WAMC/School List

[chef3]

Edit: Removed identifying details for privacy

Hello! I'm preparing to apply this cycle, current 4th year with 1 gap year planned (will not be on primary)
Any help/input would be greatly appreciated!

1. cGPA/sGPA: 3.9x
2. MCAT: 52x (>128 for all)
3. CA resident
4. Clinical experience (volunteer and non-volunteer)
   1. ~300 hours volunteering for free clinic
   2. Was a coordinator for 2 specialty branches of the free clinic. Roughly ~3/wk for each over a year = 300+ hrs.
5. Research experience and productivity
   1. ~500 hours over 1 year. Poster at school's undergrad research conference. No pubs.
6. Shadowing experience and specialties represented
   1. ~20 hours shadowing primary care
   2. 10 hours shadowing at an ortho clinic, 12 hours shadowing in an urgent care/worker's comp clinic
7. Non-clinical volunteering
   1. ~60 hours outreach for free clinic
   2. ~100 hours through prehealth frat: mostly fundraising for philanthropy
   3. Question: My non-clinical volunteering is pretty slim, but I feel a lot of it is because I spent a lot of time volunteering with the clinic. How would this appear to adcoms?
8. Other extracurricular activities (including athletics, military service, gap year activities, leadership, teaching, etc)
   1. ~1000 hours paid tutoring for school (part time job for 3 years during undergrad): biochem, gen chem, and ochem
      1. I also had a leadership position for this job
   2. ~500 hours working in food service
9. Relevant honors or awards
   1. 6 LOR

Here is my school list:

1. NYU
2. JHU
3. Mayo
4. Vanderbilt
5. WashU
6. Northwestern
7. UChicago Pritzker
8. Duke
9. UVA
10. Stanford
11. Weill Cornell
12. Mount Sinai
13. USF Health Morsani
14. Hofstra
15. UMich
16. University of Rochester
17. UCSF
18. Emory
19. USC
20. Kaiser Permanente
21. University of Cincinnati
22. UCSD
23. UPitt
24. Albert Einstein
25. Ohio State University
26. UCI
27. University of Colorado
28. CUSM
29. Hackensack Meridian
30. UMiami
31. UCLA
32. Quinnipiac
33. Virginia Commonwealth University
34. UC Davis SOM
35. Pennsylvania State

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[Mr.Smile12]

You say you do a lot of "volunteering" in the free clinic. Can you be more specific with your responsibilities as tasks? Itemize the hours, please.

As a high-metrics applicant, you should have 250 hours of service orientation activities to keep up with other applicants in your pool. As examples, food distribution, shelter volunteer, job/tax preparation, legal support, transportation services, or housing rehabilitation. Fundraising (more leadership to me) and tutoring/teaching (academic) do not count here. I surmise you have some, though your description intermingles working with patients vs. community members/public. On the application, it's fine to describe as clinical experience, but itemize the percentage of your activities spent when referring patients to other specialists or resources or planning events (leadership). You mention 500 hours of food service, so could you clarify this?

Check out the PRIME programs at the various UC schools for tracks that leverage your experiences best. Look for similar programs elsewhere; I generally encourage looking up PHR student clinics for refugees and asylees. Their list is down on their website, so the best I can do is

Student Advisory Board - Student Advisory Board

The PHR Student Advisory Board (SAB) is a group of medical students that coordinates and oversees the PHR student program. SAB applications open each spring, and any student who is passionate about human rights is welcome to apply.

www.phrstudents.org

 

[diltiazemm]

Was a coordinator for 2 specialty branches of the free clinic. Roughly ~3/wk for each over a year = 300+ hrs. It was a lot of managing/calling/scheduling patients, planning projects (free glucometers, logistics for free referrals to cataract surgeries, educational workshops, etc), and training volunteers. I'm not sure if this counts as clinical volunteering, non-clinical volunteering, or just leadership.

Were you directly working with patients? (ie: "close enough to smell them"). If so, that's absolutely clinical! But this sounds more like leadership or non-clinical, especially if your time was spent doing logistics, planning, and training volunteers 🙂 You can always split/itemize like Mr. Smile says.

I also had a leadership position for this job (included in hours bc I think it will be combined/most meaningful) where I observed and mentored other tutors.

You could potentially split these hours into two W/A if you want to include leadership, but I feel like it falls more under teaching/tutoring if that took up the bulk of your time. If you're making it an MME, classify it under whatever facet of the job was more meaningful (the actual tutoring or the leadership). I'm just a fellow applicant though, so if anyone else has stronger advice, I would take that instead haha

 

[chef3]

You say you do a lot of "volunteering" in the free clinic. Can you be more specific with your responsibilities as tasks? Itemize the hours, please.

As a high-metrics applicant, you should have 250 hours of service orientation activities to keep up with other applicants in your pool. As examples, food distribution, shelter volunteer, job/tax preparation, legal support, transportation services, or housing rehabilitation. Fundraising (more leadership to me) and tutoring/teaching (academic) do not count here. I surmise you have some, though your description intermingles working with patients vs. community members/public. On the application, it's fine to describe as clinical experience, but itemize the percentage of your activities spent when referring patients to other specialists or resources or planning events (leadership). You mention 500 hours of food service, so could you clarify this?

Check out the PRIME programs at the various UC schools for tracks that leverage your experiences best. Look for similar programs elsewhere; I generally encourage looking up PHR student clinics for refugees and asylees. Their list is down on their website, so the best I can do is

Student Advisory Board - Student Advisory Board

The PHR Student Advisory Board (SAB) is a group of medical students that coordinates and oversees the PHR student program. SAB applications open each spring, and any student who is passionate about human rights is welcome to apply.

www.phrstudents.org

Edit: removed for privacy

 

[chef3]

Were you directly working with patients? (ie: "close enough to smell them"). If so, that's absolutely clinical! But this sounds more like leadership or non-clinical, especially if your time was spent doing logistics, planning, and training volunteers 🙂 You can always split/itemize like Mr. Smile says.


You could potentially split these hours into two W/A if you want to include leadership, but I feel like it falls more under teaching/tutoring if that took up the bulk of your time. If you're making it an MME, classify it under whatever facet of the job was more meaningful (the actual tutoring or the leadership). I'm just a fellow applicant though, so if anyone else has stronger advice, I would take that instead haha

Thanks for the input! Still deciding how I want to split it up in the Work and Activities. Most meaningful is probably the actual tutoring with students. Good luck to you in your cycle!

 

[pega23]

Question: My non-clinical volunteering is pretty slim, but I feel a lot of it is because I spent a lot of time volunteering with the clinic. How would this appear to adcoms?

In my experience, if you have enough hours and quality experiences you can talk about from your clinical volunteering, it can make up for a lack of non-clinical volunteering. While non-clinical volunteering is usually your chance to demonstrate your capacity to care for a community beyond their immediate health/medical conditions (e.g. social determinants), it's certainly possible to also communicate that through your clinical volunteering experiences! I was in a similar situation when I applied last cycle, and didn't have any issue getting acceptances to some of your top programs.

 

[chef3]

In my experience, if you have enough hours and quality experiences you can talk about from your clinical volunteering, it can make up for a lack of non-clinical volunteering. While non-clinical volunteering is usually your chance to demonstrate your capacity to care for a community beyond their immediate health/medical conditions (e.g. social determinants), it's certainly possible to also communicate that through your clinical volunteering experiences! I was in a similar situation when I applied last cycle, and didn't have any issue getting acceptances to some of your top programs.

Thanks for the reassurance! Based on your own experience and how my application looks, do you think my school list looks reasonable? Or are there any schools I should probably take off?

 

[Mr.Smile12]

In my experience, if you have enough hours and quality experiences you can talk about from your clinical volunteering, it can make up for a lack of non-clinical volunteering. While non-clinical volunteering is usually your chance to demonstrate your capacity to care for a community beyond their immediate health/medical conditions (e.g. social determinants), it's certainly possible to also communicate that through your clinical volunteering experiences! I was in a similar situation when I applied last cycle, and didn't have any issue getting acceptances to some of your top programs.

I concur because you seem to have deep experiences in nonclinical activities run through a clinical or community center (if i get the description correct). Your reflections and writing will determine your success with your school list. I would take a shot at the tuition free programs like Kaiser, NYU, and Einstein (you could try Hopkins and CCLCM).

 

[pega23]

Thanks for the reassurance! Based on your own experience and how my application looks, do you think my school list looks reasonable? Or are there any schools I should probably take off?

Yes, it looks you have a good spread! Your metrics and activities should be able to get your foot in the door for most of these schools, but I agree with the earlier comment that ultimately your success is going to depend on your writing.

The only school that catches my eye as a potentially less ideal fit is Stanford, which has a heavy focus on research, and I noticed many of their admitted students have a strong commitment to scholarship and leadership. That being said, a lack of publications shouldn't exclude you from being a strong candidate, but it might be worthwhile to consider how closely your own goals/values fit with their program's objectives!