MD & DO WAMC (3.46 cGPA, 3.73 sGPA, 509 MCAT, military, older non-trad)

[SISUAT]

Updated to reflect MCAT score. Thank you to everyone for your feedback and guidance!

1. cGPA: 3.46; sGPA: 3.73; Post-bac: 4.0 (3.9 if you factor in military coursework from ILE); Masters: 3.99 (Biomedical Engineering)
2. MCAT: 509
3. State of residence: North Carolina
4. White
5. West Point (Undergrad was in International Relations and International Law)
6. Clinical experience: 2000+ paid hours as a 911 Paramedic. 500 hours as an EMT-B.
7. Research experience: 250 hours. All fieldwork. Publication won't be for a few years due to the nature of the research.
8. Shadowing experience: 36 hours. All EM.
9. Non-clinical volunteering: Started a local chapter for a stillbirth awareness/ support/ provider education organization. CPR instruction for the National Scout Jamboree.
10. Other extracurricular activities: 13+ years of military service. Special Operations Civil Affairs. Lots of community engagement, refugee, clinic rehabilitation program work abroad for the US military, to include coordinating with the UN sectors for Syrian IDP camps. MSF Motorcycle Coach. Technical Diver. Private pilot.
11. Relevant honors or awards: Eagle Scout. Several awards from undergrad in Social Science. 1st place in NCSU's eGames for efforts to develop a pathway to market for a compact junctional tourniquet. Audience choice award for a dose-limiting syringe invention pitch. Patent pending on same.
12. Anything else not listed you think might be important: I'm an older applicant in my mid-30's. My post-bac coursework plans were derailed by COVID. I was attending a community college near DC as I was simultaneously attending a military course away from home. With COVID, I was recalled to my home station and had to withdraw from the courses. AAMC then rescheduled my MCAT to a date right in the middle of a deployment to Afghanistan. Despite what AAMC says on their website, there were no MCAT testing centers in Afghanistan during the summer and fall of 2020. I would have loved to have just done a formal post-bac, but I had a service obligation to the military. Lastly, my wife is a med student at a local med school and we have a one year old. Should I mention these last two factors in my application or would it hurt my chances?

School list:
UNC
Duke (Doubt I have the stats)
Wake Forest
ECU
Campbell
USUHS
Georgetown
VCU
Eastern Tennessee
Drexel
Emory
Dartmouth
GWU
Temple
Vermont
Rutgers (went to high school in NJ)
Brown
UAB (went to elementary and middle school in AL)
UF
USF
Vanderbilt
WVU


Any help towards building out my school list would be greatly appreciated. I'll update my final MCAT once I get my score back. Unfortunately, I have to submit my school list prior to knowing my score, so I'm providing a FL average. I expect to score around a 510 at this point.

Thank you for any and all help!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[theoceanman]

Once you get your MCAT score, that's when people can give you a school list; update this post and bump it once you do. If you are scoring 510 flat, Duke will be a high reach and unlikely. Hopefully your MCAT will result in a higher score!

 

[SISUAT]

Aquafied, how locked in are my schools with AMCAS when I submit my application? I'll be submitting pre-MCAT score. Will I be able to add after the submission deadline once I get my MCAT back?

 

[theoceanman]

Aquafied, how locked in are my schools with AMCAS when I submit my application? I'll be submitting pre-MCAT score. Will I be able to add after the submission deadline once I get my MCAT back?

You can add schools after you get your score back, although it may take some time to re-verify your primary application. Many applicants do this when they take their MCAT in late April/May. It will also cost you a bit as well.

 

[SISUAT]

Thank you for the clarification!

 

[theoceanman]

Best of luck future doctor!

 

[fliip]

You can add schools after you get your score back, although it may take some time to re-verify your primary application. Many applicants do this when they take their MCAT in late April/May. It will also cost you a bit as well.

To be clear, your application does not have to get “re-verified” after your score comes in, rather the score just gets added to your application. This is an important distinction because the AMCAS verification process can take a long time depending on when you submit your app. For example, if you submit the first day, it could take as little as 24 hours to be verified/processed, but if you submit even a week or two or three after submission opens, it could take a couple weeks to 1 month+ to be verified (this can still be ok, since even processed applications don’t start being transmitted to schools until about a month after submission opens). The timeline for verification goes up exponentially the longer you wait to submit though, so it is to your advantage to submit as early as possible.

For those waiting on an MCAT score, it is often suggested to submit your app to one school just to get the AMCAS verification process started and then once you receive your score you can add more schools and they will receive your full application almost immediately (so have your secondaries prepped!). You can add schools on AMCAS all the way up to the schools’ deadlines. Two reasons to use this strategy would be 1. Cost and 2. To avoid being a re-applicant – for example, if you get your MCAT score back and decide not to go through with the app cycle, you will be out a lot of money if you submitted to many schools, and if you try again in another cycle, you will be considered a re-applicant to any schools you submitted your primary to (FWIW, I don’t think people should worry so much about the “Re-applicant” title, esp when the reason is simply that you decided to back out so you could retake the MCAT).

^I would suggest this strategy to you, especially considering your geographic restrictions (a lower MCAT could close doors at some of your listed schools and that would be a shame because the rest of your app seems very strong IMO). I hope you get the score you are hoping for AND if you don’t, you could consider sitting out this cycle and betting on yourself that you could score higher with a little more studying and then apply again next year. If the cost of the app is not a consideration, or if your timeline favors starting med school ASAP, or if being in NC isn't so important, then definitely shoot your shot this cycle and apply broadly regardless of your score.

I apologize for the long post, but I think some of these details (especially re: timing and submission strategy) are often misunderstood and I was certainly naïve to a lot of the nuances when I was applying.

It sounds like you have quite the story to tell, and I am wishing the best for you!!! Thank you for your service.

 

[theoceanman]

To be clear, your application does not have to get “re-verified” after your score comes in, rather the score just gets added to your application. This is an important distinction because the AMCAS verification process can take a long time depending on when you submit your app. For example, if you submit the first day, it could take as little as 24 hours to be verified/processed, but if you submit even a week or two or three after submission opens, it could take a couple weeks to 1 month+ to be verified (this can still be ok, since even processed applications don’t start being transmitted to schools until about a month after submission opens). The timeline for verification goes up exponentially the longer you wait to submit though, so it is to your advantage to submit as early as possible.

I'm not talking about when the OP gets his MCAT score back, that processes automatically.

I'm talking about when the OP decides to add more schools after they already submitted their primary application and got it verified, especially if their MCAT was either lower or higher than the expected 510 score since that could completely change a school list. It takes additional time to process that since you're putting through the AMCAS process once again when you add more schools since it takes a few days or even weeks for the secondaries to come in from those schools. You can change your information to some extent, such as contact information, and this takes time to verify regardless of whether you changed it or not. AMCAS charged me around $90 additionally after I submitted to add more schools on and took around two weeks to receive secondaries even though it was already released by early to mid-July.

 

[SISUAT]

@fliip. Wow! Thank you for the post! I really appreciate the time and the feedback you provided to shed some additional light on application strategies.

I agree with your recommended approach. For this cycle, I definitely plan on focusing on NC schools. That's not to say that I won't apply outside of NC. But, an out of state acceptance equates to a year I have to spend away from my wife and daughter (she'll be an MS4 when I'm an MS1). This simplifies things on her end though, as she'll apply to residencies wherever I get into med school. Because of this, areas with a higher concentration of residency opportunities will drive where I apply out of state (DC or ATL seem to make the most sense). I don't 100% know about how I feel raising a little one in NYC or Boston.

If I don't get in locally, then I can retake the MCAT and reapply (assuming I don't get a desired score). This opens up additional options, but also complicates things further. In this scenario, I'll be largely limited to where my wife gets into residency. I doubt that I'll have an acceptance in hand by the time she has to finalize her match, but I'm not 100% sure on how the timelines would line up. The alternative is spending 3 years apart. That's a deal breaker.

This brings me back to a nagging concern: how much do I mention my personal situation during interviews and in my AMCAS application? I fear that some schools may think that having a young kid and a spouse in medical school may be an overall negative.

Either way, aquafied and flip, you both rock.

 

[SISUAT]

Updated to reflect MCAT and current school list. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

 

[Mr.Smile12]

1. Lastly, my wife is a med student at a local med school and we have a one year old. Should I mention these last two factors in my application or would it hurt my chances?

Now that we have an MCAT score.

Hurt your chances? I would have checked in with admissions months ago, maybe had the "Early Decision" conversation before the cycle. (Maybe you can ask now that you have an MCAT.) You're military/veteran with a lot of experience and a family. Yes, there are safeguards, but medical schools don't want to split families up if they are able.

You have to be truthful. The challenge is that you shouldn't apply to schools that are time zones away from your family given that you have such a small child. As I said, no one wants to break up a family. Stay within reasonable driving distance.