WAMC + School list + questions - 523/3.85 and very lost please help <3

[premedbarista]

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Hello 🙂 mainly looking for suggestions on anything I can do to spruce up my application before I apply in May/June, advice on what schools I should be applying to, and answers to some specific questions I left in the post. sorry for the length lol I am a yapper but I appreciate anyone taking time to read this.

Demographics/stats:

• White trans man, originally from a state in the midwest
  • Question: Do I count as a CA resident or not for admissions?? I have a CA license and pay taxes/work/have an apartment here but my parents are still in the midwest state that is politically/legally unsafe for me to live in so I suppose I’m technically just out of state for every state lol. I don’t care about tuition I’m just talking about whether the admissions office considers me as in state vs out of state. I have not left CA for any summer breaks or anything like that, living here the whole time.
  • I mention being trans not for “diversity points” or whatever but just so you can understand the context of what schools may or may not be interested in an applicant like me. I most likely won't be writing about it or really including it as a part of my application outside of the question that specifically asks for my gender.
• T30 undergrad in California, graduating this May
• Biology adjacent major, Spanish minor
  • but I’m NOT FLUENT or even really good at spanish, I just really like learning about it and practicing
• cGPA/sGPA: 3.86/3.75 (without spring 25 grades)
  • Question: Does my MCAT make up for a lower GPA at all or should I just not apply to more selective GPA schools?
• MCAT: 523, one attempt, 129/131/131/132

Clinical experience:

• CNA job at children’s hospital - 1200+ hours, most meaningful
  • Will be working here during my gap year so I will have even more hours later lol
• Medical Scribe job - 50 hours
  • I only worked here for like 2 weeks, quit because I got my better CNA joo, I’m not really sure if I should include this in my app bc its not that many hours, but I also don’t have a ton of activities so…
• Volunteering at hospital - 50 hours
  • unsure if should include bc short time, quit bc it wasn’t actual clinical experience i was just like at the unit desk and it sucked

Research: 1200 hours, One lab all 4 years, third author on a published paper, cancer related but not clinical

Non-Clinical volunteering:

• Homeless shelter - 1200ish hours
  • Director of nonprofit/club that works directly with unhoused college students, very passionate about this and started as a volunteer then became director.
• Spanish lessons at medical school nearby - 30 hours
  • This was something that I volunteered for during a medical spanish class I was taking. I got to teach med students basic spanish and it was really cool but it was a short period of time so not sure if I should include it.

Non-clinical work/experiences:

• Chain coffee barista - 700 hours
• Behavior Tech (worked w/ kids with developmental disabilities) - 150 hours
• EMT class - 150 hours
  • unsure if this should be included because it was a class that I took but it wasn’t a part of college, it was thru a private program I paid for to get the EMT certification that I then never used because I became a CNA lol. It did take a lot of my time one semester tho 🙁

Shadowing: 40 hours at children’s hospital, 20 hours neurology, 10 hours surgical urology

LORs: Lab PI and professor will write a good one I think, Spanish minor profs, RN boss at CNA job, Advisor for my nonprofit/club - unsure, i honestly don’t talk to him that much but probably

Relevant honors/awards:

• Full tuition merit scholarship at my university (unsure if this would go on the application? It is technically an award but it’s also something based on what I did in high school idk)
• A couple university-sponsored research fellowships

I’m looking for MD schools in states that are at least neutral for trans rights. Unable to consider any red states really bc of how severely state laws could impact me even if in a progressive city/school. There are a couple of schools on my current list that are pretty big reaches but I would prefer to at least try because I’d REALLY like to stay in California or New York for legal protection reasons. The states that I currently think I could reasonably safely live in are CA, CO, CT, DE, IL, ME, MD, MA, MI, MN, NH, NJ, NY, OR, PA, RI, VT, WA, WI but this list gets narrower each day unfortunately. Outside of state/location, I don’t have many preferences yet. I’m fairly confident that I want to go into pediatrics as a specialty if that is relevant.

Overall question - which ECs should I include vs not include if any? I don’t have anything else that I didn’t put in the post so as you can see my resume is a little shorter than many other premeds so I’m a bit worried about that.

Currently broadly considering, but will need to cut down to 20-25 schools max and I’m sure there are some I just don’t know in here that are a bad fit/not OOS friendly:

UC Davis
UC Irvine
UCLA Geffen School of Medicine
UC San Diego
UCSF
Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine
Keck (USC)
Albany Medical College
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Boston University
California Northstate University College of Medicine
Chicago Medical School at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine & Science
Cooper Medical School of Rowan University
Hofstra
Drexel
Quinnipiac
Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine
George Washington University School of Medicine & Health Sciences
Georgetown University School of Medicine
Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine
Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University
Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine
New York Medical College
NYU Grossman Long Island School of Medicine
Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine
Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine
University of Vermont
Rush Medical College of Rush University Medical Center
Rutgers New Jersey Medical School
Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University
SUNY Upstate
SUNY Downstate
Tufts University School of Medicine
University of Colorado School of Medicine
University of Connecticut School of Medicine
University of Illinois College of Medicine
University of Maryland School of Medicine
University of Massachusetts T.H. Chan School of Medicine
University of Michigan Medical School
University of Minnesota Medical School

Thank you!! <3

 

[Faha]

Include your 50 hours of scribing under shadowing hours. Remove Northstate since they have accreditation issues. Cooper, Rutgers, Connecticut, Geisinger and SUNY Upstate admit few non residents with no connection to the state. Albany, Rosalind Franklin, Drexel, Quinnipiac, Oakland Beaumont and Penn State will probably "yield protect" with your stats. You should receive several interviews from the other schools on your list. You could add any of these schools:
Harvard
Brown
Dartmouth
Yale
Cornell
Columbia
Johns Hopkins (free tuition)
Pittsburgh

 

[LizzyM]

There is a section of the application that asks how you paid for college (what percentage need based, merit based, personal funds, parents, other, etc) so your full ride goes there as a merit scholarship.

 

[premedbarista]

I've done a post before that has more info about me so sorry if this feels repetitive, but I really need advice on the schools I have on my "not sure" list right now. I can afford to add like 10-16 more but am not really sure how to curate my list of target/baseline schools. I feel like I'm not going to get in anywhere and want to apply to all of them, but I just don't have the funds for that lol. I was hoping I could get some more outside perspective on this from people who know more than I do 🙂 and I've included some questions about specific schools.

Basic info: 523, cGPA 3.85 sGPA 3.75. White trans man originally from midwest but CA resident on my app because I've lived here continuously for ~5 years and have my license/taxes etc in CA, no intention of going back to my old state.

• CNA job at children’s hospital - 1700 hours completed, projected full time work during gap year, most meaningful
• volunteer/director of student run homeless shelter - 1000 hours
• Research: 1200 hours, third author on a published paper
• Volunteering at hospital - 50 hours
• Chain store coffee barista - 700 hours
• Behavior Tech (worked w/ kids with developmental disabilities) - 150 hours
• Shadowing: 100 hours

LORs: 1 stem prof/my lab PI, 1 spanish prof, boss at hospital, advisor for shelter (no 2nd STEM prof disqualifies me from some schools but I just didn't have anyone)

What I'm looking for: #1 absolute criteria is to be in a state that is more liberal/at least neutral for trans rights. I prefer to live in an urban environment, open to suburban, and I feel like I've got enough schools on the list to stick to that. I’m fairly confident that I will want to go into pediatrics, so it would be good if they had a children's hospital associated w them, but I don't think that's a must have.

Schools I already applied to because I really like them even though some are delusional level reaches (i felt like i had to at least try lmao):

Cornell​

University of Michigan​

UCSF​

UCSD​

UCLA​

UC Irvine​

Stanford​

NYU Grossman​

Northwestern​

Mayo​

Keck​

Kaiser​

Columbia​

Boston University​

Schools I like but haven't applied to bc I shouldn’t apply to more crazy hard schools:

Icahn​

UPenn​

NYU Grossman Long Island ???? - Direct and shorter pathway to peds residency sounds great, as I'm VERY interested in pediatrics. However, I'm not sure if I want to do primary care or work in a hospital, leaning towards hospital based on my experiences so far. I just don't want to be locked in to being an outpatient primary care pediatrician bc I can see that not going well for me, but I also don't completely understand how residency works lol.
​

Schools I like but don't know if would be worth applying to bc I’m OOS, would be great to get a yes/no:

SUNY Downstate​

SUNY Upstate​

Stony Brook​

University of Colorado​

University of Massachusetts​

University of Maryland​

Rutgers New Jersey Newark​

Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson​

Schools I like but am just not 100% sure about applying to yet:

Tufts​

Hofstra/Northwell​

Arizona (Phoenix)​

Arizona (Tuscon)​

Sidney Kimmel​

Rush​

Temple​

Drexel - have seen some concerns bc they don't have their own hospital and the sites can be far apart, but idk how much I should take that into consideration.​

Rosalind Franklin​

Schools I don't know much about or am unsure abt the location, but am interested in learning more/applying if they'd accept me:

University of Illinois - I’m only interested in the Chicago campus and they seem to assign people after acceptance, so if I get assigned to a different one and do not want to go there (assuming a case where this is my only acceptance) that would be really bad.​

**Cooper​

Quinnipiac - Area seems a little too quiet for me but I'd live there if had to?​

Rochester​

Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine​

**University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine​

**Geisinger Commonwealth​

George Washington University​

**Oakland University William Beaumont​

**Vermont​

**Hackensack Meridian
​

^ If anyone can tell me anything about the cities/vibes/what it's like to live as a young adult around the med schools I've put a ** by that would be awesome, having a hard time conceptualizing what the places are like despite google searching bc I haven't spent much time in those areas.

 

[wysdoc]

@premedbarista I have merged your two "School list" threads to put your information in one place and because some really good list-makers have already answered the questions you have just asked, again.

Easy schools to drop from your list, which is too long, are ) (as Faha advised you)
Northstate since they have accreditation issues.
Cooper, Rutgers, Connecticut, Geisinger and SUNY Upstate admit few non residents with no connection to the state.
Albany, Rosalind Franklin, Drexel, Quinnipiac, Oakland Beaumont and Penn State will see your high stats and assume you will get in somewhere else

I will add: remove U Minnesota (not OOS friendly), NYU Long Island (because they accept only 6 Pediatrics track applicants each year)
Remove U Mass and apply to the schools you like that Faha suggested adding
Apply to the 2 Arizona schools if you like them

 

[LunaOri]

UMass is highly OOS-friendly, and is a supportive community. Worcester isn’t the most exciting city if you are looking for nightlife—but as a med student you won’t have much time for clubbing. UMass has breaks after exams, so you can drive 45 min to spend a weekend in Boston. UVM is extremely LGBTQ+ friendly. Burlington VT is a liberal college town with a relaxed artsy and outdoorsy vibe.