WAMC / School list help (URM/519/3.82)

[winterjacket77]

Academics:
cGPA: 3.82 / sGPA: 3.73
MCAT: 519 (129/130/129/131)

Demographics
State of residence: In-state for NJ
Race: URM (Black female)
Undergrad: Ivy+

Experience
Clinical Experience:

• 30hrs currently, but on track to have ~150hrs clinical volunteer experience at time of application
• 500+ clinical paid projected hours, plan to scribe or MA part time during gap year

This is definitely the weak point of my application, I plan to work hard on it in the coming months before May. I have the opportunity to take on a part time clinical job that could significantly increase this, but am not sure I can handle the workload.

Research Experience

• 1500+ hours, no publications 🙁

Shadowing Experience

• 40 hrs (primary care + specialty)

Non-clinical volunteering

• 122hrs, on track for 150hrs at time of application

ECs

• Primarily 3 clubs, leadership positions in 2
• Most of my application will be centered around a specific hobby that 2 of these clubs are related to
• Other than this, work.

Honors/awards

• 1 scholarship for thesis research

Other

• Had 2 jobs for entirety of undergrad due to family financial stress. This is largely why I haven't had time to amass clinical experiences.

List of schools:

(Breakdown is from admit.org, not based on my own opinions)

SIDE NOTE: Things that are important to me in a medical school (in this order):

1. Tuition
2. Lifestyle (P/F, AOA, competitiveness, stress, etc.)
3. Being in or near a (somewhat diverse) city
4. Match rates (I am considering dermatology)
5. Diversity (particularly blackness and queerness)

REACHES

1. Stanford
2. Columbia
3. Harvard
4. Yale (dream school)
5. NYU
6. UChicago
7. Northwestern
8. Hopkins
9. UCSF
10. UPenn
11. Cornell
12. WashU
13. Icahn @ Mt. sinai
14. Vanderbilt

TARGET

1. UCLA (this feels like a reach)
2. Brown (this feels like a reach)
3. Emory (this feels like a reach)
4. Albert Einstein
5. Pittsburgh
6. Case Western Reserve
7. Rutgers (Newark)
8. Boston University
9. Hofstra

BASELINE

1. USC (not sure this is baseline?)
2. Dartmouth (not sure this is baseline?)
3. Tufts (not sure this is baseline?)
4. Rutgers (Robert Johnson)
5. New York Medical College
6. Hackensack
7. Rowan / Cooper
8. Temple
9. Drexel
10. Rosalind Franklin
11. University of Vermont
12. George Washington
13. Penn State
14. Albany Medical College

Considering?

1. UCSD (In-state bias?)
2. Baylor (In-state bias?)
3. Kaiser Permanence (In-state bias?)
4. Colorado (not sure I want to live here)
5. University of Rochester (not sure I want to live here)
6. Duke (not sure I want to live here)
7. Morehouse (not sure I want to live here)
8. Howard (not sure I want to live here)

How bad is my situation with clinical hours? I really don’t want to take a second gap year, and I have lined up clinical experiences for before May. For the list, please help me narrow down or add any that I’m missing. I feel like I’m too heavy on reaches and not enough on targets, and also feel like I have some baseline schools that I likely wouldn’t enjoy attending. But I really dream of attending a T20 school.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

What mentoring organizations have you connected with? Specifically any organizations supporting aspiring Black physicians? What do your prehealth advisors say? Any involvement with SNMA or MAPS?

Every HBCU medical school should be on your list. The extra year to get more clinical hours will help you. If you think you need more clinical hours, you probably do. Medical schools won't be going anywhere.

Your lack of detail on nonclinical volunteering makes me think you should take the extra year since chances are you have not fulfilled service orientation expectations.

 

[Faha]

What is the nature of your non clinical volunteering hours?

 

[candbgirl]

You really need to consider an additional gap year. Applying with 30 hours of clinical experience is shooting your self in the foot. Projected hours are considered projected hours- the hours might or might not get completed. And when other applicants are applying with hundreds of hours, your 30 look pitiful.

What are your nonclinical activities? Make sure you do get to at least 150 hours before you apply.

Good luck as you move forward.,

 

[mike-sheree]

These “additional gap years” are financially killing y’all. Mind you, I am a retired 73 y.o. doc but that “last” year of practice you are giving up has a value, in today’s dollars, for a dermatologist, of AT LEAST $500k. Would that sum be helpful in any way? ( that figure, sadly for the new generation, used to be much higher, and we didn’t have the debt y’all have). Never forget, medicine may be your passion, but it is a BUSINESS and nobody in the education pipeline will teach you that. There is a big, big difference between how that “gap years” looks when you are 22 and how it looks, retrospectively, at age ~63 pre-retirement.
Not necessarily “on topic” but certainly something everyone on this board needs to know. You will never learn it through the current, traditional educational pathway.

 

[soapapple]

These “additional gap years” are financially killing y’all. Mind you, I am a retired 73 y.o. doc but that “last” year of practice you are giving up has a value, in today’s dollars, for a dermatologist, of AT LEAST $500k. Would that sum be helpful in any way? ( that figure, sadly for the new generation, used to be much higher, and we didn’t have the debt y’all have). Never forget, medicine may be your passion, but it is a BUSINESS and nobody in the education pipeline will teach you that. There is a big, big difference between how that “gap years” looks when you are 22 and how it looks, retrospectively, at age ~63 pre-retirement.
Not necessarily “on topic” but certainly something everyone on this board needs to know. You will never learn it through the current, traditional educational pathway.

If someone is retiring at 62, I assume you are saying they make at least $500k in that year. If someone is starting a year later, they either have to forego that $500k and retire at 62 or get that $500k and retire at 63, right?

However, applying without having strong conviction in your application and 'hoping' that you will get interviews/acceptances takes a significant toll on applicants. Did you consider the scenario where people apply, become re-applicants, and go through the same painful experience for another year? That is a lot of psychological pain compared to having $20M net worth and losing $500k because you are retiring the same year as your peers.

At the same time, I agree that one cannot succumb to analysis paralysis and spend years trying to perfect their application. If one is ready to take a chance and has no problem reapplying in case they don't get accepted for any reason, then yes, go ahead and apply.

 

[Miamiheat2003]

These “additional gap years” are financially killing y’all. Mind you, I am a retired 73 y.o. doc but that “last” year of practice you are giving up has a value, in today’s dollars, for a dermatologist, of AT LEAST $500k. Would that sum be helpful in any way? ( that figure, sadly for the new generation, used to be much higher, and we didn’t have the debt y’all have). Never forget, medicine may be your passion, but it is a BUSINESS and nobody in the education pipeline will teach you that. There is a big, big difference between how that “gap years” looks when you are 22 and how it looks, retrospectively, at age ~63 pre-retirement.
Not necessarily “on topic” but certainly something everyone on this board needs to know. You will never learn it through the current, traditional educational pathway.

If I may add. You have a completely valid point. However, the dynamics for medical school applications have completely changed over the last 20 years. The number of applicants only increase each year, making the requirements and competitiveness of the system only increase year after year. I can confidently say that the activities that students have to do now is not the same of what was required of pre-health students 30-40 years ago. Due to there being a set amount of spots available for matriculants, it forces many to have to take gap years.

 

[jvquarterback]

I’ll argue against any additional gap years any time I can. I think they are a detriment to the profession in the way they are promoted generally. In this specific case with a superstar app outside clinical hours and being a little light on non clinical volunteering people telling you to wait are very likely in the wrong in their determination that your chances of admission will be significantly greater with another gap year.

Get your clinical hours to 150 and same with your non clinical (let us know what you’ve done specially here) and apply. You’ll get in with some good essays. The finances are clear as the previous poster said.

I’ll tell you what I told my perfectionist cousin when she was in your position: we need an extra year of a black or Native American or Latino physician far more than we need an extra hundred hours of you working at a food bank or homeless shelter or spending five hundred hours as an ma. Those things are admirable for sure but I could count on one hand the number of my colleagues, young or old, who volunteer significantly outside of their profession.

 

[winterjacket77]

What mentoring organizations have you connected with? Specifically any organizations supporting aspiring Black physicians? What do your prehealth advisors say? Any involvement with SNMA or MAPS?

Every HBCU medical school should be on your list. The extra year to get more clinical hours will help you. If you think you need more clinical hours, you probably do. Medical schools won't be going anywhere.

Your lack of detail on nonclinical volunteering makes me think you should take the extra year since chances are you have not fulfilled service orientation expectations.

Thank you for your feedback! I am part of a black-specific pre med organization. I am considering adding more HBCUs to my list, but I've been struggling with this vs. only applying to schools I would actually go to, and I don't really want to live in the South. My lack of detail is just because the things I do are extremely identifiable. They are all service oriented and working directly with underserved populations.

 

[winterjacket77]

What is the nature of your non clinical volunteering hours?

Service towards underserved communities in various forms! Some of it is based on a specific hobby I do and connecting that with specific populations that don't have access to it. A lot of it is work with a local food bank.

 

[winterjacket77]

You really need to consider an additional gap year. Applying with 30 hours of clinical experience is shooting your self in the foot. Projected hours are considered projected hours- the hours might or might not get completed. And when other applicants are applying with hundreds of hours, your 30 look pitiful.

What are your nonclinical activities? Make sure you do get to at least 150 hours before you apply.

Good luck as you move forward.,

Under no circumstances will I be applying with 30 hours - if I end up in that situation I would absolutely take another year. Even since making this post I have gained another six hours - I fully plan to apply with 100-150hrs. My nonclinical activities are service oriented.

Thank you!

 

[winterjacket77]

I’ll argue against any additional gap years any time I can. I think they are a detriment to the profession in the way they are promoted generally. In this specific case with a superstar app outside clinical hours and being a little light on non clinical volunteering people telling you to wait are very likely in the wrong in their determination that your chances of admission will be significantly greater with another gap year.

Get your clinical hours to 150 and same with your non clinical (let us know what you’ve done specially here) and apply. You’ll get in with some good essays. The finances are clear as the previous poster said.

I’ll tell you what I told my perfectionist cousin when she was in your position: we need an extra year of a black or Native American or Latino physician far more than we need an extra hundred hours of you working at a food bank or homeless shelter or spending five hundred hours as an ma. Those things are admirable for sure but I could count on one hand the number of my colleagues, young or old, who volunteer significantly outside of their profession.

Thank you for offering this perspective! I fully believe I can get both to 150 by the time I apply in May/June, and I agree that that time could be better spent than trying to rack up hours. But I also want to be realistic since I am aiming high for schools and really praying to get in somewhere with free tuition.

 

[Faha]

You should receive several interviews from your target and baseline schools. The reaches are also possible but you will be competing against applicants who have many hundreds or thousands of hours each of clinical and non clinical volunteering/employment.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Consider the feedback we give you as a snapshot, like an MCAT diagnostic. You can still improve based on our feedback, so I hope it gives you more confidence in what you can do.

Under current political circumstances, stay connected with the affinity groups. I see scholarship programs (associated with mentoring) posted by many of the organizations offering free MCAT prep and application support. (See nmfonline.org for example.)