MD Where else to apply other than where GPA 10th percentile <= 3.41?

[winterwind_23]

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I'm starting to compile my school list now. Not knowing much about what schools are looking for, the only thing I have to go off of right now is to apply to private schools where the 10th percentile GPA is less than or equal to my GPA of 3.41. Having said that, I've compiled a list of US MD schools where the 10th percentile GPA <= 3.41, which came out to be 62 schools. Of these, only 18 are private schools. Of these, 3 are HBCU. This leaves 15 private, non-HBCU schools. Since I'm a California resident, I added two UCs for which I qualify to apply to as indicated by my GPA. So, based purely on my GPA, my preliminary school list consists of these 17 schools:

Virginia Tech Carilion
The Commonwealth Medical College
Mercer
Tulane
Georgetown
Albany
Wake Forest
Loyola University Chicago Stritch
Frank H. Netter MD SOM Quinnipiac University
Rosalind Franklin
Drexel
Rush
Brown
Dartmouth
Hofstra
UCLA
UC Davis

While going through this process, I couldn't help but think that there must be a better way to come up with a school list than just basing it purely on my GPA. In fact, after compiling this preliminary list, I have several questions:

1) Should I bother applying to schools where the 10th percentile GPA is greater than 3.41? I feel like the answer here is an obvious "yes", but I will have to choose wisely. Can I apply to schools where the 10th percentile GPA is, say 3.43, or even 3.50? If so, what schools would you recommend I add to my list?

2) Are there any public state schools that I've overlooked? I don't want to waste time and money applying to schools that hardly accept any OOS applicants, nor do I want to pass up applying to schools that accepts a fair number of OOS applicants just because I wasn't aware that they take OOS applicants. For example, I know that VCU takes a few California residents each year, as I know a few people from California there.

3) Are there any schools in my preliminary list that you would not recommend applying to? Maybe I missed an HBCU in there somewhere, or one of those schools has a strong in-state preference that I'm unaware of, or the school has a very specific mission, or a school's lower GPA belies its selectivity (Brown and Dartmouth?)?

After reading all of that, of course you'll be thinking all of this depends on OP's other stats, demographics, experience, etc. So, I present here a brief overview of my application.

------------------------
California resident, Asian male, non-trad (will be turning 26 when I apply), low-income/first generation (applying as disadvantaged)

cGPA: 3.41, sGPa: 3.46
(Undergrad GPA: 3.27, Post-bacc GPA: 4.0)

MCAT: 35 (13 PS, 11 VR, 11 BS)

Yale University, chemistry major

Clinical Experience
~16 months volunteering in ER (4 hours/week)
~9 months visiting patients in hospice (1-2 hours/week)
~9 months volunteering at Alzheimer's day care center (~3 hours/week)

Community Service
~7 months tutoring for my city's library's homework center (~3 hours/week)
~9 months tutoring student in my city's adult literacy program (4 hours/week)

Shadowing: only 20 hours with an anesthesiologist now, hopefully will be able to get more

Research: two summer REUs at universities outside of my undergrad, senior research project (no publications)

Letters of rec: Nothing special. Two letters from science professors, one from PI.

Work experience: customer support and account management at tech companies (~2.5 years right after college)
------------------------

Now that you guys have my information, what other schools would you guys recommend adding to my list? Your help is very much appreciated! Thanks!

 

[Faha]

You can eliminate Mercer, Brown and Dartmouth. Schools you could add include:
Oakland Beaumont
Western Michigan
New York Medical College
Temple
Jefferson
GW
Vermont
St. Louis
Creighton
Apply in June and submit all your secondaries by July. Although your GPA is relatively low your MCAT of 35 should draw some attention from some schools.

 

[Doug Underhill]

There are some schools that specifically look for Ivy Leaguers. Your 3.41 may be able to go further there.

Otherwise, applying DO as well is a safe bet.

 

[Goro]

Any DO school. Start with Western and Touro-CA. Come back when you have your MCAT score.

I'm starting to compile my school list now. Not knowing much about what schools are looking for, the only thing I have to go off of right now is to apply to private schools where the 10th percentile GPA is less than or equal to my GPA of 3.41. Having said that, I've compiled a list of US MD schools where the 10th percentile GPA <= 3.41, which came out to be 62 schools. Of these, only 18 are private schools. Of these, 3 are HBCU. This leaves 15 private, non-HBCU schools. Since I'm a California resident, I added two UCs for which I qualify to apply to as indicated by my GPA. So, based purely on my GPA, my preliminary school list consists of these 17 schools:

Virginia Tech Carilion
The Commonwealth Medical College
Mercer
Tulane
Georgetown
Albany
Wake Forest
Loyola University Chicago Stritch
Frank H. Netter MD SOM Quinnipiac University
Rosalind Franklin
Drexel
Rush
Brown
Dartmouth
Hofstra
UCLA
UC Davis

While going through this process, I couldn't help but think that there must be a better way to come up with a school list than just basing it purely on my GPA. In fact, after compiling this preliminary list, I have several questions:

1) Should I bother applying to schools where the 10th percentile GPA is greater than 3.41? I feel like the answer here is an obvious "yes", but I will have to choose wisely. Can I apply to schools where the 10th percentile GPA is, say 3.43, or even 3.50? If so, what schools would you recommend I add to my list?

2) Are there any public state schools that I've overlooked? I don't want to waste time and money applying to schools that hardly accept any OOS applicants, nor do I want to pass up applying to schools that accepts a fair number of OOS applicants just because I wasn't aware that they take OOS applicants. For example, I know that VCU takes a few California residents each year, as I know a few people from California there.

3) Are there any schools in my preliminary list that you would not recommend applying to? Maybe I missed an HBCU in there somewhere, or one of those schools has a strong in-state preference that I'm unaware of, or the school has a very specific mission, or a school's lower GPA belies its selectivity (Brown and Dartmouth?)?

After reading all of that, of course you'll be thinking all of this depends on OP's other stats, demographics, experience, etc. So, I present here a brief overview of my application.

------------------------
California resident, Asian male, non-trad (will be turning 26 when I apply), low-income/first generation (applying as disadvantaged)

cGPA: 3.41, sGPa: 3.46
(Undergrad GPA: 3.27, Post-bacc GPA: 4.0)

MCAT: 35 (13 PS, 11 VR, 11 BS)

Yale University, chemistry major

Clinical Experience
~16 months volunteering in ER (4 hours/week)
~9 months visiting patients in hospice (1-2 hours/week)
~9 months volunteering at Alzheimer's day care center (~3 hours/week)

Community Service
~7 months tutoring for my city's library's homework center (~3 hours/week)
~9 months tutoring student in my city's adult literacy program (4 hours/week)

Shadowing: only 20 hours with an anesthesiologist now, hopefully will be able to get more

Research: two summer REUs at universities outside of my undergrad, senior research project (no publications)

Letters of rec: Nothing special. Two letters from science professors, one from PI.

Work experience: customer support and account management at tech companies (~2.5 years right after college)
------------------------

Now that you guys have my information, what other schools would you guys recommend adding to my list? Your help is very much appreciated! Thanks!

 

[winterwind_23]

Any DO school. Start with Western and Touro-CA. Come back when you have your MCAT score.

MCAT is 35. Included it later in my post.

I will be applying to some DO schools - just haven't gotten around to it yet! I'll take suggestions for DO schools too.

 

[winterwind_23]

There are some schools that specifically look for Ivy Leaguers. Your 3.41 may be able to go further there.

Otherwise, applying DO as well is a safe bet.

Do you know which schools might be more friendly toward Ivy Leaguers?

 

[winterwind_23]

You can eliminate Mercer, Brown and Dartmouth. Schools you could add include:
Oakland Beaumont
Western Michigan
New York Medical College
Temple
Jefferson
GW
Vermont
St. Louis
Creighton
Apply in June and submit all your secondaries by July. Although your GPA is relatively low your MCAT of 35 should draw some attention from some schools.

Thank you for this list! I'll look into these schools.

 

[Doug Underhill]

Search for yearly class profiles at schools, and look down at the list of undergrad institutions attended. If you see a lot of schools like Yale, that may indicate that they value those schools.

 

[WedgeDawg]

Do you know which schools might be more friendly toward Ivy Leaguers?

USC-Keck, Hofstra, Mt. Sinai and NYU (though your stats are probably too low still for these two), a lot of the New York schools like stony brook, and maybe some others.

 

[winterwind_23]

USC-Keck, Hofstra, Mt. Sinai and NYU (though your stats are probably too low still for these two), a lot of the New York schools like stony brook, and maybe some others.

Thanks! Do the SUNY schools have a strong in-state preference, though? Would it be worth it to apply to SUNY schools as a California resident?

 

[Vain Brother]

we have very similar stats (3.29 uGPA, 4.0pbGPA, 3.42cGPA, 34 MCAT) -- take a look at my MDapps profile to see how i've fared. keep in mind that i'm a non-trad helped by some good ECs. also bear in mind that i hadn't seen the WAMC forum before i applied, so my list isn't exactly optimal, plus my primary was sent in in late july

you've done some good school list research. i'd recommend going back to making that original list but extending it out to <3.50 -- your good post-bac grades and very good MCAT can make you one of those outliers. then narrow it down based on information in the "acceptance information" tab regarding OOS interview and matriculation rates. then post your revised list for critique

 

[Goro]

Invest in MSAR Online and target schools whose GPA stats are closest to your own. Pay careful attention to the Acceptance Information page, and avoid OOS public schools, because they favor the home team.

Suggested DO schools:
Western
Toro-NY and CA
CCOM
AZCOM
AT Still
MUCOM
PacNW
PCOM
DMU
KCUMB

Any DO school. Start with Western and Touro-CA. Come back when you have your MCAT score.

 

[winterwind_23]

After a bit more research with the advice from this thread, I've come up with an extended list:

Virginia Tech Carilion
The Commonwealth Medical College
Tulane
Georgetown
Albany
UC Davis
Wake Forest
Loyola
Quinnipiac
Rosalind Franklin
New York Medical College
Drexel
UCLA
Rush
Hofstra
Brown
Dartmouth
Western Michigan
Jefferson
George Washington
Tufts
Boston University
University of Miami
Temple
Oakland Beaumont
University of Rochester
UC Irvine
USC Keck
University of Vermont
Creighton
St. Louis

I obviously will not be applying to all of these schools. Are there any schools I should definitely remove? Any schools I should add? I don't think I included any OOS public schools except Vermont. Are there any public state schools I'm overlooking? Any other schools I should add?

Thanks!

 

[Vain Brother]

i don't see any bad choices there. next step is to narrow down based on your personal preferences (curriculum, location, mission, etc). leave yourself with 20 or so

ones that you could think about taking off: brown (prefers non-trads, very small class size), tufts/BU/GW/Gtown (get tons of applications), drexel/temple/jefferson (same)

 

[Alejandro]

LOL, to be honest, I'd apply to all of them.

Also, time away from school will work to your advantage.

Not too sure why people these days want to apply to less places-see what bites first. Cast a wide net. I did apply to Brown and Dartmouth and got interviews at both with similar stats, I did apply as nontrad. If its too expensive, work more hours/get a job. (That's what I did-mums and dad didn't foot my 30 apps/interviews)