What are my chances?

[Sprinkles87]

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Well here's what I have, I highly appreciate any feedback!
Academic Information:
-Major in Psychology, Minor in Statistics
-3.72 cGPA
-3.63 sGPA
-Earned A's in Ochem 1 and 2, Physics 1 and 2, Biology 1 and 2, but C's in General Chemistry my freshman year
-The lowest GPA i've had since my freshman year was a 3.75 one semester
-Dean's List the past 3 years straight
-Done decent on practice MCAT exams, take the real thing in two months.

Extracurriculars:
-Vice President of my Fraternity(also held 2 other executive offices)
-Vice President of the Interfraternity Council of my University
-Event Coordinator for Campus Attractions (spend 15-20 hours per week working on major events)
-Secretary of an Honor Society
-Served as Welcome Week Kick-off Leader
-Served as a TA for a freshman course (2 years)
-Kind of unrelated from the rest, but played the lead role in "The Nutcracker" 2 years in a row
-Organized and hosted a Mock Beauty Pageant at my University

Volunteer/Research/Clinical Experience:
-served over 200 hours of volunteer work to my community
-currently coordinate volunteering opportunities for my Fraternity with a wide number of agencies
-I have one year of neuroscience research experience, I worked on things related to visual and spatial attention, along with eye trackers
-I have spent several hours with an internal medicine doctor shadowing
-I am currently volunteering regularly as a counselor for Alzheimer's Patients
-I will have my CNA training complete in a few months, and plan on working as one after certification
-Coordinated an alcohol awareness presentation with my advisor

 

[J ROD]

Should have a shot...hard to say without the MCAT.

You need to get more clinical experience too.

 

[Catalystik]

Your cGPa shows a terrific recovery since freshman year. You have particular strnength in local community service and leadership connected with it. Well done! Your research is about average for those applying. You have a lot of leadership and something to put under teaching. You even have an activity for Artistic Endeavors with the Nutcracker role.

Why are your clinically related activities so sparse? It looks like you just decided to consider medicine, but really haven't tested it much yet. I generally recommend 60-80 hours of shadowing split among 2-3 specialties. The average applicant has 1.5 years and 150 hours of clinical experience gained through work, volunteering, or clinical research and you sound like you just began working with Alzheimer's patients (am I misinterpreting?). The CNA work would help you a lot, but will that be on your application at all?

 

[Sprinkles87]

I decided to pursue a career in medicine about a year and a half ago. By the time this semester is over, I will have at least 40-50 hours of shadowing complete, and yes-the CNA work will be on the application. Given that my MCAT scores are at least decent, do you think I would have a good chance?

 

[J ROD]

I decided to pursue a career in medicine about a year and a half ago. By the time this semester is over, I will have at least 40-50 hours of shadowing complete, and yes-the CNA work will be on the application. Given that my MCAT scores are at least decent, do you think I would have a good chance?

Yeah, I think you should have good shot depending on a 32+ MCAT....also on what instate you have...

 

[Sprinkles87]

I'm a North Dakota resident, and I would be applying to UND, which prioritizes in-state residents.

 

[Catalystik]

From past research on ND, I found that ECs don't matter:

I found some additional excellent information in the UND thread from the year before the above at: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=550792&highlight=Dakota

From Crevac: bolding is mine

"One of the other members sent me a private message about some of the information I had provided earlier in this thread and wanted me to add some more to the topic. So I will try to add a little bit about what I know about the interview process at UND.

The point system is used for granting interviews and is not overly influential on admission, other than you can't get in if you don't interview obviously. I had said earlier that there are 300 points max given for the interview and this total is broken down into 100 for state residency, 100 for MCAT, 50 for overall GPA and 50 for science GPA. About the only other thing that the pre-interview points do is kind of affect when you are scheduled for an interview, but like the school says in the application materials that if you need to have a specific date for interviewing they will try to work with the student to best fit their schedule.

I don't know what the cutoff is for what level of pre-interview points will get someone an interview but last year they had a total of 140 interviewed applicants. It appears that the lowest pre-interview point total was 147. Compared to other schools UND has a much more condensed interview since everyone is interviewed over a 3 week period or so. And by this I mean that instead of taking an entire day or half day for the interview, all of the activities are completed in around 1.5 to 2 hours. When you first arrive you have your picture taken and get to meet several current students and the associate dean of admissions. You also watch a video about the school at this time. There are 4 students scheduled for each interview time slot.

Once all of this is done you have your interview in front of a 3 person group. I think that the groups consist of a current faculty member, a current student and then one more person associated with the school. This interview usually lasts around 45 minutes to an hour and the 3 people then write their own comments about you to take back to the full admissions committee. This complete committee is all 4 groups that conducted the interviews of the students, so there are 12 total committee members. At this point each student is presented to the committee and voted into one of 4 categories by each member. The higher you are rated the more points you receive from that vote and you can receive a total of 36 points. From these totals the process is basically complete as the students with the highest point totals are offered a spot in the class, with a larger number of spots given for ND residents and then the rest for MN/WICHE state residents.

This is about all I can think of right now for this process but I also might have missed something. If you have any other questions I will try to answer it as best I can. And good luck to everyone in this process! "

"no you do not get any points for having great ECs or LORs."

 

[J ROD]

Guess you really need to kill the MCAT....and not worry so much about ECs...

 

[LuciusVorenus]

Even if you don't need to worry about ECs for ND its still a good idea to have some just in case you end up wanting to go somewhere else. That being said your ECs are fine except for clinical volunteering. A summer at a hospital should probably be enough (8 hrs/wk=~100 or so hours over the summer).

 

[Morsetlis]

*moves to North Dakota*

 

[J ROD]

*moves to North Dakota*