WAMC & School list feedback (3.92/520, low ECs)

[nothingtoseehere]

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Hi! Would love some opinions about my chances and school recommendations, planning on applying this June. I graduated a few years ago and have been working as an MA since then, I have lots of clinical hours but I know my app is lacking in other areas.

1. : 3.92 | sGPA 3.92
2. MCAT: 520 (c/p130, CARS 131, b/b 129, p/s 130)
3. State of residence WA, strong ties to OR
4. white female
5. Undergraduate: not prestigious
6. ~5500 hours as a medical assistant in 2 outpatient specialties.
7. research: 850 hours across 2 projects, did a poster presentation for each one but it was just a "student symposium" at my college, no pubs, in science but not really relevant to medicine
8. Shadowing: currently only 5 hours in outpatient IM, aiming for 30-40 by june across IM, peds, obgyn, and hopefully psych
9. Non-clinical volunteering: projected 60 at food bank, 20 online free tutoring
10. Other: D3 tennis (captain for 2 years): rough estimate 1800 total hours spend, not sure if i should call some of those hours a leadership activity bc of being captain

School list:
Planning to apply:
University of Washington
Washington state
OHSU (oregon heritage)
UCLA
UCSD
UC Irvine
University of Colorado
USC
UCSF
University of Hawaii

Want to apply but not sure (OOS bias, too much of reach?, other concerns):
University of Utah
UC davis
California university of science and medicine
Kaiser (took my MCAT in may of 2023, might be too old for them)
Stanford


Considering applying:
California northstate
University of Nevada Reno (currently have family in Reno)
University of Arizona
george washington
University of Vermont
SUNY downstate
Virginia commonwealth
Virginia Tech
quinnipac
University of maryland
albert einstein
dartmouth
brown
U Arizona Phoenix
Boston University

I know my school list is heavy on the OOS public schools but I'm really hoping to be able to stay out west. If I do need to add more midwest/east schools i would love recommendations for schools in areas with decent access to nature and in blue states (lgbt friendly, reproductive freedom, all that good stuff).

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Your community service is extremely light, especially given that you have two gap years. You should have much more than 60 hours of food bank hours, and online tutoring doesn't help you. You should have 150 hours at submission, and with your metrics, you should try fo 250 hours to stay on pace with similar metrics applicants going for brand-name schools.

There are many medical schools with Wilderness Medicine electives along the East Coast. Check out...

Wilderness Electives for Medical Students

 

[nothingtoseehere]

Your community service is extremely light, especially given that you have two gap years. You should have much more than 60 hours of food bank hours, and online tutoring doesn't help you. You should have 150 hours at submission, and with your metrics, you should try fo 250 hours to stay on pace with similar metrics applicants going for brand-name schools.

There are many medical schools with Wilderness Medicine electives along the East Coast. Check out...

Wilderness Electives for Medical Students

thanks for the reply, I know my service hours are low, and i'm definitely trying to get them up but I just don't think hitting 150 will be feasible by june so I'm curious how big of a deal that is, or if there are certain schools that will care more than others. Most of my gap years have been spent working a MA job that made it difficult for me to have any regular weekly commitments (unpredictable hours, working in various locations including multi-day travel to work in a rural area) so I'm hoping that I will be able to make up for the lack of service hours through my activities statement for that job. Do you have any insight into if that might redeem my app a bit?

 

[Mr.Smile12]

thanks for the reply, I know my service hours are low, and i'm definitely trying to get them up but I just don't think hitting 150 will be feasible by june so I'm curious how big of a deal that is, or if there are certain schools that will care more than others.

There are schools that care more about this than others, and they tend to expect more hours (250). Rush, Loyola, and many Jesuit schools ask for hundreds if not thousands of hours. You can try to roll the dice, but we have many WAMC profiles over the years of high metrics applicants who don't get interviews or offers with fewer than 150 service orientation hours (and/or hundreds to thousands of tutoring/teaching/mentoring hours). We only advise on probabilities, so it's your call if you want to go against conventional wisdom.

Most of my gap years have been spent working a MA job that made it difficult for me to have any regular weekly commitments (unpredictable hours, working in various locations including multi-day travel to work in a rural area) so I'm hoping that I will be able to make up for the lack of service hours through my activities statement for that job. Do you have any insight into if that might redeem my app a bit?

You forget that this isn't about a formula. No one outstanding element makes up for another weak element. It's a holistic process, and you must show consistency, balance, and congruency with your purpose as a future physician who demonstrates all the professional competencies and embraces program core values. Are you passionate about rural medicine? If so, maybe that could factor into why you don't have as much connection with community needs through service orientation activities... but we'll see.

 

[nothingtoseehere]

You can try to roll the dice, but we have many WAMC profiles over the years of high metrics applicants who don't get interviews or offers with fewer than 150 service orientation hours (and/or hundreds to thousands of tutoring/teaching/mentoring hours). We only advise on probabilities, so it's your call if you want to go against conventional wisdom

would your recommendation be to hold off on applying until later in the cycle if that's what it takes to get >150 hours? Also, there are a few one-off volunteering events i did that could help me add ~20 hours if i lumped them together, is that recommended?

 

[Faha]

You have too many OOS public schools on your list that admit few non residents with no connection to the state. You could be screened at some schools with less than 150 hours of non clinical volunteering. I suggest these schools with your stats:
University of Washington
Washington state
OHSU (Oregon heritage)
UCLA
UCSD
University of Colorado
USC
UCSF
Kaiser
Arizona (Phoenix)
Stanford
Washington University (in St. Louis-almost a guaranteed interview with your stats)
Vanderbilt
Northwestern
U Michigan
Cincinnati
Pittsburgh
Rochester
Duke
Emory
USF Morsani
Hofstra
Einstein (free tuition)
Mount Sinai
Dartmouth
Brown
Boston University
Tufts
UMass

 

[nothingtoseehere]

You have too many OOS public schools on your list that admit few non residents with no connection to the state. You could be screened at some schools with less than 150 hours of non clinical volunteering. I suggest these schools with your stats:
University of Washington
Washington state
OHSU (Oregon heritage)
UCLA
UCSD
University of Colorado
USC
UCSF
Kaiser
Arizona (Phoenix)
Stanford
Washington University (in St. Louis-almost a guaranteed interview with your stats)
Vanderbilt
Northwestern
U Michigan
Cincinnati
Pittsburgh
Rochester
Duke
Emory
USF Morsani
Hofstra
Einstein (free tuition)
Mount Sinai
Dartmouth
Brown
Boston University
Tufts
UMass

Thank you so much! I'm struggling to figure out which OOS state schools I have a chance with. I have been looking at the % of OOS applicants interviewed but based on this list i'm wondering if that is a bad way to compare. For example, Arizona, Arizona (phoenix), Hawaii, and UC Irvine all interview 5-6% of OOS applicants but you only included Arizona Phoenix on my list. Is there a different way I could be comparing OOS friendliness?

 

[Mr.Smile12]

would your recommendation be to hold off on applying until later in the cycle if that's what it takes to get >150 hours? Also, there are a few one-off volunteering events i did that could help me add ~20 hours if i lumped them together, is that recommended?

I tend to ignore non-shadowing activities with fewer than 50 hours; I prefer adding to what you have. I'm hesitant about having you skip a cycle. I'm a little more certain that WSU is focused on community service, but they have a ton of seats to fill for in-state. Would that team have a different look at your service activities? It's possible. UW is complex because they have reserved seats for WWAMI states too. Both schools are more likely to give you a shot (and perhaps OHSU given your Oregon ties); I'd hate to have you waste an MCAT eligibility year given that your metrics will warrant attention.

I think WSU could do admissions advising before you submit. I'm not as certain about UW. Worth asking.

 

[Faha]

Thank you so much! I'm struggling to figure out which OOS state schools I have a chance with. I have been looking at the % of OOS applicants interviewed but based on this list i'm wondering if that is a bad way to compare. For example, Arizona, Arizona (phoenix), Hawaii, and UC Irvine all interview 5-6% of OOS applicants but you only included Arizona Phoenix on my list. Is there a different way I could be comparing OOS friendliness?

Arizona (Phoenix ) has been admitting more non residents recently (60 last year). UC Irvine admitted 16 and Hawaii 12. Many of those would be applicants who attended undergraduate school in the state, former residents, legacies, etc. .

 

[nothingtoseehere]

I tend to ignore non-shadowing activities with fewer than 50 hours; I prefer adding to what you have. I'm hesitant about having you skip a cycle. I'm a little more certain that WSU is focused on community service, but they have a ton of seats to fill for in-state. Would that team have a different look at your service activities? It's possible. UW is complex because they have reserved seats for WWAMI states too. Both schools are more likely to give you a shot (and perhaps OHSU given your Oregon ties); I'd hate to have you waste an MCAT eligibility year given that your metrics will warrant attention.

I think WSU could do admissions advising before you submit. I'm not as certain about UW. Worth asking.

Thank you so much for all of your responses, i have one more question then i'll stop bugging you haha. Even if I am able to hit that 150-200 service hour benchmark, will ADCOMs look down on the fact that they are pretty recent? Like i mentioned before, I previously did some one-off volunteering, but my consistent service hours in the same place began in January of this year (coinciding with a job change that freed up my schedule and a move that brought me to an area with more opportunities). I lacked consistent volunteering in college because every opportunity I looked into wanted year round consistency and i went to school far from home, and then there was covid of course. Obviously i can't change the past, just want to be mentally prepared if this is going to massively hurt my app.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Thank you so much for all of your responses, i have one more question then i'll stop bugging you haha. Even if I am able to hit that 150-200 service hour benchmark, will ADCOMs look down on the fact that they are pretty recent? Like i mentioned before, I previously did some one-off volunteering, but my consistent service hours in the same place began in January of this year (coinciding with a job change that freed up my schedule and a move that brought me to an area with more opportunities). I lacked consistent volunteering in college because every opportunity I looked into wanted year round consistency and i went to school far from home, and then there was covid of course. Obviously i can't change the past, just want to be mentally prepared if this is going to massively hurt my app.

Some adcoms may throw shade at having late hours when you clearly listed zero hours over the previous year/s. But we don't have the time to do a full analysis on when your activities occurred or the context, especially when we screen applications for interviews. I (and many screeners) can tell your purpose or your motivation by the hours you spend in your activities. If you are serious about a service-oriented profession, you must be curious about the community you live in, and if you are graduating college with low EC's, you won't have an excuse for not making that shift when you don't have homework or papers to worry about. That's what gap year planning is about: how you would balance clinical and non-clinical activities as an independent adult who can make deliberate choices.

Remember the med school admissions process is competitive. It's about how you compare with other applicants when we have to triage the pool, and while there may not be a stated cutoff, if you are among the majority of applicants with fewer than 150 hours, it is convenient to screen you out if we have only enough spots for the top 15%.