WAMC TMDSAS? First-gen Undergrad/ 515 MCAT/ 3.84 GPA 3.79 sGPA

[TofuCart]

cGPA and sGPA as calculated by TMDSAS
3.84 GPA and 3.79 sGPA

MCAT score(s) and breakdown. Include all (non-voided) attempts.
515 (131/130/127/127)

State of residence or country of citizenship (if non-US)
Texas

Ethnicity and/or race
Asian

Undergraduate institution or category
UT Austin

Clinical experience (volunteer and non-volunteer)
0 Clinical Volunteering
2000+ Hours Paid Medical Technician

Research experience and productivity
200+ Hours Undergraduate Research Assistant

Shadowing experience and specialties represented
30 Hours Allergies/Asthma

Non-clinical volunteering
~150 Hours combined from various volunteer activities, the majority of which are food bank or local elementary/junior/high school volunteering

Other extracurricular activities (including athletics, military service, gap year activities, leadership, teaching, etc)
Numerous Executive Board Positions in a Club

Anything else not listed you think might be important
I'm First-Gen and come from a low-income family, so I have had Federal Pell Grant all throughout my undergraduate education. I am graduating in a few days and am planning on submitting my application to every school in TMDSAS. My target school is UT Southwestern as I grew up in and have family in Dallas, though I would be happy getting into any school in Texas.

The narrative I am framing is around serving the underserved, as I grew up in a familial situation where my family and I never saw the doctor. The only time I ever interacted with healthcare was getting vaccinations at Walmart or seeing a nurse to get my physical exam.

I have two questions. One is that I have been helping the doctor at my clinic with a research project she has thoughts on, that she has considered trying to turn into a publication if the data comes out relevant. I do this unpaid and am the primary and only one working with her on this through coding R scripts and some other things. Would this count as Research hours? I've spent about ~150 hours doing this.

Another is if my application might be worthy to send out to other schools outside of TMDSAS? I understand that there is a bias against Texas applicants, and I do feel that I would most likely accept any offer in Texas over other schools outside of Texas, but my primary aim is to get into medical school over anything else. Thank you all for your time!

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[Mr.Smile12]

The narrative I am framing is around serving the underserved, as I grew up in a familial situation where my family and I never saw the doctor. The only time I ever interacted with healthcare was getting vaccinations at Walmart or seeing a nurse to get my physical exam.

How does your record for non-clinical community service support your narrative? How many hours were spent with food bank (responsibilities?) vss. tutoring/school volunteering? I would be more convinced had you done a gap year in Americorps or City Year (or something similar) where you can immerse yourself to an underserved community (that is not your own) without classes as distractions.

I have been helping the doctor at my clinic with a research project she has thoughts on, that she has considered trying to turn into a publication if the data comes out relevant. I do this unpaid and am the primary and only one working with her on this through coding R scripts and some other things. Would this count as Research hours? I've spent about ~150 hours doing this.

Do you have an iron-clad written assurance you'd be on the paper, or are you working as a data analyst contractor?

Your metrics should be good enough for TMDSAS (service orientation hours/activities pending), and the cost of attendance for Texas schools will be better than any OOS. The question is whether you feel you could get a scholarship so an OOS program could "match" IS Texas tuition. There's not enough for me to determine if you are a rock star to apply out of state, though I think having a few AMCAS schools might be good to explore.

 

[TofuCart]

How does your record for non-clinical community service support your narrative? How many hours were spent with food bank (responsibilities?) vss. tutoring/school volunteering? I would be more convinced had you done a gap year in Americorps or City Year (or something similar) where you can immerse yourself to an underserved community (that is not your own) without classes as distractions.



Do you have an iron-clad written assurance you'd be on the paper, or are you working as a data analyst contractor?

Your metrics should be good enough for TMDSAS (service orientation hours/activities pending), and the cost of attendance for Texas schools will be better than any OOS. The question is whether you feel you could get a scholarship so an OOS program could "match" IS Texas tuition. There's not enough for me to determine if you are a rock star to apply out of state, though I think having a few AMCAS schools might be good to explore.

I completely agree that my narrative might be better constructed if I was able to immerse myself further into a underserved community for a significant amount of time. I'm trying to frame my narrative in a way that explains how my lack of connections and income have caused me to target the extra-curriculars that I have throughout my undergraduate experience. I am planning on working at a free/charity clinic through this gap year, so I hope that can further add into my narrative, though none of the hours would have been started by the time I submit my application on the 15th. In terms of food bank/school volunteering, I'd say it's relatively 50/50 to form about 60 hours in each area, but significant amounts of my school volunteering were targeted to help underprivileged schools, such as fixing playground benches or other broken equipment.

I have iron-clad assurance I'd be on the paper if the paper was published, but there isn't really a guarantee that any of the research would be. The doctor seems to be doing this more on the side whenever work is slow at the clinic. That's why I'm hesitant on placing it in Research hours, but I'm unsure where else to put this in my application as I do feel like it has been significant for my growth this past year.

I have explored a few AMCAS schools, but I've heard many of my TMDSAS peers speak on how they regret sending any OOS applications, as they mostly just get R's. It's mostly out of fear that I get rejected across the board in Texas that I'd want to apply out-of-state to broaden my chances. I'll continue to consider the possibility of adding a few good mission fits into my school list.

Thanks for your help!