WAMC/School List (NC, 3.98 GPA, 521 MCAT, T10 Undergrad)

[monsterpanda]

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Looking to submit ASAP, wanted to here thoughts on the school list though!

1. cGPA: 3.98 & sGPA: 4.00
2. MCAT: 521
3. State of residence: NC (may be relocating to CA)
4. Race: White/Asian
5. Ivy Undergrad: UPenn
6. Clinical experience
   1. 147 Hrs – Clinic Intern
7. Research experience and productivity
   1. 500 hrs of research experience, no major publications
8. Shadowing experience and specialties represented
   1. 85 Hrs - pain management and neurology
9. Non-clinical volunteering
   1. Volunteer tutor - 25 hours
   2. HIV/AIDS advocacy ~ 300 hrs / leadership here, awarded a competitive grant
   3. Asian-American community building ~ 200 hours / leadership here
   4. Sexual ed project for the unhoused / reproductive justice advocacy ~200 hrs
10. Relevant honors or awards: summa cum laude
11. Anything else not listed you think might be important
    1. First gen, low-income
    2. Cardiothoracic surgery survivor
    3. Parent disabled with neurodegenerative disease, had to be her caregiver for multiple years growing up
    4. Last two spoken about in PS & caregiver in work/activities
12. School list:
    1. UPenn
    2. Harvard
    3. Boston U
    4. Emory
    5. Dartmouth
    6. UNC
    7. Duke
    8. Wake Forest
    9. G-Town
    10. USC
    11. NYU
    12. UCLA
    13. UCSD (considering changing, but i am originally from SD so I really want to go back)
    14. UCSF (considering changing for UVA)
    15. UChicago
    16. UColorado
    17. Vanderbilt
    18. Cornell
    19. Yale
    20. WashU
    21. UMich

 

[Faha]

Your high stats will attract interest at some schools. Your relatively low clinical exposure hours will limit your chances at some top tier schools where you will be competing with applicants with many hundreds or thousands of clinical hours. You could add these schools:
USF Morsani
UVA
Jefferson
Pittsburgh
Hofstra
Einstein (free tuition)
Mount Sinai
Rochester
Tufts
Northwestern
Iowa
UMass

 

[monsterpanda]

Your high stats will attract interest at some schools. Your relatively low clinical exposure hours will limit your chances at some top tier schools where you will be competing with applicants with many hundreds or thousands of clinical hours. You could add these schools:
USF Morsani
UVA
Jefferson
Pittsburgh
Hofstra
Einstein (free tuition)
Mount Sinai
Rochester
Tufts
Northwestern
Iowa
UMass

I have the ability to apply to twenty for free, so do you have any thoughts as to what one's I should perhaps switch out if you were in my shoes? I want to make a more balanced list, as I feel it is a bit top heavy.

 

[Faha]

You could remove the 4 CA schools and Harvard.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Awesome metrics, but somewhat disappointing experience descriptions/hours. I know you may redact information for privacy, so the quality of my response relies on what you submitted.

You have a lot of advocacy/social justice/community building activities: 500+ hours (HIV/AIDS leadership, repro justice) and maybe 200 hours more that could be campus leadership (Asian-American). I need details about any service orientation activities within these roles or independently. I'm looking for food distribution, shelter volunteer, job/tax preparation, transportation services, or housing rehabilitation. As it stands, you list ZERO hours, and that puts your fantastic metrics application in jeopardy of getting screened out at most schools. With your metrics, if you intend to play in the pool for a brand-name school (that your metrics warrant), you need 250+ hours to stay in.

Your clinical experience is also relatively low. You have a ton in PMR and neurology for shadowing, but only double the number of hours as a "clinic intern" (I don't know what that means). In fact, you have more advocacy/social justice hours than you have clinical experience, and that does not help you show your sincere motivation to become a physician or other healthcare provider. Caregiving for family members and your surgery are part of a compelling backstory, but you must show your flexibility with providing similar care and immersing yourself with others' challenges. That's not clear from your description.

I don't know if you have ever wanted to do more in public policy or advocacy. Is there a reason why you are not considering an MPH or MPP? Your hours show where your passions are, and your profile suggests you'd be a great leader, but medicine doesn't seem to be right for you. I don't know what advice you received from your prehealth advisors, but unless you are really hiding something from your WAMC profile, our impressions reveal that you may be overestimating your application success. Med school seats are not given to you as a reward for undergraduate accomplishments or empathy for one's hardships; they are given to those who show an exceptional commitment to the grind involved in serving others. I don't see it in your profile.

 

[monsterpanda]

Awesome metrics, but somewhat disappointing experience descriptions/hours. I know you may redact information for privacy, so the quality of my response relies on what you submitted.

You have a lot of advocacy/social justice/community building activities: 500+ hours (HIV/AIDS leadership, repro justice) and maybe 200 hours more that could be campus leadership (Asian-American). I need details about any service orientation activities within these roles or independently. I'm looking for food distribution, shelter volunteer, job/tax preparation, transportation services, or housing rehabilitation. As it stands, you list ZERO hours, and that puts your fantastic metrics application in jeopardy of getting screened out at most schools. With your metrics, if you intend to play in the pool for a brand-name school (that your metrics warrant), you need 250+ hours to stay in.

Your clinical experience is also relatively low. You have a ton in PMR and neurology for shadowing, but only double the number of hours as a "clinic intern" (I don't know what that means). In fact, you have more advocacy/social justice hours than you have clinical experience, and that does not help you show your sincere motivation to become a physician or other healthcare provider. Caregiving for family members and your surgery are part of a compelling backstory, but you must show your flexibility with providing similar care and immersing yourself with others' challenges. That's not clear from your description.

I don't know if you have ever wanted to do more in public policy or advocacy. Is there a reason why you are not considering an MPH or MPP? Your hours show where your passions are, and your profile suggests you'd be a great leader, but medicine doesn't seem to be right for you. I don't know what advice you received from your prehealth advisors, but unless you are really hiding something from your WAMC profile, our impressions reveal that you may be overestimating your application success. Med school seats are not given to you as a reward for undergraduate accomplishments or empathy for one's hardships; they are given to those who show an exceptional commitment to the grind involved in serving others. I don't see it in your profile.

Hi there, thank you for the response! I didn't elaborate on the HIV/AIDS leadership / repro justice but they were indeed v service oriented – fundraising for local orgs, creating safe sex / period kits, teach-ins and workshops for local HS kids and the unhoused, work done to connect underserved populations with proper health resources, PrEP campaigning, harm reduction item distribution, and etc. In terms of clinical experience, I don't really have an excuse for that (that is what my PHA suggested relative to hours and I took their word for it) & my role as a clinic intern was essentially that of a medical assistant. During my gap though, I plan on getting more clinic hours (most likely working front/back office for the clinic I interned at previously) but I did not, unfortunately, put this as a repeated experience on my app so I plan to just update schools via secondaries. In terms of MPH/MPP, I do really enjoy public health work but I really do believe my true calling is medicine, as that is what has motivated and been the core of all my experiences. I really do appreciate your feedback though, even if it was a bit disheartening to read at first.