What are my chances into getting into med school and what should I do to increase my chances?

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.

Phantom95

Full Member
5+ Year Member
Joined
Jan 10, 2018
Messages
16
Reaction score
3
...

Members don't see this ad.
 
Last edited:
When do you plan to apply?

Your GPA's fantastic. Keep up with it. Given that you were able to maintain your high GPA over the years, I don't think your science GPA would drop to 3.76 or whatever (which is still a very fine GPA, mind you).

12 weeks for MCAT sounds reasonable. Most people studies 2-3 months for it. Sure, aim for a perfect score, although there isn't really a set score that will get you into medical school. That'll depend on what schools you want to go to. Aim for, say, 515+.

Your biggest problem right now is your nearly-nonexistent clinical volunteer hours. Keep in mind that you'll be competing against people with high GPA, high MCAT and high volunteering hours, both clinical and nonclinical. Even 4.0/520s will get rejected if they haven't demonstrated their commitment to medicine - as Goro often says it, this is a service profession and you need to show your desire to serve. 400 hours of shadowing is totally overkill and is not going to help you once it's over like 100 hours. Get your volunteering started. I'm guessing that you also don't have any non-clinical volunteering hours? Getting those in would also be helpful. Cover those two weaknesses and you should be able to apply. Applying this summer would be an insane idea given that you don't really have much in this aspect, so I recommend you starting volunteering ASAP and apply next year.

Your status as a white/middle class family will not 'help' you in your application (just neutral).

Good luck!
 
Getting volunteer hours and medical experiences during gap year can help you, definitely. However, your primary application (where you lists all your activities) will open up in June 1st, and you'll want to submit them by around mid-July at least (earlier the better). Will you have your activities/volunteering started by then? If it began, then you can list your projected hours, although I'm not sure how will Admission committees look at activities that had just begun. It probably won't be viewed equivalent to activities that have begun years before. If you can't get those started, then you'll have hard time filling out on the activities section. Yes, you can update AdComs throughout the application cycle, but not all schools will permit this. You're risking your app being thrown onto reject pile even before you had a chance to update them on your activities.

Summer internship with shadowing/etc sounds fine - but keep in mind you can only assign one category to your activity. Is this going to be a shadowing? or a research? I'm very sorry to hear that you had a difficult time during school year, but committees won't take that as an excuse (although you can certainly try to explain in secondaries). Also, activities in high school won't count. AMCAS want activities you started since college, not before, unless it began during HS and continued into college. Was your shadowing/independent studies with a doc in HS the same doc/surgeon you had your internship with?

In summary, excluding HS activities, your volunteering is minimal, nonclinical is nonexistent, other ECs are minimal, and only exposure to medicine so far (after HS) was with surgeon in a summer that was quite brief - 2 weeks. Great GPA and MCAT will help, but without ECs to back you up, I still don't think it's a good idea to apply this year. You can definitely continue volunteering while you wait for that interview, but that interview might not come to you.

I have no clue what clepping class is.
 
Come back when you have your MCAT score and then we can advise. Get in more volunteering, both clinical and non-clinical.
And for God's sake, learn how to use the paragraph function.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Top