WAMC + School List Help Please! - CA Resident, low MCAT, avg GPA

[rainyday432]

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cGPA: 3.84

MCAT: 506 (126/124/129/127), taken March 2026. Pretty big drop from my practice tests, which were in the 509-511 range, with the 2 highest at 514 - test anxiety (and CARS!) got the best of me. Don’t plan to re-take, unless applying for another cycle.
Preview: 9 (taken April 2026)
Casper: currently scheduled in June, haven’t taken yet

State of residence: CA
Ethnicity: ORM, child of immigrants - parents are not in medical field. Not a first-generation college student, but first in my family pursuing education in this country.

Undergrad institution: University of California school
Major: Neurobiology

Gap years: 2

Clinical experience: 1255 hours

• Currently working as a medical assistant at surgery clinic for the past year after graduating college, total hours: 550 upon submission (will continue up until starting med school)
• Hospital volunteer at local hospital where I assist with patient transport and coordinate volunteer assignments and serve as a dispatcher - total hours: 160 hours (will continue up until starting med school)
• Hospital volunteer at UC hospital: 120 hours (pediatrics and Med/Surg ICU)
• Community clinic medical volunteer (360 hours) - did MA style responsibilities: taking patient vitals, translating for patients, performing wet lab tests, and updating medical records. 120 hours of serving as community clinic volunteer + 240 hours of class to get credit to be a volunteer: med students from the local med school would present patient cases, learned about different clinic operations, and how to assist in outreach
• Heart screening volunteer at cardiac events - taking bp and helping conduct EKG tests (65 hours and will continue up until starting med school)

Research experience: 630 hours

• Research assistant at child psychology lab (630 hours). Wrote honors senior thesis and had 2 oral presentations presenting thesis. 1 poster presentation as well for separate project. Awarded fellowship for thesis funding and awarded 3rd best talk for my thesis presentation at campus psychology conference.

Shadowing experience: 144 hours

• Pediatrician (24 hours)
• Family medicine (13.5 hours)
• Neurologist (15 hours)
• Cardiologist (42 hours)
• General surgeon (prospective 50 hours - kept prospective since I work with the surgeon as a medical assistant, so currently include my hours as a MA observing procedures and future cases to observe)

Non-clinical volunteering:

• Volunteer at local senior care center where I chat and play games with residents to keep them company (80 hours and will continue up until starting med school)
• Food pantry volunteer (42 hours)
• County wide public health volunteer and contributed to project on medication usage (45 hours)
• Student volunteer at my college’s public health program, helped educate and provide campus-health resources to students across campus (90 hours)
• Leadership: worked with campus’ public health team on a project assessing students’ opinions on campus health resources (30 hours)

Jobs:

• Work as an online math tutor for K-12 students for the past 3 years - total hours: 350 and will continue after submitting application

Honors/awards:

• Honors college
• Regents scholarship
• Department citation
• Campus fellowship: awarded funding for my senior thesis
• Dean’s list (4 quarters)
• Phi Beta Kappa Society
• Campus writing prize winner on literature review health paper
• Awarded 3rd best talk for thesis at psychology research conference

Specialty interest: leaning towards internal medicine, pediatrics, or Ob-Gyn at the moment, but willing to have an open mind in med school and change as needed.

School list (MD and DO):​

CA schools:

• UC Davis School of Medicine
• UC Irvine School of Medicine
• Charles R Drew University of Medicine and Science
• Loma Linda University
• California University of Medicine and Science
• California Northstate University
• Kaiser

OOS schools:

• Wake Forest
• Wayne State
• Tulane
• Mercer University School of Medicine
• Chicago Medical School at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Health Sciences
• The Commonwealth Medical College
• Morehouse School of Medicine
• University of Kentucky College of Medicine
• Louisiana State University School of Medicine
• University of Louisville
• Frederick P. Whiddon College of Medicine at the University of South Alabama
• University of Mississippi Medical Center School of Medicine
• University of Minnesota Duluth Medical School
• University of Toledo College of Medicine
• State University of New York Upstate Medical University Alan and Marlene Norton College of Medicine
• University of New Mexico School of Medicine
• University of South Alabama College of Medicine
• University of North Dakota School of Medicine
• Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine
• Central Michigan University College of Medicine
• Michigan State University College of Medicine
• Florida International University Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine
• Oregon Health and Sciences University School of Medicine
• Wright State University
• University of South Alabama College of Medicine
• Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University
• University of Kansas School of Medicine
• Southern Illinois University School of Medicine
• University of Oklahoma College of Medicine
• Cooper Medical School of Rowan University
• University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine
• University of Nevada Reno School of Medicine
• Rush University
• Western Michigan University Homer Stryker School of Medicine
• SUNY - University at Buffalo Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences
• Robert Larner College of Medicine at University of Vermont
• Pennsylvania State University
• Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine
• Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine
• Nova Southeastern University Dr. Kiran C Patel College of Medicine
• University of South Dakota Sanford School of Medicine
• University of Arizona College of Medicine - Phoenix
• Creighton

DO schools:

• California Health Sciences University
• Touro University (CA)
• Western University of Health Sciences
• Philadelphia College of Osteopathic medicine (PCOM)
• Midwestern University Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine (CCOM)
• Des Moines University (DMU)
• Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine (LECOM)
• University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine
• Rowan University School of Osteopathic Medicine
• A.T. Still University
• NYIT College of Osteopathic Medicine
• AZCOM

Reach schools:

• Stanford
• Yale
• UCSF
• UCLA
• UC San Diego

Note: I'm open to going to either a MD or DO school, preferably in CA, but open to other locations in the US as well! Strong interest in medical school to serve in community clinics dedicated to primary care and preventative health, as well as opportunities for research (clinical as well as public health). Potentially interested in getting a MPH along with my medical degree. I know my MCAT is low given my GPA, so I am looking for any recommendations for schools to add or remove. Specifically, I would like to apply to schools that do not have a strict CARS cut off so I can be safe given my score. Thanks! 🙂

 

[Faha]

You have many state public schools on your list that admit few (or none) non residents. Mississippi, Brody and Mercer admit zero non residents. Morehouse and Charles Drew mainly admit applicants from the Black community. Rush and Loyola expect many hundreds or thousands of hour of non clinical volunteering.
I suggest these MD schools with your stats:
Vermont
Quinnipiac
Albany
Drexel
Temple
Penn State
Eastern Virginia
Wake Forest
Methodist
NOVA MD
Belmont
Alice Walton
TCU
Ponce (St. Louis)
Rosalind Franklin
Medical College Wisconsin
Oakland Beaumont
Wayne State
Roseman
Brigham Young (when it opens)
California University
California Northstate
Loma Linda (if you fit their mission)
UC Davis
Kaiser
I suggest these DO schools:
WESTERN
TUCOM-CA
TUNCOM
AZCOM
CCOM
DMU-COM
ATSU-KCOM
KCU-COM
MU-COM
CUSOM
LECOM
PCOM
NYITCOM
Touro-NY
CHSU-COM

 

[rainyday432]

Thank you for the feedback! Do you see any parts of my application that are a red flag or can require improvement (i.e. hours of activities or something else)? Furthermore, what schools should I target more based on my application: research, serving marginalized communities based on my experience with community clinic volunteering, or public health?

Also, given my MCAT score and GPA, should I apply heavy more DO schools or do I still have a chance for MD schools?

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Thank you for the feedback! Do you see any parts of my application that are a red flag or can require improvement (i.e. hours of activities or something else)? Furthermore, what schools should I target more based on my application: research, serving marginalized communities based on my experience with community clinic volunteering, or public health?

Also, given my MCAT score and GPA, should I apply heavy more DO schools or do I still have a chance for MD schools?

Unless you like spending $2500 in a failed application cycle, I would suggest you include DO schools.

I'm worried that while your total non-clinical service orientation hours are above the 150 hour threshold to avoid getting screened out, the amount of time in each activity does not show long-term commitment. I tend to ignore activities with fewer than 50 hours (unless it's shadowing).

 

[Faha]

You have a chance for interviews at the MD schools I listed but you should also apply broadly to DO schools.

 

[rainyday432]

Got it, thanks for the update. @Mr.Smile12, I see your point regarding the non-clinical volunteering. The senior care one is pretty long term, I will be approaching a year now with volunteering with them this summer and is something I will continue until I start med school, so up to 2 years in total.

 

[rainyday432]

Additionally, how do I know if I have a "mission-fit" with the schools I am applying for outside of stats? Based on my application, am I research-heavy or clinical-experience heavy applicant? Could use some advice to help me out, thanks.

 

[rainyday432]

Additionally, @Goro, @LizzyM, @gyngyn, @gonnif, any other updates or thoughts for WAMC + school list?

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Additionally, how do I know if I have a "mission-fit" with the schools I am applying for outside of stats? Based on my application, am I research-heavy or clinical-experience heavy applicant? Could use some advice to help me out, thanks.

You have accomplished more in research than in having a community impact through your activities, based on how you describe yourself.

That's not the same as mission fit/purpose.

 

[polymerization]

Just my 2c, you don't have the EC profile that would compensate for your low MCAT (and I say that as a fellow 506 scorer admitted to a UC OOS). I had 10 years (tens of thousands of hours) of relevant experiences in medicine, research, and service. It's not an easy thing to acquire, and from what I've seen of my classmates, even the IS people with the 52x scores are also incredibly impressive independent of their scores.

Obviously, you can stay IS at a good MD school in theory. The question is whether you care to spend the years(!!!) that it would take. By the time you'd be looking to apply, your MCAT would have expired anyway, so it's not even like you benefit from not having to retraumatize yourself with a retake. For having 2 gap years, I would have expected you to have many more hours than you have (a year of full-time work is roughly 2000 hours, and that's in addition to what you would've done during undergrad).

I don't want to discourage you, but the reality of this process is that you are being compared both to everyone else applying to each school and to mission priorities at each school. You know UCLA could fill its class (and probably all other CA schools) 3 or 4 times over with their own crazy huge population of premeds even before taking OOS students into account.

Don't think about it like the schools are "the bad guys" for passing you up for your numbers or not giving you a chance. Ask yourself why they should select you in spite of your weaknesses, when other students do not have those same weaknesses. Hard question to face, I know.

Dovetailing off of what @Mr.Smile12 is saying, I think it is unlikely that you will stand out with additional research at UCs. I took on a policymaker role in state government that took me a year to interview for, became Chair, and served a 3 year term once appointed before applying. You have to find your "thing." It can't be random; it has to make sense within the little universe that is your application... and has to coincidentally (not so coincidentally) align with the priorities of the schools you're targeting.

I can tell you that the mission of the UCs, especially through the PRIME programs, is creating healthcare leaders with niche interests in social justice and advocacy. They will not take pinky promises, they want evidence. It has to have impact: it cannot be more tutoring, surveys, and entry-level work. It will take an opportunity only a handful of people are going to have. You can see why they might have been interested in my experiences.

And that's even before we start talking about application strategy and how to best present those experiences. You have to decide if it feels worth it to you.

Speaking from the other side, I regret it, but I completely understand your resistance given my mindset prior to getting in. If it had been an option for me to have applied earlier and gone to a DO school, I would've done that. By the time you're applying, you feel that you've definitely "done enough," but trust me, there are going to be hundreds of applicants per seat who have done more. At some point it becomes self-punishing.

 

[Goro]

Additionally, @Goro, @LizzyM, @gyngyn, @gonnif, any other updates or thoughts for WAMC + school list?

Nope.
Skip BYU if you're not LDS
In looking at mission and fit, you have a research background, so thoroughly explore the websites of the above schools and look for what they want in an applicant.

 

[LizzyM]

Additionally, @Goro, @LizzyM, @gyngyn, @gonnif, any other updates or thoughts for WAMC + school list?

I'm at a school where the avg GPA is >3.90 and no one gets an interview with MCAT <518. I really don't know much about what other schools are looking for. I'd venture to say that your reaches would be an impossible dream. Pick one but don't waste any more time and money on a a bunch of them. I don't say that as a b*tch but to be realistic.