schools to your list:
Hofstra
Drexel
Temple
Georgetown
Virginia Commonwealth
Eastern Virginia
Miami
Tulane
TCU-UNT
St. Louis
Western Michigan
Medical College Wisconsin
Wayne State
Oakland Beaumont

 

[icamefromreddit]

Thank you so much @Faha ! I will definitely take a look at these schools. I will edit my original post when I add/subtract schools. 🙂

 

[m1redsox]

I would remove UCR and Stonybrook due to regional bias. Definitely add CUSM.

 

[icamefromreddit]

I would remove UCR and Stonybrook due to regional bias. Definitely add CUSM.

Thank you for this advice. Not sure if this makes a difference, but I live in a county over from UCR. Would that still not count as having a regional tie? Also, I thought CUSM had an IE bias as well, but I could be wrong.

 

[m1redsox]

Thank you for this advice. Not sure if this makes a difference, but I live in a county over from UCR. Would that still not count as having a regional tie? Also, I thought CUSM had an IE bias as well, but I could be wrong.

Not sure about CUSM. I got an II there and I’m from the bay with similar stats as you. I didn’t attend because I was accepted elsewhere, so I can’t speak to the post-II acceptance rate for non-IE-ers, but UCR receives funding from the county to accept locally. I don’t believe CUSM receives the same funding. That being said, I have no idea how they’ll view your situation, so it might be worth a shot at both.

 

[icamefromreddit]

Not sure about CUSM. I got an II there and I’m from the bay with similar stats as you. I didn’t attend because I was accepted elsewhere, so I can’t speak to the post-II acceptance rate for non-IE-ers, but UCR receives funding from the county to accept locally. I don’t believe CUSM receives the same funding. That being said, I have no idea how they’ll view your situation, so it might be worth a shot at both.

For sure. I'll definitely keep this in mind as I didn't even have CUSM on my radar before. And congrats on the A!!