Medical What should my next steps be?

[GoSpursGo]

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These are my stats and hours for my application this year:

ORM, Male, FL

MCAT: 519(129/128/130/132)

GPA/sGPA: 3.6X/3.8X

Shadowing: ~ 30 hrs (3 specialties)

Research: Total hours 500

Summer research in psych ~ 400 hrs (Poster presented at school symposium) | 2 semesters independent work ~ 100 hrs

Non-Clinical Volunteering: Minimal, did special olympics and a couple odd community outreach things ( 20< hrs)

Clinical Volunteering: 150 hrs total

~ 20 hours in the ED department (Cut short due to COVID)

~ 130 hours over 3 weeks internationally in a Orthopedic department. (Important experience for me went back to my parents home country)

Employment: 150 hrs

Sophomore year worked as a intern in Science Visualization Lab, taught stats workshops.

Sports: 750 hrs

Varsity tennis 4 years D3 school

Leadership: 40 hrs

Student Athlete Advisory Committee sophomore year

Teaching: 50

Coached tennis fundraising lessons for 2 years

Misc:

Did not decide until sophomore year to pursue medicine. Have personal story about getting injured inspiring me to take the pre-med path.

Letters of Rec: 5 total

1 from orthopedist I volunteered with

1 from Orgo prof I had for a year, was close with him.

1 from Prof I did research for

2 from 2 Profs that I did not know as well but did really well in their class, got to know them a bit


So far I have received: 2 II, one turned into a WL, and still waiting to hear back from the other school I interviewed with, and 8 Rs. I applied to 32 schools:

Cincinnati

Drexel

Mount Sinai

Temple

Columbia

Case Western

Jefferson

Weil Cornel

University of Mich

Duke

UF

FSU

Miami

USF (Morsani)

UCF

Fl Intl

Fl atlantic

Nova SE

Einstein

Dartmouth

Rochester

Tufts

Wake Forest

Emory

BU

Tulane

Pitt

Alpert Brown

Hofstra

GW

Colorado

Kaiser Permente

Albany

NYMC

Seton Hall

MC Wisconsin

Oakland Beumont

Western Mich

TCU-UNC

I have been working in a research lab and doing some volunteering throughout the year, and I plan on continuing doing this until either I am accepted this year, or if I have to re-apply next year then hopefully when I get an acceptance next year.

Is there any thing I can be doing now in addition to my research job and volunteering (non-clinical) that would improve my chances if I become a reapp?

Also, any advice about what potentially went wrong this cycle? I thought I would be more competitive than I was. My guess is that my low non-clinical volunteer hours hurt me as well as that the bulk of my clinical hours were done internationally. I know some people look down on that, but I felt like I had a good justification / story for why I did that.

Yeah you've hit the nail on the head. Thankfully your stats are competitive and these are both fixable problems. Hopefully one of these interviews turns into an acceptance, but right now definitely start buffing up those hours for a potential reapplication. If you can do that and apply early, maybe with some DO schools just to be extra safe given your outcome thus far, I think you will stand a good shot.

 

[AlteredScale]

Continue your research job, I would try and continue EC's as well, just pick one that you really like and keep doing it.

I would say that your app overall is decent but it feels like most of your EC's were very "fixed". Like you did a set amount than stopped. Which can make your app appear very check-box-y. I agree that you really need to beef up your clinical hours as you can. If that may take more than a year than so be it. You want to have the best application possible that you feel content with. And of course in light of COVID getting covid experience is probably very hard.

 

[TheBoneDoctah]

A huge part of your program, as you said, is your non-clinical volunteering hours. You need to get these numbers up for sure before you reapply. You can also increase your clinical hours if you have the time.

On your reapplication, make sure to add DO schools to your list.