WAMC + School List 519/3.81 FL ORM

[Ihsoy_010]

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Just wanted to get some advice on my rough draft of a school list and chances. If anyone had any suggestions on schools to add or delete.

ORM FL Resident

cGPA 3.81, sGPA 3.67

(I took a heavy dual enrollment course load in high school and significantly dragged down both GPAs. Excluding dual enrollment, my college-only cGPA is ~3.98, and sGPA is ~3.94. Would this be considered by adcoms when reviewing my application? I graduated in 3 years, double majored in two science majors.)

MCAT 519 (128/129/130/132)

Clinical Hours (Paid + Volunteer): 1000+ hrs

• 700 hrs MA
• 200 hrs Clinical assistant volunteer in a clinic serving uninsured and underserved
• 100 hrs ER volunteer
• I will also be volunteering as a patient navigator for uninsured patients getting surgery, this will be ongoing throughout my app cycle

Research: 2368+ hrs

• Clinical research gap year position: 1900+ hrs (Concerned about my output as the conferences I have my abstracts submitted for conferences that will not take place until after I submit my app, I have 2 mid-author pubs still in review, and some of my 1st author manuscripts will not be submitted until after as well)
• Radiology research assistant: 240 hrs (one first-author national conference poster presentation, working on submitting 1st author manuscript soon)
• Neuroscience Research Assistant: 228 hrs (basic wet lab bench work)
• Did some research projects for an undergraduate club and submitted several posters to our university's research conference

Non Clinical Volunteering (Most concerned about this!): 275+ hrs

• Food distribution volunteer: 100+ hrs (I started this very late, and I feel like my hours are quite low due to this)
• Content creation for educational platform: 100+ hrs (also started late, and I am not 100% sure if this would count as non-clinical volunteering)
• Front desk hospital volunteer: 75 hrs (very short-lived experience, as I transitioned into a clinical volunteer role after)

Leadership: 1688 hrs

• Resident Assistant: 1560 hrs (over 5 semesters)
• Research Mentor: 128 hrs (helped freshman students start their first research projects and present at our university's research conference, was part of the clubs e-board)

Teaching: 64 hrs

• TA for Upper Level Bio Class: 64 hrs

Shadowing: 100+ hrs across various specialties (Neurosurgery, ENT, Gastroenterology, Cardiology, Dermatology, Internal Medicine, Endocrinology)

Personal Statement: Pretty basic, but it encapsulates my journey and why medicine is well-articulated

LOR: 3 research mentors, 2 science professors, 1 non-science study abroad professor, and 1 clinical volunteer coordinator.

This is a very rough list that I have created. I am looking if some schools would be easy cuts based on my profile or any replacements that are a better fit:

• Johns Hopkins
• Stanford
• University of Pennsylvania (Perelman)
• UCSF
• Yale
• Washington University in St. Louis
• Duke
• Vanderbilt
• Emory
• Columbia
• Mayo Clinic Alix
• Weill Cornell
• Mt. Sinai (Icahn)
• Dartmouth (Geisel)
• Case Western
• Tufts
• Boston University
• University of Rochester
• Georgetown
• George Washington
• University of Pittsburgh
• Temple (Lewis Katz)
• Jefferson (Sidney Kimmel)
• Tulane
• Ohio State
• Penn State (Hershey)
• Loyola (Stritch)
• Creighton
• Wake Forest
• Zucker (Hofstra/Northwell)
• UVM (Larner)
• Rush University
• Medical College of Wisconsin
• Geisinger Commonwealth
• University of Arizona (Tucson)
• VCU
• Drexel
• Albany Medical College
• Rosalind Franklin
• NYMC
• Western Michigan Homer Stryker
• Quinnipiac (Frank Netter)
• Hackensack Meridian
• Oakland Beaumont
• Wayne State
• University of Florida
• University of South Florida (Morsani)
• University of Miami (Miller)
• FIU (HWCOM)
• UCF
• FAU (Charles E. Schmidt)
• NSU MD
• FSU

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Welcome to the forums.

It would be nice to know your major.

Please clarify your responsibilities with clinical research and what your presentations/papers are about. What is your role with those presentations/papers (I don't mean authorship placement)?

 

[Ihsoy_010]

Welcome to the forums.

It would be nice to know your major.

Please clarify your responsibilities with clinical research and what your presentations/papers are about. What is your role with those presentations/papers (I don't mean authorship placement)?

I majored in Molecular Biology and Health Sciences with a concentration in Health Care Administration (our school did not have a separate health care administration major).

In my Clinical Research position, I have been able to work on creating radiology-based prediction models on commonly asked quality of life questions of patients undergoing surgical resection of certain tumors. I have been able to shadow in the clinics and observe some of these pressing questions that patients have, and have made those the subject of the models. I have been able to lead two projects focused on answering such questions, for which I have submitted abstracts for a conference and am waiting for results. Additional responsibilities I have are also supporting ongoing clinical trials looking into immunotherapy interventions through patient recruitment, maintaining a large multicenter database of certain tumor subtypes, and supporting current projects in the department with data analysis and review (two of my mid-author pubs will come from this).

In my radiology research I did in undergrad, I was able to work on a systematic review project and create a poster for a national conference, looking at what models have been created and validated across a certain tumor subtype, and identified key gaps in the research where such models could be created to answer specific questions that are pressing in that certain subtype. It was this experience that led me to my current clinical research position to create these models that address the gaps I found while doing this project.

I was actively involved in my undergraduate research club, where I was able to collaborate with senior members of the club as a freshman and contribute to independent research projects, for which we were able to create multiple posters for our school's annual research conference. I ended up joining the e-board and becoming a research mentor, where I supported freshmen or people first coming into research to work on an independent project and present at the same conference.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

To your questions:

1) Admissions committees will see the breakdown of your courses, and I'm sure they will value your true undergraduate record (not the dual enrollment courses). MCAT should also help.

2) Your non-clinical volunteering is okay but short on service orientation. Your content creation could probably be more non-clinical volunteering, but it is also academic/teaching-adjacent (I need to know more about what the content is). Front desk hospital could be clinical employment (health care/systems experience). The only service orientation activity is in food distribution, and you should have 150 hours so your application doesn't get screened out at most schools.

3) Research mentoring is noble, but it is also teaching/tutoring/mentoring. Further, it seems your topics focus more on clinical studies research doing lit reviews. I suppose that should count at most schools, but it's interesting that you don't have more bench research on balance. But it is what you are doing in your gap year.

4) I think your list needs more balance. Not so many reaches. You have too few hours at the food bank or engaged in community social services for Rush and the Jesuit schools. Focus on schools that have students serve as patient navigators or community health workers once you have over 150 hours. Since you have zero hours at the start of the cycle, keep building in case you must reapply.