WAMC/School List advice - 521/4.0 - ORM - Texas Resident

[bcstrong03]

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1. 4.0 GPA
2. 521 MCAT, 1 attempt: 131, 127, 132, 131
3. Texas Resident
4. White Male
5. Neuroscience degree from Texas A&M
6. Clinical experience: 200 hours hospital volunteering (solid patient interaction, feeding, taking vitals etc.), 150 hours alzheimers care facility.
7. 1000 hours research, 4 posters one pub 3rd author one presentation, all wet-lab related. 2 manuscripts in prep for surgical research, 5-6 pubs expected over gap year.
8. Shadowing experience: 200 hours shadowing. Peds, family med, neurosurgery, cardiac surgery, general surgery.
9. Non-clincial volunteering: 200 hours food bank, 250 hours special olympics.
10. Leadership/Extracurricular: Biochem TA for one semester, president special olympics org for two years. Big reader, played a lot of intramural sports and was involved in my church quite a bit. Gap year job CRC.
11. No awards, will graduate summa cum laude.
12. Letters from PI, prof I TA'd for and MD CV surgeon I did research for. No real clinical letter. I'd really prefer to go to UTSW. It's my top choice by far, any advice about that school in particular would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

School list (mostly made with admit.org):

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Welcome to the forums.

Is there a reason you are concerned about not matching to any Texas school? I would hope you have a shot at UTSW with those metrics. Determining your mission fit will require more details.

My small concern as an OOS student is your limited campus involvement (in my perspective/opinion, based on what you shared). Your 250 hours of Special Olympics fits under leadership, so that gives you 200 hours of food bank as service orientation. I'd prefer 50 more hours of food bank before you submit your application to keep pace with other applicants for your brand-name reach schools.

In general though, I think you have set yourself up well with the profile that I would expect some interview action if your writing clarifies your purpose and vision as a physician.

 

[bcstrong03]

Welcome to the forums.

Is there a reason you are concerned about not matching to any Texas school? I would hope you have a shot at UTSW with those metrics. Determining your mission fit will require more details.

My small concern as an OOS student is your limited campus involvement (in my perspective/opinion, based on what you shared). Your 250 hours of Special Olympics fits under leadership, so that gives you 200 hours of food bank as service orientation. I'd prefer 50 more hours of food bank before you submit your application to keep pace with other applicants for your brand-name reach schools.

In general though, I think you have set yourself up well with the profile that I would expect some interview action if your writing clarifies your purpose and vision as a physician.

Hi and thank you so much for the feedback!

Not that I'm concerned about not matching in Texas per se, just have heard about the randomness of this process and want to make sure I cover all of my bases as best I can.

My PS narrative and most of my W/A descriptions focus pretty heavily on the underserved; that, other than location, is probably the biggest part of why I like UTSW so much.

I did wonder if you could elaborate on what you meant by limited campus involvement? I should have clarified the special olympics is an on campus org that we do intramurals with through the University, but also travel and participate in national special olympics event etc. I've volunteered all four years of college with that, but have been the president of the org for the last two.