WAMC/School List Re-done for Reapplication

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AJS59

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Hi all...long time lurker, first time poster. So far nothing has bit this cycle (i.e. no II's) so I want to prepare for a re-app and make sure I am set up for success. Any advice is welcome.

Essentially the tl;dr is I feel I applied with insufficient clinical hours and a poor list, so that's what I'd like the most help on. I don't think it's impossible I get an interview but not banking on it.

First, the important details:
GPA: 3.71 (BCPM: 3.60). No grades below a B- and there was only one of those. Graduated 2023 with majors in Chemistry and Economics.
MCAT: Mar. 2023 522 (130/130/131/131)
State of Residence: Florida, strong ties to NH, for whatever that's worth in a state without a public med school :(
Ethnicity: White, first in family to med school but I wouldn't call myself underprivileged in any way.
Undergrad: Dartmouth
Clinical and shadowing: This was without a doubt the weakest point of my app. I recorded 15 hours of shadowing for a radiation oncologist and 21.5 hours of virtual shadowing with various specialties during the pandemic. Since then, I started volunteering as a patient escort at a local VA hospital in VT...I have completed 24 hours so far and am on track to get 100, but shooting for 150 ideally and even higher if possible.
Non-clinical volunteering: I committed 50 hours through a virtual org that delivered supplies to frontline healthcare workers during the pandemic. Additionally, I volunteered about 300 hours to trailwork on the Appalachian Trail.
Research: Basic science in organometallic chemistry, about 750 hours. Worked on developing a new catalyst for a critical reaction in the pharmaceutical industry. Won a handful of departmental awards for it and named a 2nd author on a recently accepted publication in Organometallics.
Other Extracurriculars:
  • Leadership in collegiate outing club: Vice President of Club, Treasurer (2x), Chair of Hiking Subclub (2x). Member of Student Risk Management Committee. Outdoor Logistics Coordinator for Sophomore Trips Program. 620 total hours. Also received some small club-level awards.
  • Athletics: Not exactly a varsity athlete but I did compete on our college's woodsmen team for 4 years. The biggest role I had from that was planning, organizing and executing a home meet for over 200 competitors. 300 hours for the home meet, 240 hours for other competition stuff over the years.
  • Student newspaper: Wrote and later served as a news executive editor, overseeing an organization of about 200 student writers, designers, photographers and other staff members. Served 900 hours for the year I was news executive editor, otherwise did about 250 hours of writing (76 articles).
  • Undergraduate Science Journal: Wrote and edited articles for our undergraduate journal of science. Included both short news articles and longer literature reviews. 200 hours.
  • Trail Crew: In addition to volunteer trailwork, I also worked full time doing trailwork during summer 2022 as part of a trail crew (again, working on the AT). 400 hours. Not included in the primary.
  • Business Internships: During the pandemic (Summer-Fall 2020) (well before I had settled on being a pre-med), I did a couple of non-medical business internships, one with a tech startup and one with a private equity firm. 150 hours each.
Other Gap year activities:
  • Teaching Science Fellow: 2000 hours - essentially acting as a tutor/TA and liaison between students and faculty in intro level Gen Chem and Organic Chem activities. Specifically a liaison to our first-generation college office, organizing events to introduce them to STEM learning.
  • Resident Fellow - 400 hours - In return for free food/housing, I organize events and communications for our house.
  • Additionally, I'm looking to get some more non-clinical volunteering done at a local food shelter...as much as I reasonably can fit into my schedule.

Awards: Nothing above club/department level. I'm an Eagle Scout too but that's not getting mentioned anywhere since it was before

Rec letters: 2 from chemistry profs (1 who I had twice, other I had twice + did research with), 1 from radiation oncologist I shadowed, 1 from Econ prof, 1 from outing club advisor.

Second, the school list (bold indicates still alive):
Boston U
Case Western
Duke
Emory

Geisel
George Washington
Georgetown
Harvard
Northwestern
Oregon
Penn
UVM

Stanford
Brown
Tufts
Arizona Phoenix
Arizona Tucson

UChicago
Colorado
UConn
UF
UMass
Miami

Michigan
UNC
UVA
Washington (this was extremely dumb, but I applied since my sister goes to UW. Again, stupid.)
Vandy
Wake
Wash U
Wayne State
Weill
Yale


Third, what I've changed up/am planning to change:
  • Include the VA volunteering and any new non-clinical volunteering I can get between now and June. Having met with pre-health advisors, this is what they recommended. Maybe get some more shadowing too.
  • Potentially swap out 1 of the letters for a letter from my TSF advisor, who is also a physician (retired, but worked as an endocrinologist for many years)
  • Next year, work as a clinical research coordinator or other medical assistant. I already have one offer for a MA role in Boston at a Derm. office, but trying to see what I can continue to improve
  • School list:
    • Drop Washington, UNC, Oregon since they stack the deck against OOS applicants.
    • Add USF, UCF, FAU, FSU, FIU, Nova
    • Potentially drop some of the reachier-schools (namely Yale, Stanford, UChicago, etc.)
Would like to hear from folks if this is a solid plan. More importantly, if there are any schools I should for SURE drop and if there are any other schools beyond the Florida ones to add.

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There are 3 reasons for your poor application cycle:
#1 Only 15 hours of in person physician shadowing. You should accumulate another 35 hours.
#2 No clinical volunteering/employment. You should accumulate 200+ hours before you submit your application.
#3 Limited non clinical volunteering. You should accumulate 150+ hours (food bank, homeless shelter, etc.)
For MD schools I suggest these:
U Florida
Florida State
Miami
USF Morsani
Central Florida
Florida Atlantic
Florida International
NOVA MD
Dartmouth
Tufts
UMass
Vermont
Brown
Hofstra
Einstein
Mount Sinai
Rochester
New York Medical College
Pittsburgh
Jefferson
Temple
George Washington
Duke
Vanderbilt
Washington University (in St. Louis)
Northwestern
Western Michigan
U Michigan
Ohio State
Cincinnati
 
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There are 3 reasons for your poor application cycle:
#1 Only 15 hours of in person physician shadowing. You should accumulate another 35 hours.
#2 No clinical volunteering/employment. You should accumulate 200+ hours before you submit your application.
#3 Limited non clinical volunteering. You should accumulate 150+ hours (food bank, homeless shelter, etc.)
For MD schools I suggest these:
U Florida
Florida State
Miami
USF Morsani
Central Florida
Florida Atlantic
Florida International
NOVA MD
Dartmouth
Tufts
UMass
Vermont
Brown
Hofstra
Einstein
Mount Sinai
Rochester
New York Medical College
Pittsburgh
Jefferson
Temple
George Washington
Duke
Vanderbilt
Washington University (in St. Louis)
Northwestern
Western Michigan
U Michigan
Ohio State
Cincinnati
Thank you! Just to be clear, my VA patient escort position is clinical right? I transport patients, meds and specimens throughout the hospital including wheelchair use.
 
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I think one of the major reasons for your lack of success this cycle was that you only appeared to have applied to just two of your state schools. Like for all applicants, your state schools will nearly always be the schools that you have the best chances at. Florida has eight medical schools, with 6 of them being public. The two private schools also show strong in-state preference (according to MSAR). Although Florida definitely does have a large population, you should definitely take advantage of the fact that you have so many in-state schools to apply to!
 
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You have prehealth advisors at Dartmouth. What help or advice did they give you before applying?
I will be honest, one of my failings was not really relying on them at all and assuming I could just go through things with a strong MCAT score.
I recognize that was pretty foolish in hindsight and am now working closer with them, particularly on essay review (I didn't want to overburden them so I relied on friends for editing only). I also shouldn't have applied this past year because of those low hour numbers.

In any event, they have confirmed what I have thought and what others have, which is that I need to get clinical hours up. That being said, they felt optimistic that I could be ready for re-application next year.

Any additional insight you might have into school list would also be great.
 
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Use the advisors. Your tuition supports their office, and as a FG student, resource underutilization is a common barrier to success. You will not inconvenience them (and they will tell you what the boundaries are).

Their office also can suggest non-clinical opportunities you can still access while a student. You should also plan on community service opportunities outside campus. I would continue to list your Eagle Scout project, but you need to show you have built your community service orientation beyond this.

Why do you have strong NH ties? Maybe you need to add the Boston schools, maybe UConn and UMass? Brown has a reputation on preferring Ivy+ applicants (Yale too?). You have enough academic honors that you can do research even without a ton of papers. I wouldn't totally rule out research schools if it fits your mission.

You seem to signal a strong preference for being close to nature so that may be interesting to research with your Florida schools. Frankly a lot of DO schools are "closer to nature" because of their emphasis on rural health, but you don't have that. (WVSOM is rather nice though Lewisburg is... small.)
 
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Use the advisors. Your tuition supports their office, and as a FG student, resource underutilization is a common barrier to success. You will not inconvenience them (and they will tell you what the boundaries are).

Their office also can suggest non-clinical opportunities you can still access while a student. You should also plan on community service opportunities outside campus. I would continue to list your Eagle Scout project, but you need to show you have built your community service orientation beyond this.
Should I list the project even though it was completed in high school? I was under the impression anything from high school was not worth keeping. I'm still going to work on ramping up non-clinical volunteering as well, but just wanted to check about it.
 
Use the advisors. Your tuition supports their office, and as a FG student, resource underutilization is a common barrier to success. You will not inconvenience them (and they will tell you what the boundaries are).

Their office also can suggest non-clinical opportunities you can still access while a student. You should also plan on community service opportunities outside campus. I would continue to list your Eagle Scout project, but you need to show you have built your community service orientation beyond this.

Why do you have strong NH ties? Maybe you need to add the Boston schools, maybe UConn and UMass? Brown has a reputation on preferring Ivy+ applicants (Yale too?). You have enough academic honors that you can do research even without a ton of papers. I wouldn't totally rule out research schools if it fits your mission.

You seem to signal a strong preference for being close to nature so that may be interesting to research with your Florida schools. Frankly a lot of DO schools are "closer to nature" because of their emphasis on rural health, but you don't have that. (WVSOM is rather nice though Lewisburg is... small.)
I would argue the strong NH ties is because I went to school here for 4 years and am now working here for this year (maybe not next year, but that's 5 years?). If that's not sufficient I can drop that idea.

The Boston schools are fine and were on the original list (I think I applied to all New England MD programs minus Quinnipiac).

You are right about the research interest but only 1 2nd author article in a non-clinical area I assume isn't enough to significantly shift the needle. Regardless, what schools might fit that definition of research-oriented? To be clear I'm not looking at MD-PhD or PhD because I want to have a more direct impact on patient care, particularly in cancer and cancer treatments (my mom passed away from cancer right before college and that was the strongest motivation for applying in general).

You are also definitely right about the interest in nature (and wilderness medicine to a similar extent), that's why Colorado and Washington (foolishly) were on my list.
 
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You are right about the research interest but only 1 2nd author article in a non-clinical area I assume isn't enough to significantly shift the needle.
You also got recognized by your chemistry department for your research. ACS really pushes undergraduate student experience in research, and that satisfies me that you know about the vast universe of unknown knowledge.

Research-oriented schools will likely have you do a scholarly thesis before graduating, but they will have resources. The familiarity you have should be enough to go for some research oriented schools since you aren't angling for a +PhD. If you can understand data/statistics and critique a peer reviewed paper, you are fine.
Should I list the project even though it was completed in high school? I was under the impression anything from high school was not worth keeping. I'm still going to work on ramping up non-clinical volunteering as well, but just wanted to check about it.
There are a few exceptions to the high school activities rule. Eagle Scout is one of them (as I have found with faculty). Don't lean on it as your only community service project.

Wilderness medicine... yeah I see that with Colorado. However you need more activities that confirm that direction: EMT, Red Cross volunteering, CPR/AED training. Maybe scuba and lifeguard work. Eagle Scout does help you here.
 
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You also got recognized by your chemistry department for your research. ACS really pushes undergraduate student experience in research, and that satisfies me that you know about the vast universe of unknown knowledge.

Research-oriented schools will likely have you do a scholarly thesis before graduating, but they will have resources. The familiarity you have should be enough to go for some research oriented schools since you aren't angling for a +PhD. If you can understand data/statistics and critique a peer reviewed paper, you are fine.

There are a few exceptions to the high school activities rule. Eagle Scout is one of them (as I have found with faculty). Don't lean on it as your only community service project.

Wilderness medicine... yeah I see that with Colorado. However you need more activities that confirm that direction: EMT, Red Cross volunteering, CPR/AED training. Maybe scuba and lifeguard work. Eagle Scout does help you here.
Thank you!

Re: Wilderness medicine, I do have a WFA cert in addition to CPR and AED training, and served on our outing club's risk management committee where we debriefed medical incidents in the wilderness from club trips and discussed policies about medical incidents. I also wrote about 1 incident where I put my WFA skills to use on a trip I was leading (Trip member started losing consciousness on a winter hike above treeline and essentially I had to hypo-wrap them and get them warm/fluids/calories until they were able to get moving again). I did save that for secondaries though and I didn't put it in every secondary since not all secondaries asked for that type of leadership. Going forward, I will chat with advisors to see if that situation is better off included in my personal statement. Again, I don't think that's enough to show that direction and I'll keep looking to improve that, but just some additional context.

And re: Research schools...is the list from Faha fine, or are there any other schools out there I ought to consider that fit my general profile?

This has been very helpful and I will be chatting more with my advisors to develop my plan further.
 
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Thank you!

Re: Wilderness medicine, I do have a WFA cert in addition to CPR and AED training, and served on our outing club's risk management committee where we debriefed medical incidents in the wilderness from club trips and discussed policies about medical incidents. I also wrote about 1 incident where I put my WFA skills to use on a trip I was leading (Trip member started losing consciousness on a winter hike above treeline and essentially I had to hypo-wrap them and get them warm/fluids/calories until they were able to get moving again). I did save that for secondaries though and I didn't put it in every secondary since not all secondaries asked for that type of leadership. Going forward, I will chat with advisors to see if that situation is better off included in my personal statement. Again, I don't think that's enough to show that direction and I'll keep looking to improve that, but just some additional context.

And re: Research schools...is the list from Faha fine, or are there any other schools out there I ought to consider that fit my general profile?

This has been very helpful and I will be chatting more with my advisors to develop my plan further.
I'm waiting for @HappyRabbit 's comments on the list.

The main focus should be getting more clinical experience. Run strategy on a reapp with your prehealth advising team, including how to pare your list down to a reasonable number of schools that won't penalize you as a reapplicant (which won't matter until you become a 3x/4x applicant, which we need to avoid). Since they know your academic culture better, they should be able to give you ideas on how to rewrite your essays and redistribute your information, including bringing up things you may not have considered (as we have discovered here).

Don't bring lists of schools to the advisors, but see if they can come up with a similar list. They know what schools have taken Dartmouth applicants, so they should be able to give you an idea of applicants with a similar profile to yours that the office has supported... and where they went to medical school. Maybe connect you with them.

Also, if you are a FG applicant, connect with FGLIMed. Look for similar organizations at individual schools on your list.
 
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Thank you!

Re: Wilderness medicine, I do have a WFA cert in addition to CPR and AED training, and served on our outing club's risk management committee where we debriefed medical incidents in the wilderness from club trips and discussed policies about medical incidents. I also wrote about 1 incident where I put my WFA skills to use on a trip I was leading (Trip member started losing consciousness on a winter hike above treeline and essentially I had to hypo-wrap them and get them warm/fluids/calories until they were able to get moving again). I did save that for secondaries though and I didn't put it in every secondary since not all secondaries asked for that type of leadership. Going forward, I will chat with advisors to see if that situation is better off included in my personal statement. Again, I don't think that's enough to show that direction and I'll keep looking to improve that, but just some additional context.

And re: Research schools...is the list from Faha fine, or are there any other schools out there I ought to consider that fit my general profile?

This has been very helpful and I will be chatting more with my advisors to develop my plan further.
Okay... well, I'd need to look over what you wrote in W/A, but I'd look for wilderness med clubs at the schools on your list. For example:
WILD – Wilderness Medicine Interest Group | Creative Application of Medicine in a Wilderness Setting | 11/05/2022 – 11/06/2022 » Medical College Council » College of Medicine » University of Florida
 
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Faha outlined the main issues with your application which are the complete lack of shadowing, clinical, and nonclinical. As is, your application is close to DOA for most MD schools aside from your state schools. The issue then became that this cycle you only applied to 2/8 of your FL state schools (and Miami doesn't really count) leaving you pretty exposed to falling through the cracks and receiving no interviews.

This is the school list that I would have recommended for your first cycle (but ~15 schools of your choosing removed) - DO would be needed with your ECs that low since most MD schools will screen you:

Reach
University of Florida College of Medicine
USF Health Morsani College of Medicine
University of Central Florida College of Medicine
Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine at Florida Atlantic University
University of Cincinnati College of Medicine
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth
Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine

Target
University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine
Nova Southeastern University (Patel)
University of Colorado School of Medicine
Western Michigan University
Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science (Chicago)
Georgetown University School of Medicine
Quinnipiac University
Tufts University School of Medicine
Seton Hall - Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine
Emory University School of Medicine
New York Medical College
Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University
Wake Forest School of Medicine of Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center

Baseline
Florida State University College of Medicine
Florida International University Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine
Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University
Drexel University College of Medicine
West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine
Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine
Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine
Lincoln Memorial University (DeBusk)
University of Pikeville
William Carey University College of Osteopathic Medicine
Marian University College of Osteopathic Medicine
University of Vermont College of Medicine
George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences
Eastern Virginia Medical School
Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine
Albany Medical College
Medical College of Wisconsin
Oakland University Beaumont
Alabama College of Osteopathic Medicine
A.T. Still University of Health Sciences--Kirksville (Kirksville)
Campbell University (Wallace)
Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine of Midwestern University
Des Moines University
New York Institute of Technology
Noorda College of Osteopathic Medicine
Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine
Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine
University of the Incarnate Word

However, if you get 50 hours of shadowing, 200 hours of clinical, and 150 hours of nonclinical, you can add some of the reaches that Faha mentioned that may accept you based on stats alone (I would still call these ECs extremely weak because your essays will be a struggle to write but its enough to get you above the screens).
 
Faha outlined the main issues with your application which are the complete lack of shadowing, clinical, and nonclinical. As is, your application is close to DOA for most MD schools aside from your state schools. The issue then became that this cycle you only applied to 2/8 of your FL state schools (and Miami doesn't really count) leaving you pretty exposed to falling through the cracks and receiving no interviews.

This is the school list that I would have recommended for your first cycle (but ~15 schools of your choosing removed) - DO would be needed with your ECs that low since most MD schools will screen you:

Reach
University of Florida College of Medicine
USF Health Morsani College of Medicine
University of Central Florida College of Medicine
Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine at Florida Atlantic University
University of Cincinnati College of Medicine
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth
Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine

Target
University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine
Nova Southeastern University (Patel)
University of Colorado School of Medicine
Western Michigan University
Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science (Chicago)
Georgetown University School of Medicine
Quinnipiac University
Tufts University School of Medicine
Seton Hall - Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine
Emory University School of Medicine
New York Medical College
Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University
Wake Forest School of Medicine of Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center

Baseline
Florida State University College of Medicine
Florida International University Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine
Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University
Drexel University College of Medicine
West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine
Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine
Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine
Lincoln Memorial University (DeBusk)
University of Pikeville
William Carey University College of Osteopathic Medicine
Marian University College of Osteopathic Medicine
University of Vermont College of Medicine
George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences
Eastern Virginia Medical School
Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine
Albany Medical College
Medical College of Wisconsin
Oakland University Beaumont
Alabama College of Osteopathic Medicine
A.T. Still University of Health Sciences--Kirksville (Kirksville)
Campbell University (Wallace)
Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine of Midwestern University
Des Moines University
New York Institute of Technology
Noorda College of Osteopathic Medicine
Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine
Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine
University of the Incarnate Word

However, if you get 50 hours of shadowing, 200 hours of clinical, and 150 hours of nonclinical, you can add some of the reaches that Faha mentioned that may accept you based on stats alone (I would still call these ECs extremely weak because your essays will be a struggle to write but its enough to get you above the screens).
So based on the improvements in clinical hours (VA position), nonclinical hours (starting with a food bank position next week), and possible attempts to shadow over spring break, am I still set to go for next cycle? Or does it make sense to punt 1 more cycle and put all my eggs in the 2026 basket? I DESPERATELY do not want to have to retake my strong MCAT.

If I am all set to go and manage to leverage these hours out, does the school list change in any meaningful way?
 
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So based on the improvements in clinical hours (VA position), nonclinical hours (starting with a food bank position next week), and possible attempts to shadow over spring break, am I still set to go for next cycle? Or does it make sense to punt 1 more cycle and put all my eggs in the 2026 basket? I DESPERATELY do not want to have to retake my strong MCAT.

If I am all set to go and manage to leverage these hours out, does the school list change in any meaningful way?
Yes you will be fine with those minimums and won't have to apply DO - you will be able to include more reaches although the reapplication aspect makes it a bit tricky for those schools you already applied to. If there are T30s that you didn't apply to this cycle, you should apply to those and I can give you a new list.

Meeting those minimums should get you at least one of the state schools you didn't apply to, and it's quite a positive thing that you didn't apply to them this cycle since you won't be a reapplicant. Your stats are great and you don't have much to worry about next cycle should you get 50 shadowing hours, 150-200 hours of clinical, and 150-200 hours of nonclinical.
 
Yes you will be fine with those minimums and won't have to apply DO - you will be able to include more reaches although the reapplication aspect makes it a bit tricky for those schools you already applied to. If there are T30s that you didn't apply to this cycle, you should apply to those and I can give you a new list.

Meeting those minimums should get you at least one of the state schools you didn't apply to, and it's quite a positive thing that you didn't apply to them this cycle since you won't be a reapplicant. Your stats are great and you don't have much to worry about next cycle should you get 50 shadowing hours, 150-200 hours of clinical, and 150-200 hours of nonclinical.
Thank you! I'll submit an update WAMC when I get closer to application season.
 
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Just wanted to share that I did get a II (and ultimately, an A) out of Miami, so that's probably where I'm going!
 
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