What Are My Chances? Top Medical Schools

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

MissFlowerPower17

New Member
Joined
Aug 30, 2019
Messages
4
Reaction score
1
Hello, thank you for taking the time to read this. I’m graduating from Cal Poly SLO in two years because of dual enrollment with a college in high school and I’m a bit concerned about how this will affect my application. I will be applying to NYU’s Accelerated MD Program, Stanford, Harvard, Yale, UCLA, Columbia, UCSF, JHU, Northwestern, Mayo, UPenn, WashU, UC Davis, UCSD, Duke, UChicago, Yale, USC, and Cornell.

Major: Biomedical Engineering (I’m in Cal Poly’s Honors Program)
cGPA: 4.0
sGPA: 4.0
MCAT: 520

Bio:
  • Indian (Asian)
  • Female
  • CA Resident
  • I speak four languages

Extracurriculars
  • 2000 hours clinic/hospital volunteering
  • 500 hours shadowing (Anesthesiology, Surgery, Cardiology)
  • 500 hours research
  • 4 first author research publications
  • 100 hours EMT (Paid)
  • Leadership positions in three clubs
  • D1 Softball
  • Piano
  • Modeling

Members don't see this ad.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Members don't see this ad :)
If you are planning to apply this year you need to submit your application in the next week and submit all of your secondaries by the end of September. Because your application is on the late side for MD schools you should add more schools and I suggest these:
Case Western
Cincinnati
Ohio State
Michigan
Pittsburgh
Rochester
Hofstra
Einstein
Mount Sinai
 
Thank you
If you are planning to apply this year you need to submit your application in the next week and submit all of your secondaries by the end of September. Because your application is on the late side for MD schools you should add more schools and I suggest these:
Case Western
Cincinnati
Ohio State
Michigan
Pittsburgh
Rochester
Hofstra
Einstein
Mount Sinai
Thank You
 
500 hours research and 4 1st author pubs? Im gonna guess all these are clinical, correct? If not, unbelievable. Impressive either way. You have a great app and should be successful. One area that might hurt you is nonclinical volunteering work. I don’t any. And it seems like most of your activities are in school. I suggest try to do something out of your comfort zone like @Goro would say.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 users
500 hours research and 4 1st author pubs? Im gonna guess all these are clinical, correct? If not, unbelievable. Impressive either way. You have a great app and should be successful. One area that might hurt you is nonclinical volunteering work. I don’t any. And it seems like most of your activities are in school. I suggest try to do something out of your comfort zone like @Goro would say.
Thank you for your input.
 
Hello, thank you for taking the time to read this. I’m graduating from Cal Poly SLO in two years because of dual enrollment with a college in high school and I’m a bit concerned about how this will affect my application. I will be applying to NYU’s Accelerated MD Program, Stanford, Harvard, Yale, UCLA, Columbia, UCSF, JHU, Northwestern, Mayo, UPenn, WashU, UC Davis, UCSD, Duke, UChicago, Yale, USC, and Cornell.

Major: Biomedical Engineering (I’m in Cal Poly’s Honors Program)
cGPA: 4.0
sGPA: 4.0
MCAT: 520

Bio:
  • Indian (Asian)
  • Female
  • CA Resident
  • I speak four languages

Extracurriculars
  • 2000 hours clinic/hospital volunteering
  • 500 hours shadowing (Anesthesiology, Surgery, Cardiology)
  • 500 hours research
  • 4 first author research publications
  • 100 hours EMT (Paid)
  • Leadership positions in three clubs
  • D1 Softball
  • Piano
  • Modeling

How did 500 research hours give rise to 4 first author publications? Were these in peer reviewed journals or were they in student run journals? That makes a big difference.

2500 clinical hours + shadowing in 2 years means about 1250 hours/year + you played D1 softball for 2 years? How did you manage that?
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 users
Something doesn’t add up... since enough specific info was posted, I did some sleuthing and could not find an Indian female majoring in BME on the Cal Poly softball roster for the past 2 years.
 
  • Like
  • Haha
Reactions: 12 users
Something doesn’t add up... since enough specific info was posted, I did some sleuthing and could not find an Indian female majoring in BME on the Cal Poly softball roster for the past 2 years.

As Gordon Ramsay would have said it, “Damn!” A bit creepy detective work but nice job if this were true.
 
  • Like
  • Haha
Reactions: 5 users
This is either an applicant with very good time management skills and impressive research chops or a troll. Assuming everything is as you say it is, OP, your list is still a bit top heavy. Add some midtiers; you are definitely a strong contender for top schools. It’s impressive - and will raise eyebrows - that you volunteered 20 hours per week, modeled, did research, and still played Division I softball. Make sure you’ve got people that’ll vouch for the hours you put down on that application, ‘cause it’s a big number (especially over two years) and is going to draw skepticism.

If it’s legit: 10-15 top 20s, 7 midtier schools, and state schools is a good school list.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
2000 hrs volunteering in 2 years means, 20 hrs/wk average unless counting HS hours due to dual enrollment. 500 hours of shadowing??
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 users
And played a D1 sport. OP hasn’t been back in a few days. Probably a troll. See post 10.

That's a very specific troll.

I think OP was giving herself too much credit, e.g. counting student journal accepted pieces as publications, counting high school volunteering hours under the theory that she was dual enrolled at that time, and a short-lived presence on the softball team as full participation.
 
  • Like
  • Haha
Reactions: 2 users
That's a very specific troll.

I think OP was giving herself too much credit, e.g. counting student journal accepted pieces as publications, counting high school volunteering hours under the theory that she was dual enrolled at that time, and a short-lived presence on the softball team as full participation.
You are probably right.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 users
Even if we cut the hours in half, they’re impressive. Heck, even if she’s amassed a quarter of the hours she claims to have amassed and only briefly played D1 softball, her ECs and stats are still decent. She needs nonclinical volunteering, but if she gets a couple hundred hours of that she’s golden. The student-journal publications aren’t as impressive as peer-reviewed pubs, but they’re evidence of research productivity and more than most applicants have.

Unless you did something extraordinary (Olympic medals, won international competitions), or have a publication, some say it is best not to put activities from before you graduated high school or turned 18. You can, however, state that you started volunteering in the hospital in high school and continued it in college on your AMCAS work and activities section.

@Goro, @LizzyM: do you think she should include the hours she did in high school? There’s a significant number of them, and they can’t hurt her. If she was to include them, how would she best do so?
 
Why are we thinking she did some of this stuff in HS? She never said that at all.

OP graduated in 2 years because of dual enrollment. This means she took a lot of college credits in high school. The last 2 years of high school might have been mostly or all dual enrollment courses.

And OP's volunteering and EC hours don't add up.

It appears OP hasn't looked at AMCAS's cutoff for when to begin counting.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 users
It appears OP hasn't looked at AMCAS's cutoff for when to begin counting.

Hopefully that’s why the hours look so inflated! Most of what happens in high school should stay in high school, with the exception of publications and extraordinary achievements.
 
Really too late to apply this year. Quite young, too. I'd recommend at least a year of service or f/t employment, preferably serving people in need.
 
  • Like
  • Love
Reactions: 2 users
Maybe something like Americorps or else work as a CNA might be valuable.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Top