What are my chances for MD?

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skrolls

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Year in school: Senior

Country/state of residence: MI

Schools to which you are applying:
  • Oakland University
  • Central Michigan
  • U of M
  • Michigan State
  • Western
  • Wayne State
  • Ohio State
  • Cincinnati
  • Wright State
  • University of Utah
  • University of Colorado
  • Duke
  • Marshall-Edwards
  • Virginian Tech Carilion
  • U of West Virginia
  • South Carolina Greenville
  • U of Rochester
  • Tulane
  • Sanford
  • Creighton
  • University of Missouri Kansas City
  • Washington University St. Louis
  • U of Kentucky
  • Quinnipac

Am also considering applying DO

Cumulative GPA: 3.59 with a very strong upward trend

Science GPA: 3.59

MCAT Scores: 509 overall, (127/127/127/128)

Research Experience:
  • ~700 hours as a research assistant from undergraduate research program, just found out today my name will be going on 2 research posters, one of them being the 1st author!

Volunteering (clinical):
  • Emergency room volunteer (~100 hours so far, want to get it up to 400 by application time)
  • Clinical research volunteer (70 hours)

Physician shadowing: ~ 50 hours total

Non-clinical volunteering:
  • Hospice Volunteering, haven't started yet but want to get at least 100 hours by application time
Extracurricular activities:
  • TA for my university's human anatomy lab (2 semesters)
  • Home Health Aide for 2 years
  • Many hours tutoring biology, chemistry, and physics
  • 2 years as an athlete on my school's rugby team
  • Served as Scholarship Chair and and Treasurer for my fraternity
  • In the process of founding a scholarship fund with a friend
  • Hobbies that might be of interest to medical school: language learning, competing in triathlons
Immediate family members in medicine? (y/n) Yes

Specialty of interest: Radiology or Pathology

Graduate degrees: None

Interest in rural health (y/n): Sure

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Scratch U of M, Ohio State, Cincinnati, Utah, Colorado, Duke, Marshall, Va Tech, South Carolina, Sanford, Mizz-KC, WashU and Kentucky. Rochester could probably come off also, maybe Wright State as well.

Consider perhaps adding: Medical College Wisconsin, NYMC, Albany, Saint Louis, Wake Forest, Jefferson, Temple, Drexel, GW, Georgetown, Miami. The latter options are going to be more low yield but with borderline stats every app you can send can help even if they are long shots.

Your odds will be best with Michigan schools, specifically CMU and Wayne State and perhaps Oakland, Michigan State and Western Michigan as well. You have a realistic shot at getting a II or two at those in state schools and perhaps another II or two at some OOS schools. You're in very good shape for DO's.
 
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Scratch U of M, Ohio State, Cincinnati, Utah, Colorado, Duke, Marshall, Va Tech, South Carolina, Sanford, Mizz-KC, WashU and Kentucky. Rochester could probably come off also, maybe Wright State as well.

Consider perhaps adding: Medical College Wisconsin, Saint Louis, Wake Forest, Jefferson, Temple, Drexel, GW, Georgetown, Miami. The latter options are going to be more low yield but with borderline stats every app you can send can help even if they are long shots.

Your odds will be best with Michigan schools, specifically CMU and Wayne State and perhaps Oakland, Michigan State and Western Michigan as well. You have a realistic shot at getting a II or two at those in state schools and perhaps another II or two at some OOS schools. You're in very good shape for DO's.
Why not the others that I listed?
 
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Why not the others that I listed?

Your odds will best at your IS schools. Schools like Wayne State and Central Michigan interview around 1/3 of IS applicants. All these OOS schools you are looking at roughly 5% of OOS applicants being interviewed, maybe at best 10%. So you can see why your odds are so much better IS.

Having said that, it is still worth applying to a bunch of realistic OOS schools. Schools like Ohio State or ones with extreme IS bias or where your stats are way below the median are not worthwhile. Schools like NYMC, Medical College Wisconsin or Albany could be worthwhile. It's just you have to realize where your odds will be best at; there's a reason why almost 80% of Michigan applicants who end up getting into med school will matriculate in a medical school in Michigan. That's just where the odds are strongest at; the OOS schools are there to maximize your odds of finding an acceptance somewhere.
 
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Your odds will best at your IS schools. Schools like Wayne State and Central Michigan interview around 1/3 of IS applicants. All these OOS schools you are looking at roughly 5% of OOS applicants being interviewed, maybe at best 10%. So you can see why your odds are so much better IS.

Having said that, it is still worth applying to a bunch of realistic OOS schools. Schools like Ohio State or ones with extreme IS bias or where your stats are way below the median are not worthwhile. Schools like NYMC, Medical College Wisconsin or Albany could be worthwhile. It's just you have to realize where your odds will be best at; there's a reason why almost 80% of Michigan applicants who end up getting into med school will matriculate in a medical school in Michigan. That's just where the odds are strongest at; the OOS schools are there to maximize your odds of finding an acceptance somewhere.
I see... I haven't really looked at any schools very in depth yet as far as stats go, I'm saving that for after I graduate. The list I have here are schools that had above 30-40% OOS matriculants, or schools that I consider dream schools, like Colorado and Utah.
 
I see... I haven't really looked at any schools very in depth yet as far as stats go, I'm saving that for after I graduate. The list I have here are schools that had above 30-40% OOS matriculants, or schools that I consider dream schools, like Colorado and Utah.

Nothing wrong in dreaming but you don't want those dream schools and fantasies to take away from your list of realistic schools and for you to have fewer realistic schools because of having too many reaches. Ideally, you probably want somewhere around 15 or so realistic schools. I counted about 7 on your original list. It's probably a good idea to swap out more of those unrealistic ones with realistic ones to give you your best shot at getting into an MD school.
 
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