Medical What schools should I apply to?

[TheBoneDoctah]

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Hello, I recently had a meeting with my pre-health adviser and asked her to help me gage what sorts of schools I should aim for but she never gave me a straight answer.

I am a senior at UNC Chapel Hill Double Majoring in Neuroscience and Music.

GPA: 3.74, sGPA: 3.83, MCAT: 519 (CP: 130, CAR: 130, BS: 130, PsS: 129)
The reason my sGPA is so much better than my cGPA is because I did poorly my first semester of college (3.2) due to taking 18 credit hours but this was in only gen ed classes. I have had an upward trend since freshman year, doing progressively better each semester.

I have a good amount of volunteering experience playing music at the local hospital and being a clinical interpreter (Spanish) that takes vitals at a free clinic.

I have also done about 40 hours of shadowing with two different doctors.

I have a decent amount of extra curricular activities, including various music groups, being a DJ for the college radio station, working in various research labs including one since my sophomore year.

I am planning on taking a gap year and working for a year as a medical scribe to get some more clinical experience.

I am latino so underrepresented in medicine, but I come from a pretty solidly middle class household.

My main question is should I aim for T20 schools or try and apply to mostly solid state schools?

How many hours for clinical and non clinical volunteer do you have? I think if you work for a year as a scribe you will have a very solid application and would apply to T20 schools...


....but would also apply to a good number of state and lower tier schools. It’s better to be safe than sorry and medical school has gotten so competitive even with stellar stats you could end up empty handed if you don’t apply smart.

 

[Goro]

Yes, you should aim high!!!!

 

[TheBoneDoctah]

I have probably about 70 hrs of miscellaneous volunteering mainly from playing at the hospital and about 100+ hrs volunteering as a radio DJ. I would say I probably only have about 50 clinical hrs which is part of the reason I decided to do scribing this coming year.

Nice. Yeah get some more hours under your belt and you should have a good cycle I think. Also, I suggest removing your picture as your SDN pic.

 

[AlteredScale]

Your MCAT is 98th percentile which is amazing. Apply to a good number of stronger MD programs and as @TheBoneDoctah said, make sure you still have some safeties with any state schools.

Do you have any research output from your experiences in the way of abstracts or publications?

 

[TheBoneDoctah]

I will most likely have a low level publication by the time I apply or at the very least by the secondary applications.

Any publication as a premed student is awesome.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Going back to your original post, you mentioned that your prehealth advisor (who I probably know) was unable to give you a straight answer. Are you a NC resident; if not, it might be tougher for the advisor to give you an answer.

Can I ask you how you asked your question? Have you done any networking on your own with students at many of the medical schools around you, especially SNMA and LMSA officers? I always encouraged my advisees not to just take my word on advice but also include reaching out to current students or professionals.

 

[TheBoneDoctah]

I am an NC resident. I think I phrased the question something like "What kinds of schools do you think I have a shot at?" and they said that they thought I should apply to all of the state schools but didn't really specify beyond that. I have not heard of SNMA or LMSA but I will check it out! Thanks for the help.

State schools are always a safe answer.