WAMC, School List, ECs Help 3.85 GPA, 521 MCAT

[benlikeslizards]

Hi! I'm a fairly new pre-med, I was going to do a PhD in engineering, but then after a CNA-type job, decided I really wanted to be a doctor. My school list is limited, if you know anything about schools with good tissue engineering programs, I'd like to know, I plan on doing an MD/PhD if I can get in. I think my ECs are also a bit lack luster, but I have a few more months to work on those before I apply next cycle, so I'd also like your comments on how I might improve those.

Suggested information to include when creating a WAMC thread are as follows:

1. cGPA and sGPA both 3.85 (May take a hit this semester, though, so conservatively, 3.75 cGPA and 3.85 sGPA when I apply)
2. MCAT 521: 130/130/131/130
3. Colorado, wife Texas resident
4. Ethnicity: White
5. Undergrad: Utah School
6. Clinical experience : 810 hours total
   1. Non volunteer: Care Giver (CNA type stuff, bathing, hygiene, etc.) for people in their homes - 750 hours over 2 years
   2. Volunteer: OR front desk, as well as OR Volunteer (I was basically an orderly) 60 hours
7. Research experience and productivity: 1800 hours total
   1. Nuclear Engineering
      1. 1000 hours over 2.5 years
      2. Published paper to research conference, presentation at another conference
   2. Tissue Engineering
      1. 400 hours over 1 year
      2. I will be on a paper (Not primary/ co-author) we are publishing this month (submitting to Science!)
      3. Possibility of team submitting transcripts two more times before I apply in June
   3. Modular Insulin Bioreactor
      1. 2nd/1st, awards at Entrepreneurship/Bench to Bedside competitions, totally undergrad started, run, lead spectrophotometry/ insulin validation team
      2. About 400 hours
8. Shadowing experience and specialties represented: 9.5 hours
   1. Neonatology - 8 hours
   2. Orthopedic Surgeon - 1.5 hours
9. Non-clinical volunteering: About 200 hours
   1. Homeless Community (Club president, founder)
      1. 50 hours
   2. Mentoring
      1. 40 hours
      2. Not sure if I should put this, helping middle school aged kids bullied, but we just play video games together...
   3. Sewing for Navajo Nation
      1. 20 hours
   4. English/German Teaching to German Refugees
      1. 26 hours, 12 in 2018 (May be too long ago)
   5. Church Related (Temple, Sunday School)
      1. 98 hours
10. Other extracurricular activities (including athletics, military service, gap year activities, leadership, teaching, etc)
11. Relevant honors or awards
    1. NASA Space Grant Fellowship in 2019 (Nuclear)
12. Anything else not listed you think might be important
    1. MD/PhD preferred, I want to be physician/scientist

School list:

CU Denver
Ohio State
Case Western Reserve
Oregon Health & Science
Univ. of Washington
Univ. of Utah
Texas A&M (EnMed)
UT Houston (McGovern)
Baylor
UT Galveston
UT Southwestern
Penn State
Pennsylvania (Perelman)
Carle Illinois
Indiana University
UCLA (Shouldn't even try, since no connections?)

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[SuperficialSteve]

*some unsolicited advice – please delete if inappropriate*

I am also a pre-med who is likely of the same religion as you, based on how you described some of your non-clinical volunteering activities. I'm not an authority figure here, but I know it isn't a wise decision to include service that was rendered as part of practicing your religion (e.g. Temple & Sunday School). The utility/value of that service is viewed with a very different perspective by those outside of your religion. If I was on an admission committee and saw someone mention that as service, I would consider that person to be fairly ignorant of, and perhaps a bit inconsiderate of the community around them. There are plenty of threads here on SDN about how to include or mention church service in your application, so refer to those for more authoritative information.

The U of U has a couple of podcasts/videos that discuss this topic. Here is one of those:

Episode 9: Susan - First year medical student who discusses how to describe a LDS (Mormon) Mission on a med school application and what life was like living in Poland as a missionary

 

[benlikeslizards]

@SuperficialSteve

Ah, I see, maybe the fact that I was a volunteer temple worker and Sunday School teacher would change that? I can see from the U that the Sunday School teacher was something I was asked to do, so that doesn't count, but I did choose, purely from myself, to volunteer 4-5 hours/ week at the temple. Actually had a (potentially?) relevent experience where I helped this super kind, funny, loud guy with a mobile wheelchair worship at the temple most weeks, just moving chairs and making sure he felt comfortable even though he drew looks sometimes.

 

[SuperficialSteve]

@benlikeslizards

I suppose I could see how you could swing that, but to someone who doesn't align with your religious beliefs, that sort of service would seem a bit useless and without measurable impact. It will all come down to how you present it, but I personally wouldn't emphasize it that much. Just be careful where the value of your service goes from practical to religious.

Depending on how you presented it, perhaps you could include SS teacher as a leadership position. I've heard of people using mission leadership positions in a similar manner. That being said, however, there are a lot of LDS medical school applicants (In 2019, BYU alone was 13th out of ~ 219 undergraduate schools in terms of the amount of pre-medical applicants, with 442 applicants). ADCOMS have repeatedly seen the extracurricular activities common among LDS undergraduates, so they aren't anything unique. I know that the U of U is especially sensitive to this, and overly emphasizing these sort of activities can actually harm your application.

I don't know what school you're at in Utah, but if you interested in some additional information about applying to medical school as a Utah resident, send a DM.