WAMC/School List Advice: Sincerely, an overachieving pre-med

[flowerchimmy]

Good evening my fellow pre-med (and possibly med) friends!

I would absolutely LOVE and appreciate any advice on my school list for the upcoming cycle.

Disclaimer: I was a massive overachiever in undergrad (graduated 2021), so I am having to combine a lot of my experiences into one umbrella category (described below). If you have strong feelings against doing this on the application I am all ears, I'm just trying to be smart with my writing.

Also, if anyone I know personally reads this just talk to me directly, I need help!!! LOL. Thanks everyone!

AMCAS GPA:
cGPA 3.82, sGPA 3.64
Still had an upward trend; experienced my first loss of a family member sophomore year which definitely caused small dip in my trend

MCAT: N/A Scheduled 26-May
As of 26-March I scored a 503 (124/128/126/125) on Kaplan; I am taking an LOA from work and studying full-time from April 7 through May 25th, aiming for a 520+

Demographics: Nevada resident (military upbringing), white, female, not SES/disadvantaged

Education: Local state university, graduated in the Honors College
Double major (Psychology, Biology) + minor (Addiction Treatment Services)

Clinical experience (volunteer and non-volunteer)
[Current]
Paid - Clinical Research Coordinator - see research experience below
600hrs Emotional First Aid/Trauma Volunteer
I am trained to provide emotional & practical support to survivors of trauma, most often I am supporting family members who have lost a loved one. We work with local police departments and respond on-scene to car accidents, homicides, overdoses, infant deaths, shootings, natural deaths in the home, hospitals, etc. Possibly non-clinical? Still debating.

[Past]
1600hrs – Mental Health Technician (Paid) / Addiction Counseling Intern
250hrs - Phlebotomy Class/Training (May not include due to being a course, currently undecided) *

2200hrs - Research experience and productivity – plan to combine all experiences
Paid - Full-time Clinical Research Coordinator @ Cleveland Clinic; 1 manuscript
Hours above also include (and this will be noted on my app):

200hrs as a Cognitive Psychology RA *​

75hrs as an RA/Tissue Collector at a lab at my local medical school​

Shadowing experience and specialties represented
2 hrs radiation oncology (2020)
55 hours neurosurgery (2021)
45 hours neurology Doc 1 (2022)
20 hours neurology Doc 2 (2022-23)
200hrs virtual shadowing (formal), various specialties (2020-2023)
+ expected 100 hours neurology (through my employer’s education program) (2023-24)

Non-clinical volunteering
[Current]
5000 hrs - 501c3 Founder/Director

At its height during COVID the nonprofit spanned every state in continental U.S., Australia, and Canada. Raised $50k+ to distribute through our financial aid platform. The nonprofit itself was action-based (i.e. we served a physical purpose in the communities that we were located in), the fundraising was a later addition to the program. This was a totally unintentional experience (I really never expected it to get this big lol) but it’s been a blessing. It has significantly gone down in traffic/activity since then but lots of great accomplishments were made thanks to my peers/lead volunteers, I would say more but I am *trying* to maintain some semblance of anonymity here on SDN lol​

[Past]
200hrs - Service-Learning Leadership

100hrs - Lead Ambassador for health education in underserved communities​

100hrs - Community Impact Intern for the AHA​

Other extracurricular activities (including athletics, military service, gap year activities, leadership, teaching, etc)
[Current]
Gap year - outside of the items marked "current", I am also putting together a pre-med mentorship program for students who belong to military families (this will launch after my applications are submitted though, so this won't be on my primary application)

Honors College – Several leadership positions over ~6yrs (hours to be calculated)

Ambassador; Service Chair; Retreat Leader; Recruitment Supervisor; Peer Coach​

Currently an officer/board member on the Alumni Chapter​

[Past]
Teaching
250hrs - Dissection Assistant (TA) – Dissected human cadavers and taught anatomy (1yr) *
300hrs - Psychology TA – Regular TA responsibilities (2yrs)
135hrs - UTA for Intro Bio Lab – taught research-related lab techniques *

Club Leadership (hours to be calculated)

PhiDE - VP Recruitment; Medical Chair​

Student Organ Donation Advocates - Marketing Chair, Programming Chair​

Psi Chi Intl Honor Society - Secretary​

Relevant honors or awards
2 merit-based scholarships to my university (due to my list of awards below, may not be able to include these)
Because of my nonprofit work listed above I have quite a list of university, state, or national awards/recognitions. I am at 19 honors/awards/recognitions, including being featured in a publication of TIME Magazine. I never thought I'd actually need a description set aside for this, but I do, and I feel extremely lucky with all that happened.

LORs
Anatomy prof (supervised my Dissection Assistant term)
Bio prof (supervised UTA Bio Lab TA term)
Psych prof (supervised my Psych TA term)
2x MDs (one was a PI/research supervisor; one is a coworker/doctor that I shadow)

Anything else not listed you think might be important
1 activity description for traveling/language learning; spent my childhood in a non-English speaking country, was my family’s interpreter (used to be fluent in this other language). Due to my parents’ jobs I have been lucky to travel often for pleasure. I am relearning the language from my childhood; I have taught myself the Korean alphabet and just need to work on vocab; I want to learn ASL and Greek as well.

1 activity description for my experience as a barista; began working in 2015 until 2021 (3000 hrs over 6 years)

* hours were calculated using my school's standard that 3 credits = 135hrs minimum

Current school list (applying MD only):
Full disclosure, I put this list together quite a long time ago, but these have a LOT of high-reach dream schools. I’m not sure if I’m aiming too high, especially given my GPA and my *unknown* MCAT. I got lucky with my nonprofit work, but I'm not convinced that it would get me into a "top" tier school, so to speak.
I would really love some down-to-earth honest feedback on my list below. I have to pay for everything for my application (no parental assistance here) so I can't afford to just apply to 30+ schools like some people do, but at the same time I also don't want to limit my options too much.

• All state schools (UNLV, UNR)
• Public, out of state apps: Hawaii, UCSF, Utah (family ties to UT)
• Case Western/CCLCOM (current employment ties but I’m at a satellite hospital)
• Columbia VP&S (applied Columbia for undergrad, got denied)
• Duke
• Geisinger
• GWU (applied GWU for undergrad, got waitlisted)
• Georgetown
• Icahn
• JHU
• Mayo
• Northwestern
• Perelman/UPenn
• Rush
• Brown
• UChicago
• UPitt (family ties)

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[Frigidcold]

I think a lot hinges on your MCAT score. If you actually do end up scoring a 520+, you can apply more aggressively (add the rest of the T10/T20 you're interested in and remove schools like Rush that will screen you). If you don't see much improvement, the opposite. If your nonprofit work is as meaningful/extensive as you present it here + the awards and you can speak about it well, it will absolutely get you into a top tier school.

As far as activities, there are things that make sense to group and things that don't. The awards, shadowing, and TA stuff for instance can be easily grouped (also you don't need more shadowing). I wouldn't group really disparate activities just because they fall under the same category of experience. You don't need to include every little thing you did. If you're doing 2000 hours of research in one lab, no one's going to care much about those 75 hours you leave off. If you have national level awards/exposure, the university stuff pales a bit in comparison. Also, I don't know if this is optimal (n=1, I had a lot of success this cycle doing this), but I actually left my TA experience off of my W/A section because it was mentioned in my LORs. Something it seems like you could consider if you find yourself running out of space.

 

[Faha]

It is not possible to determine if your school list is appropriate without an actual MCAT score. Post your score here when available. Yoiu can remove Hawaii since they admit very few non residents with no connection to the state,

 

[flowerchimmy]

I think a lot hinges on your MCAT score. If you actually do end up scoring a 520+, you can apply more aggressively (add the rest of the T10/T20 you're interested in and remove schools like Rush that will screen you). If you don't see much improvement, the opposite. If your nonprofit work is as meaningful/extensive as you present it here + the awards and you can speak about it well, it will absolutely get you into a top tier school.

As far as activities, there are things that make sense to group and things that don't. The awards, shadowing, and TA stuff for instance can be easily grouped (also you don't need more shadowing). I wouldn't group really disparate activities just because they fall under the same category of experience. You don't need to include every little thing you did. If you're doing 2000 hours of research in one lab, no one's going to care much about those 75 hours you leave off. If you have national level awards/exposure, the university stuff pales a bit in comparison. Also, I don't know if this is optimal (n=1, I had a lot of success this cycle doing this), but I actually left my TA experience off of my W/A section because it was mentioned in my LORs. Something it seems like you could consider if you find yourself running out of space.

Thanks so much!!

How does Rush screen applicants? I thought they just focused on community service hours, so I felt pretty good applying there - but if there’s another stat-based screen that they do I totally wasn’t aware.

And great advice about the sectioning off activities. I’ll take a (millionth) look at my drafts and see how I should write about them.

I forgot to mention - but I was only going to include my dissection & psych teaching positions as their own activities (not the bio lab one). But you’re right - maybe I can combine these in a different way. Thanks again!!

 

[EdgeTrimmer]

503 to 520+ with 6 weeks prep is a tough task. How much prep have you done so far?

 

[flowerchimmy]

503 to 520+ with 6 weeks prep is a tough task. How much prep have you done so far?

I started content review in October, but have been off/on. I’m well aware it’s going to take everything in me, but based on my full lengths, it’s 100% content gaps. Even in the sciences, I’ve been successful in eliminating 1-2 answers per question, so I know enough to know what is NOT correct — I truly just don’t have the knowledge base to determine which IS correct. Does that make sense?

 

[flowerchimmy]

It is not possible to determine if your school list is appropriate without an actual MCAT score. Post your score here when available. Yoiu can remove Hawaii since they admit very few non residents with no connection to the state,

I will be updating here for sure. But applications are submitted before my MCAT score comes back, I want to pre-write secondaries and be prepared for all of the schools I am considering (rather than scrambling to add schools later on). Thank you though!

 

[chilly_md]

I will be updating here for sure. But applications are submitted before my MCAT score comes back, I want to pre-write secondaries and be prepared for all of the schools I am considering (rather than scrambling to add schools later on). Thank you though!

You can pre-write for your state schools, but trying to do it for other schools could end up being a waste of time. Submit using UNLV and UNR to get the verification process started.

If you score exceptionally high, schools like Rush will assume you will go elsewhere.

 

[EdgeTrimmer]

I will be updating here for sure. But applications are submitted before my MCAT score comes back, I want to pre-write secondaries and be prepared for all of the schools I am considering (rather than scrambling to add schools later on). Thank you though!

I would focus fully on MCAT and not about application at this point.