School list help!! (MD ORM, cGPA 3.89, sGPA 3.86, 511 MCAT)

[deus_dominus]

Hi guys!! I am making this post to get help with making my school list as I get ready to apply for this upcoming cycle! Any feedback on my school list or what I should do for my application would be amazing. Thanks in advance!!!

Stats/Background

State: Maryland, ORM (AA), graduating senior from public state school
cGPA: 3.89 sGPA: 3.86
MCAT Score(s): 511 (127/129/127/128)


Clinical Experience

• Anesthesia Tech = 124 hours
• PPCU volunteer = ~75 hours by apps (projected 150-200 hours)

Shadowing

• Anesthesia = 8 hours
• General Surgery = 12 hours
• Family Medicine = +16 hours (has not happened yet, but is scheduled and will likely have more dates planned because I am interested in this specialty)
• Virtual Shadowing = +20 hours (more by apps)

Research Experience

• Psychology Research Assistant, no pubs/posters = 325 hours
• another psychology RA position = 75 hours

Non-clinical volunteering

• non-profit focused on poverty = +100 hours by apps, long term from pre-COVID (not sure of any additional projected hours yet since I will likely be moving back home further away after graduation, but I want to keep being involved if I can)
• Environmental/urban farming work = 32 hours

Other extracurricular activities (including athletics, military service, gap year activities, leadership, teaching, etc)

• paid Ops Assistant for diagnostic lab = +400 hours by apps
• 2 leadership positions in cultural club = likely +800 hours total, spent a lot of time in this club, related to my AA identity
• Study abroad in Taiwan in winter
• Intern at ethnic studies center at other institution

Relevant honors or awards

• Scholarship from my minor department
• inducted in leadership fraternity

School List:

MD

• Maryland (obviously lol)
• Medical College of Wisconsin
• Wake Forest
• Wayne State
• VCU
• Cooper Medical Rowan
• Tufts
• Sidney Kimmel
• Georgetown
• GW
• Penn State
• U of Miami
• The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University
• Albany
• Quinnipiac U
• Chapel Hill
• Albert Einstein
• Dartmouth
• Cornell
• Cincinatti
• U of Michigan

This school list was just thrown together and very based on MSAR. I have done some research on schools on mission-fit/OOS-friendly, but not all of them

General Inquiries:

• Planning to do 25-35 schools. Mainly considering schools that are East coast and Midwest for proximity, but I don’t mind some West coast schools if they mission-match me. Also want P/F grading and I think I should apply to more DO schools, but not sure what other schools I should consider yet (I have Rowan, TouroCOM-NY, CCOM, Des Moines, Lincoln Memorial if anyone knows about that, but if not no worries, may post in other forum).
• Would appreciate any red flags/concerns that I should focus on. I do think my clinical is somewhat lacking, so I have been actively trying to find a clinical job that I can start May, maybe add to my app with projected hours and then can talk about in my secondaries/interviews (fingers crossed*).

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[chilly_md]

Try to get more clinical and non-clinical hours. Can you get another job as an technician? You had done that for 124 hours and it would have been a good thing to continue unless you had to move or the employer wasn’t the best. Did you have a lot more hours per-COVID at the non-profit? The farming one doesn’t really fit as you want to be helping underserved populations and those less fortunate. Ideally this should be up close instead of administrative too.

For your school list, do not apply to Cooper Rowan, Brown (they take their own students + other Ivy grads), Chapel Hill, Cornell, Cincinnati or Michigan. These take few OOS students m and/or you are not a fit stats wise. DO wise, the schools you mentioned are good except Lincoln Memorial. They have problems and that school is usually not recommended to applicants.

Consider adding:
EVMS
Hackensack
TCU
Oakland
Saint Louis
Creighton
NYMC
Drexel
Temple
NOVA MD
Tulane
Vermont
Loyola
West Virginia (maybe, if you are interested in rural primary care. It could help that MD border West Virginia)

DO:
Marian
PCOM
KCU
KCOM
CUSOM
NYITCOM
LECOM

Not sure which ones are P/F but that can be a secondary thing to look at if you get multiple acceptances.

Some of these schools are very service-oriented in their mission (Loyola and Creighton for example), so hopefully you have 400 or more hours at the non-profit.

 

[deus_dominus]

Try to get more clinical and non-clinical hours. Can you get another job as an technician? You had done that for 124 hours and it would have been a good thing to continue unless you had to move or the employer wasn’t the best. Did you have a lot more hours per-COVID at the non-profit? The farming one doesn’t really fit as you want to be helping underserved populations and those less fortunate. Ideally this should be up close instead of administrative too.

For your school list, do not apply to Cooper Rowan, Brown (they take their own students + other Ivy grads), Chapel Hill, Cornell, Cincinnati or Michigan. These take few OOS students m and/or you are not a fit stats wise. DO wise, the schools you mentioned are good except Lincoln Memorial. They have problems and that school is usually not recommended to applicants.

Consider adding:
EVMS
Hackensack
TCU
Oakland
Saint Louis
Creighton
NYMC
Drexel
Temple
NOVA MD
Tulane
Vermont
Loyola
West Virginia (maybe, if you are interested in rural primary care. It could help that MD border West Virginia)

DO:
Marian
PCOM
KCU
KCOM
CUSOM
NYITCOM
LECOM

Not sure which ones are P/F but that can be a secondary thing to look at if you get multiple acceptances.

Some of these schools are very service-oriented in their mission (Loyola and Creighton for example), so hopefully you have 400 or more hours at the non-profit.

Thank you so much for the help with the school list!! And yes that makes sense to look at more after secondaries.

Unfortunately, I started volunteering at the non-profit a couple of months before COVID-19, so I have not been able to rack up more hours. If I am able to do it during my gap year, it would lead to +200 so I will probably just remove those schools then.

For the tech position, it was only for the summer back near home and a volunteer position, so it was not something I could continue once classes started unfortunately (also was not as knowledgeable in the past, definitely wish I tried to continue if I had known better). Also the technician job did not have much patient interactions, although it was very heavy on working in a healthcare team.
Would clinical research jobs be a better option? I have been trying to get more clinical research jobs as I am interested and I think it would better prepare me.

 

[chilly_md]

Thank you so much for the help with the school list!! And yes that makes sense to look at more after secondaries.

Unfortunately, I started volunteering at the non-profit a couple of months before COVID-19, so I have not been able to rack up more hours. If I am able to do it during my gap year, it would lead to +200 so I will probably just remove those schools then.

For the tech position, it was only for the summer back near home and a volunteer position, so it was not something I could continue once classes started unfortunately (also was not as knowledgeable in the past, definitely wish I tried to continue if I had known better). Also the technician job did not have much patient interactions, although it was very heavy on working in a healthcare team.
Would clinical research jobs be a better option? I have been trying to get more clinical research jobs as I am interested and I think it would better prepare me.

That’s understandable, yeah then take off those ones. I would recommend a scribe job or some other paid employment in a hospital since clinical research sometimes doesn’t have a lot of patient interaction depending on the exact study going on. But if you find one where you’re working with patients directly (taking histories, talking with them to see how their treatment is going for a clinical trial etc), that would be good