Where to apply with 3.89 GPA and 34Q?

[IDLess]

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3.89 GPA @ UC Riverside transfer to UC Berkeley
MCAT: 34Q (12 BS/10VR/12PS)

Sports med internship with Cal Football - patient care/doctor shadowing 5-40 hours/week 1 year
Athletic trainer for summer sports camps - patient care, paid, 40 hours/week 1 summer
Founding secretary of UCR rugby club - leadership
Lots of rugby playing - 6 hours/week for years with many dfferent clubs
1 year research in biomed cancer lab @ UCR
1 summer research internship - paid, 40 hours/week, culminating in 1 oral/poster presentation at UCR conference
6 months lab assistant in nutrition/metabolism lab @ Cal, with strong LOR - strong interest in nutrition, metabolism, fitness
No publications
Habitat for Humanity - volunteer work, 2.5 years @ UCR and Cal
Conversation partners - speak with international students to improve their English - volunteer work, 1 year @ UCR
UC Regents scholar @ UCR 2 years
Dean's List - 2.5 years
Jiujitsu and boxing - 1 year combined
ER volunteer work - 70 hours
EMT certified before college - finally putting it to use to work but only after I apply so I won't be putting it on my application

LORs - 2 are definitely strong, from my major adviser at Cal, and the post-doc at my research lab at Cal. I have two more coming in for a total of 6. They are not definitely strong, with two from my sports med internship boss and upper division bio professor being decent at worst. The others are pre-requisite professor LORs that I got as last resorts. They are nice professors but my lack of a relationship with them may show.

I plan to apply to Californian schools, minus Loma Linda. After that, I am clueless as to where to apply. I like the idea of living in New York, Oregon, Florida, and Colorado so I might apply there solely based on location.
Honest opinions, please. Where should I apply outside of CA?

 

[Disinence2]

Apply to schools that you want to go to.

 

[IDLess]

Apply to schools that you want to go to.

Yeah I am very hopeful for UCSD, UCLA, and UCSF. Getting into one of those would be fantastic!

 

[Siverhideo1985]

Boston?

 

[IDLess]

Boston?

Boston sounds like a great place, especially for a sports fan! I will most definitely look into it. Anything particularly interesting or outstanding about BU itself?

 

[witness23]

why don't you make a prelim list so we can pick at it like a stuffy nose.


while living in colorado would be cool, if you are not IS, it costs around 80k a year. not worth it.

 

[Aggro]

Boston sounds like a great place, especially for a sports fan! I will most definitely look into it. Anything particularly interesting or outstanding about BU itself?

BU itself has nothing outstanding about except for its location. If you enjoy research, then there a few interesting opportunities just based on its relationship with Boston Medical Center and Beth Israel Deaconess, but the actual school itself has little to offer that the UC's do not.

 

[witness23]

as someone who applied and interviewed MD/PhD at BU, I will add a bit here.


The location of BU is def of note. It is not located in the nicest part of Boston, and caters to a unique demographic through BMC. BMC is a pretty busy hospital and they have a philosophy of admitting patients "regardless of healthcare status".

BU's research ranking is 35 (and moving up) in terms on NIH research funding. They do have notable programs. They are building a new immunology core NEIDL, which will hopefully start by the time you are ready to enter medical school. The opening of the facility means new notable faculty. Obviously, they have a strong BME program in ties to their undergraduate school. A faculty from chemistry also was a co-winner for the Nobel last year I believe. Comparing to UCs, only 3 schools have better funding for research - UCSF, UCLA, UCSD. Note that UCSD is connected to the Scripps and Torrey Pines, each brining in a great amount of funding and research. If you are not MD/PhD, I really would not worry about research opportunities. You have the chance to perform research anywhere, as long as you are proactive in your search.

BU is notable for public and international health.

BU has extremely high cost of tuition and living.

The most impressive thing to me about BU was their people. I enjoyed meeting them, and they seem like my crowd. It is in a city with crappy sports teams (sorry I rep philly and new york) so they really have nothing to do but drink. Which is great. I believe the curriculum is Pass Fail.


Overall, BU was nice. I would recommend applying there, but if you feel that your app would get lost in their gigantic pile of 10k+ apps and not apply, you would receive quality education from any other medical schools that you may have the fortune of getting accepted at. Guessing that you are from Cali, your travel cost to Boston would be mucho.


Good luck