My questions:
- what clinical jobs would make my story more compelling?
- I’m leaning towards taking a few months off to study for the MCAT. If I can swing this, would you advise for or against?
- what gaps in my experiences/potential application do you see?
- Any general advice?
- I am also surprised that your medical assisting job wasn't considered clinical by the person you chatted with (typically, these roles are). I understand why some people don't consider research assisting/coordinating clinical, as it's often purely administrative, so it's risky to rely on those hours to check the "clinical" tickbox. If you have experience medical assisting, you could try to get another medical assisting job at a free/community clinic; this shows a bit more commitment to underserved communities than working in a derm office. Other common options for paid clinical experience include medical interpretation (could be a great option for you with your dual language skills), phlebotomy, EMT, CNA, and scribing.
- Taking a few months off for the MCAT is neither positive nor negative if you don't need the income. You could take a full-length practice test or two prior to making that decision and see if you really need to dedicate full-time study for several months. You need to make the call based on your goals/progress.
A word of caution about May MCAT dates: if you don't get a score you like after a May MCAT, you're stuck either applying late in the cycle after a retake (very inadvisable, applicants who apply later are typically much less successful than those who apply early) or you'll have to push back your entire cycle a year while you plan for your retake. If you're OK pushing your cycle back a year should you not get the score you need, then a May MCAT is fine.
- Your lack of nonclincial community service hours is a major gap that you need to fix before you apply. You should aim to have 200+ hours of community service by the time you submit. Most of the applicants you're competing against will have several hundred hours in this category.
- You are also missing physician shadowing, which you should do outside the context of your work. 60-80 hours is fine.
- Many medical schools only require LORs from science faculty, not physicians. The exception is DO schools - some DO programs want a LOR from a DO. With your GPAs, you should be applying DO irrespective of your MCAT score, so make sure you're able to get a few more letters from science faculty as well as a DO physician. If one of those derm letters was your supervisor, keep that on hand in case a school asks for a supervisor/mentor letter.
