Medical What schools should I apply to?

[Goro]

---

Members don't see this ad.

hello! I am hoping to get someone's opinion on my application. I would guess it's a bit harder to approximate based on my uneven stats. I am reapplying and have heavily improved my personal statement and experiences, so let me know about my school list and application as a whole. Please don't hold back, thank you very much!

• Major: Neurobiology, Physiology, and Behavior
• cGPA and sGPA as calculated by AMCAS
  • cGPA: 3.45
  • sGPA: 3.25
  • My overall trend from freshman -> senior (2.64, 3.52, 3.92, 3.77)
    • Senior year I finished my degree in the first quarter and took a heavier course load with 5 classes
    • I spent the rest 2 quarters retaking my MCAT as seen below
• MCAT score(s) and breakdown
  • 510 –– 126/126/130/128
  • 519 –– 129/128/131/131
• State of residence or country of citizenship (if non-US)
  • CA
• Ethnicity and/or race
  • Asian-American ORM
• Undergraduate institution or category
  • California
• Clinical experience (volunteer and non-volunteer)
  • Student-Run Free Clinic Psychiatric Medical Assistant/Clinical Intern - 240 hours
  • Same Free Clinic Coordinator - 380 hours
  • Pediatrics Hospital/ Infusion Therapy volunteer - 52 hours
  • Senior Living Memory Care Alzheimer's Buddy - 55 hours
  • ED Medical Scribe, and TBD Outpatient Ophthalmology Scribe (on hold because of COVID-19) ~1000 hours
  • Paid Home Aide for grandparents (480 hours)
• Research experience and productivity
  • 1 summer genetics wet lab, no poster, no pubs (280 hrs)
  • 1 quarter clinical research hypertension management, no pubs (60 hours)
• Shadowing experience and specialties represented
  • Family Med (6 hours)
  • Sleep Medicine (6 hours)
  • Psychiatry - Child & Adult (20 hours)
  • Internal medicine (74 hours)
• Non-clinical volunteering
  • President of Homeless Advocacy and Health Promotion organization - led several successful projects like free showers, haircuts, community classes for homeless (530 hours)
• Other extracurricular activities (including athletics, military service, gap year activities, leadership, teaching, etc)
  • Medical Device/Tech Venture Capital Intern - 430 hrs
  • Online Medical Education Platform - entrepreneurial project worked with doctor - 255 hours
  • Photography-narrative driven publication like Humans of New York - photographer and journalist - 88 hours
  • AP Biology High school Tutor (180 hours)
• Relevant honors or awards
  • Dean's List for 2 quarters (winter, fall 2017)
• LOR
  • Letters of rec will likely be 2 science, 2 good organization mentors, 1 good homeless advocacy, 1 nonscience, 1 from venture capital firm
  • unsure about the strength of sciences

I am a reapplicant. Not sure how that affects schools I've already applied to. In my current list I tried to apply to schools I haven't applied to for the most part:
Boston U
Cooper Rowan
Hofstra/Northwell
Eastern Virginia
Quinnipiac
Geisinger
George Washington U
Kaiser
Keck USC
Lewis Katz Temple
RUSH
Rutgers Robert Wood
Sidney Kimmel Jefferson
UCD
UCSD
Virginia Tech
Wake Forest U
UC Irvine
UCSF
Tulane
CA Northstate

Considering:

Duke
Penn State
U Toledo
Stanford
Virginia Commonwealth
Vermont
Drexel
Emory
UA Phoenix
Wayne State
Western Michigan
Wright
Georgetown

Based your academics, you apply as if your GPA is the avg of your last two years. Rising GPA trends are always good.

You will need DO schools on your list; beggers can't be choosy.

Boston U
Hofstra/Northwell
Eastern Virginia
Quinnipiac
George Washington U
Kaiser
Keck USC (maybe)
Lewis Katz Temple
RUSH
UCD
UCSD
Wake Forest U
UC Irvine
UCSF
Tulane
Duke
Drexel
Emory
Wayne State
Georgetown

ADD:
Emory
Dartmouth
Tufts
Vandy
Columbia
Sinai
Pitt
Rosy Franklin
Loyola
MCW
SLU
Crieghton
Miami
Drexel
Albany
NYMC
CalU Med
Any DO school. I can't recommend Nova, Wm Carey, WCU, BCOM, ICOM and LUCOM, for different reasons. MSUCOM? Read up on Larry Nasser and you decide. LMU has an accreditation warning, which concerns me. CUHS is too new and appears to be too limited in rotations sites. UIW refuses to post their Boards scores, which is fishy.

 

[Goro]

Hi Goro,

Thank you so much for getting back to me. It's much appreciated, and thank you for the advice for using the GPA trend.

Are you able to elaborate on why you didn't include Penn State, U Toledo, Virginia Commonwealth, Vermont, UA Phoenix on the list? I thought they were ~target schools for me so it would be safe to include.

Also any reason behind Vandy, Columbia, Sinai, Pitts specifically? as opposed to other "upper-tier" schools. Any other thoughts on other New York schools?

Thank you so much for your time.

D

I can’t recommend Penn State given how their parent body protected a child molester for decades.

I don't know if the others schools I deleted reward reinvention

The schools I added do.