Waitlisted 21-22; do I reapply?

[amzer-zo_hasta-buan]

I am on waitlists for UHCOM, Long, UTMB, and U of Arizona Phoenix. Sent LOI to UTMB.

511 MCAT and 4.0 GPA, dual degree (Biology and African & African Diaspora Studies)
800 contact tracing volunteering hours as tracer and shift leader (which i was told count as clinical since we have patient contact over the phone) - may 20 to march 21
200 volunteering with hospice, direct contact w patient through weekly home visit (ongoing)
370 non-clinical volunteering hours
5000 hours leadership/employment (manager at restaurant, contracted ballet dancer w local company, organic chemistry TA) (ongoing)
1500 research (neurobio, biomedical engineering, psych/neuro with poster, contributed to paper published in JACC)
research fellowship at Dell Med this summer of 2021 (molecular bio cancer research)

one year later, still unable to get in person shadowing. Spoke with my mentor (dermatologist at Dell) who said he has no idea why i wasn't accepted and that they would never reject someone just for lack of shadowing (which I have a hard time believing, but it's still impossible to shadow right now!). So what is it?

I'm really at a loss. Everything I'm hearing says don't reapply in the cycle right after one where you didn't match because there's not enough time to improve your application. Can't scribe this summer because fellowship is full time - i'm not allowed to do anything concurrently.

Any advice? This has been incredibly demoralizing and draining, and I'm struggling to see the acceptance at the end of the proverbial tunnel.

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[TragicalDrFaust]

Your application looks strong. What was your school list like? As far as advice, it seems like you've done everything right. Your value as a person isn't based on whether you get into medical school on the first try. I would try to be patient. You've got a lot of WL which isn't the worst place to be. How do you think your interviews went?

 

[amzer-zo_hasta-buan]

Your application looks strong. What was your school list like? As far as advice, it seems like you've done everything right. Your value as a person isn't based on whether you get into medical school on the first try. I would try to be patient. You've got a lot of WL which isn't the worst place to be. How do you think your interviews went?

My interviews felt great and I'm not typically one to over-inflate a performance, lol. They felt really smooth and like I connected personally with the interviewers; a few even shared personal stories about their kids so ti felt like a genuine conversation. My school list was all TX schools, U of A Phoenix, BCM, and UChicago. Obviously those last two were reaches that I didn't really foresee getting into. I'm trying to stay in TX due to cost.

 

[wysdoc]

Hang in there, there have been very few Texas offers to WL people so far and I have seen (on SDN) none from your schools except 1 from UTMB yesterday.

TMDSAS application for next year opens to work on May 3rd but I hope you won't need it!

 

[amzer-zo_hasta-buan]

Hang in there, there have been very few Texas offers to WL people so far and I have seen (on SDN) none from your schools except 1 from UTMB yesterday.

TMDSAS application for next year opens to work on May 3rd but I hope you won't need it!

As always, I really appreciate your comments. I think I'm just trying to figure out, in the event that I don't get an A by May and the primary opens, what I should do. I would prefer not to wait until 22-23 to reapply, but I'm not sure my application will be different enough by May, and I don't know if that'll negatively impact my standing with those schools.

 

[wysdoc]

As always, I really appreciate your comments. I think I'm just trying to figure out, in the event that I don't get an A by May and the primary opens, what I should do. I would prefer not to wait until 22-23 to reapply, but I'm not sure my application will be different enough by May, and I don't know if that'll negatively impact my standing with those schools.

I think you can reapply this year, as your app looks strong and you have continued adding to it this year with research and volunteering.
You can work on it during May and hit submit in June, if you're trying not to have overlap between cycles.

 

[amzer-zo_hasta-buan]

I think you can reapply this year, as your app looks strong and you have continued adding to it this year with research and volunteering.
You can work on it during May and hit submit in June, if you're trying not to have overlap between cycles.

Thank you very very much for the input.

 

[drgoldenboy]

You can apply to 1 school initially to get your application approved by AMCAS and then add more schools later if you don't get in off of WL.

 

[amzer-zo_hasta-buan]

You can apply to 1 school initially to get your application approved by AMCAS and then add more schools later if you don't get in off of WL.

I think it works a little differently for TMDSAS, which is primarily what I used and will be using next cycle if it comes to that. But good to know! I'll just mentally prepare myself to reapply in case. Thank you for responding

 

[drgoldenboy]

I would also suggest asking @Goro and @Faha to help you craft a medical school list

 

[Goro]

I would also suggest asking @Goro and @Faha to help you craft a medical school list

The wise wysdoc knows the TX schools; I will defer to her expertise.