WAMC 3.81/522 ORM

[Jablynskinian]

Looking for advice on my school list. Both schools to add, and to drop. As you'll see below, I did poorly my freshman year and decided to pursue being a Radiologic Technologist rather than a Dr. because I didn't think I had it in me. This whole process has been a bit of a comeback story and I'm unsure if I should be aiming so high or if I should aim higher. Let me know what y'all think. I did cross post a similar post to reddit but have listened to their advice and changed this list a little.

MCAT: 522 (130/130/131/131) sGPA: 3.75 cGPA: 3.8
Freshman year (COVID) I performed very poorly and pass/failed 6 classes and still finished with a 3.4. My last 30 credit hours have been a 4.0.

UG: UNC Chapel Hill

Volunteering: 220 hours - 40 hours at COVID testing site on campus, 20 hours playing music at hospital for patients, 160 hours passing out tea to inpatients and cuddling babies. No straight up non-clinical volunteering. Primary reason I volunteered at the hospital is that it was easier to volunteer at night when I wasn’t doing MRI/X-ray clinicals.

Research: 200 hours - No pubs, essentially spent 200 hours doing data analysis and assisting multiple papers either looking at MRIs or running analyses through linux based tools. Definitely the weakest part of my application. Talked to my PI and I’ll be writing a paper on some of the data I ran analyses on. Hopefully published before the end of the year.

Clinical Experience: 4000 hours - 2500 hours of X-Ray and MRI clinical training.
1500 hours of being an MRI tech by the time I apply, will be 3500 by the time I matriculate. Hoping this is makes my application stand out.

Leadership: 40 hours - Treasurer for a small imaging club, not the greatest experience and not a lot happened. I think it was great that we provided a community to students that were interested in applying to the X-ray program that they might not have had otherwise. Also got them to shadow at UNC.

Shadowing: 40 hours - Shadowed an outpatient pediatrician. Really enjoyable experience, I'll probably shadow a few more times before I apply with a Radiologist and perhaps a surgeon.

LOR: 6
MD I shadowed (STRONG)
Orgo Prof
English Prof
MRI Prof (STRONG)
Volunteer Coordinator (STRONG)
Lab Mentor

Hobbies: Guitar, outdoorsy stuff (fishing, backpacking, hunting)

Demographics: White Male, not disadvantaged, NC resident with KY ties.

School List: 27 schools - Need to narrow this quite a bit, would ideally like to apply to between 20-25
University of Kentucky
University of Louisville
ECU
Wake Forest
West Virginia University
Vermont
Virginia Tech
Quinnipiac
VCU
UNC Chapel Hill
Tufts
Miami Miller
Hackensack
Dartmouth
U Cincinnati
Emory
Albert Einstein
Brown
Boston University
Hofstra
UVA
Reach:
Icahn
Case Western
Mayo Clinic
Washington University in St. Louis
Vanderbilt
Columbia

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[Mr.Smile12]

What are your NC/KY ties? Which state have you been a rad tech the longest? How long since you graduated from college?

When did your take your rad tech courses? What upper level biomed courses have you taken?

 

[Jablynskinian]

I'm an NC resident and I lived in Kentucky for 14 years. All of my family is from Kentucky so I have a strong support network there. I graduated last year. I've only been a rad tech for the last year, all of that time being here in NC. All my rad tech courses were taken from fall 2021 to spring 2023. I've taken all the prereqs for med school. Only biomed course I've taken outside of that was a high level bio course about CRISPR, taught by faculty who uses CRISPR for their research.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

You should fit in some community service oriented activities (food distribution, shelter volunteer, job/tax preparation, transportation services, or housing rehabilitation).

The lack of other upper level biomedical science courses might be an issue but I don't know what other courses you took to finish your undergrad. It seems you would do well in biochemistry (a prerequisite). What you took in those last 30 hours for the 4.0 could be scrutinized closely.

 

[Jablynskinian]

You should fit in some community service oriented activities (food distribution, shelter volunteer, job/tax preparation, transportation services, or housing rehabilitation).

The lack of other upper level biomedical science courses might be an issue but I don't know what other courses you took to finish your undergrad. It seems you would do well in biochemistry (a prerequisite). What you took in those last 30 hours for the 4.0 could be scrutinized closely.

This is good advice. I do need to work some service hours in. I essentially finished out my premed requirements in the last 30 hours. I took both Orgos with labs, biochemistry, statistics, an english course, and the CRISPR course. That in addition to a whole semester of Radiologic Science 4.0, so I miscalculated a little, it's 35 hours of 4.0, with 20 of those being prerequisites.

 

[Faha]

You could remove West Virginia, Quinnipiac and Vermont since they will probably "yield protect" with your stats. You should receive several interviews from the other schools on your list.

 

[Jablynskinian]

You could remove West Virginia, Quinnipiac and Vermont since they will probably "yield protect" with your stats. You should receive several interviews from the other schools on your list.

Thanks, I had those schools on before I got my MCAT. Those will be good ones to trim.