WAMC & School list help - CA ORM 4.0/522 lower research?

[TheseKids]

4.0 sGPA/cGPA MCAT: 522 (132/130/130/130)
CA Resident, ORM at a state school

Well-rounded app with lower research, edited for privacy!

Category 1 (TOP): Harvard, Stanford, Hopkins, UCSF, Penn, WashU, Yale, Columbia, Duke, Chicago

Category 2 (HIGH): Michigan, UCLA, NYU, Vanderbilt, Pitt, UCSD, Cornell, Northwestern, Mt Sinai, Baylor, Mayo, Case Western, Emory

Category 3 (MID): UVA, Ohio State, USC-Keck, Rochester, Dartmouth (wanted to remove bc of old class), Einstein, Hofstra, UNC (should I remove UNC bc of instate preference?)

State schools: UCI, UCD, UCR, CUSM, Northstate (should I even apply?), Kaiser

Category 4-7 (Safeties?): MCW, USF-Morsani, Western Michigan, SLU, Vermont, Rush, UofA - Phoenix, Boston

I currently have ~45 schools and really need help removing some. I keep hearing apply broadly, but I don't know what to remove. I don't want to drown in secondaries. Do I have too many safeties? My stats are definitely above for some of them.
Thanks in advance!

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[TheseKids]

@LizzyM @Goro @gyngyn @Faha any help is appreciated!

 

[Goro]

4.0 sGPA/cGPA MCAT: 522 (132/130/130/130)
CA Resident, ORM at a state school

Clinical experience (volunteer and non-volunteer): ~200 hours in a hospital

Research experience and productivity:
~600 hours in metabolomics lab doing mostly computational work with some wet lab busy work, no productivity to show
~400 hours in translational medical lab, significant involvement with a project I am finishing and a pub likely by the end of the summer (likely 2nd author)
publication currently being submitted for review, unsure when I could list it - would be 6th author/9 total, unsure of journal impact

Shadowing experience and specialties represented:
10 hours allergy & rheumatology outpatient
10 hours ICU inpatient
15 hours primary care outpatient (continuing, will likely be ~30 by the time I submit)

Non-clinical volunteering
~150 hours over 2 years tutoring underprivileged high schoolers
~500 hours over 2 years in a service-learning organization with spring break trips, focusing on youth empowerment & education (unsure how to properly count hours)
~100 hours as a camp counselor (camp kesem, unsure how to count hours)

Other extracurricular activities:
Leadership:
Led a service-learning spring break trip, with significant involvement over the course of a year
Tutoring room advisor (in charge of managing students and tutors in room)
Judicial board in my fraternity
Instructional assistant for a quarter
Private tutor for high school students ~3 hours a week

Relevant honors or awards - Dean's list every quarter, phi beta kappa
I have a strong theme of working with children and service, with a focus in education/social justice. I feel that my research may hold me back in that I currently have little to show for my time and my publications will likely not count before interviews begin. I am looking for help with my school list as follows, which I based off of WARS.
I am open to any and all feedback, especially on removing some top schools and adding more safeties. I have tried to not include any schools where my GPA/MCAT are about the 90th percentile, but that has really limited my safety choices. I am most worried about not getting into any T20s bc of lack of strong research and then being yield protected everywhere else....

Category 1 (TOP): Harvard, Stanford, Hopkins, UCSF, Penn, WashU, Yale, Columbia, Duke, Chicago

Category 2 (HIGH): Michigan, UCLA, NYU, Vanderbilt, Pitt, UCSD, Cornell, Northwestern, Mt Sinai, Baylor, Mayo, Case Western, Emory

Category 3 (MID): UVA, Ohio State, USC-Keck, Rochester, Dartmouth (wanted to remove bc of old class), Einstein, Hofstra, UNC (should I remove UNC bc of instate preference?)

State schools: UCI, UCD, UCR, CUSM, Northstate (should I even apply?), Kaiser

Category 4-7 (Safeties?): MCW, USF-Morsani, Western Michigan, SLU, Vermont, Rush, UofA - Phoenix, Boston

I currently have ~45 schools and really need help removing some. I keep hearing apply broadly, but I don't know what to remove. I don't want to drown in secondaries. Do I have too many safeties? My stats are definitely above for some of them.
Thanks in advance!

You're golden; aim high.

I suggest:
NYU
Vanderbilt
WashU
Yale
JHU
U Chicago
U Penn
Northwestern
Columbia
Harvard
Stanford
Mayo
Cornell
Sinai
BU
U VA
Duke
Baylor
Case
ALL UCs but UCR (IF you’re from the Inland Empire)
U MI
Albert Einstein
Hofstra
Ohio State
Pitt
U Cincy
USF Morsani
Dartmouth
Rochester
USC/Keck
Western MI
Emory
Jefferson
Miami
SLU
Tufts
U IA
U VM

 

[LizzyM]

Cut Rush. They look for a ton of clinical experience (e.g. being a EMT for a year or two).
Don't waste your money on safeties. They know they are safeties and they will eschew you.
Throw out any school that is OOS unfriendly if you are OOS.
Your application is beautiful and the only thing that will sink you is poor secondaries or poor interviews so get to work in those realms.