WAMC/School List Help/ORM/3.87/523/

[hillbillybuck]

Hey everyone,
I’m working on my school list for this upcoming cycle and am kind of stuck and would love some advice. Ideally, I’d apply to around 30ish schools. I used the wedgedog calculator to make a preliminary list then added some OOS-friendly schools from locations I wouldn’t mind going to. Right now this list is way too top heavy obviously and too long so I was wondering which reach schools would you guys recommend cutting and what lower tier schools should I add?

Stats:
GPA: 3.87, ~3.83stem, upward grade trend
MCAT: 523 (131/129/131/132)
ORM (caucasian), WA resident
Biology major
Went to University of Washington (currently in gap year)
Clinical: ER tech - 1200 hours (3220 at matriculation)
Non-clinical volunteering: Crisis Text Line counselor - 300 hours (500 at matriculation)
Clinical volunteering: 60 hours at annual free healthcare clinic for those without access to healthcare; mostly treating homeless and immigrant populations (90 at matriculation)
Leadership: volunteer coach of two Special Olympics sports teams - 50 hours (100 at matriculation)
Research: 200 hours - 2 projects (had to abandon first project after 6 months because post doc mentor left lab, then begun work on a different project under a new post doc which I did for three months before graduating), no pubs or posters. Due to my mentor leaving then me graduating, the projects were not very fruitful.
Shadowing: ~70 hours
Work: 3 years part-time as a paid undergraduate lab assistant doing stocking, ordering regeants, etc. Also worked 3 years part-time assisting with animal studies for a biotech group. This involved me assisting in rodent surgeries involving inducing infarction in cardiac tissues and subsequently harvesting that tissue after treatment therapies (I merely assisted the animal surgeon who did these things), daily injections in rodents during study periods, feeding pigs used for pig studies, etc. Not particularly sure how to classify this last job as I was assisting in the research by doing these things but was not involved in any planning, data collection, etc. and in no way did I have any control over the project or significant role in the project (currently have classified as paid work experience, not research).
Other: was in a fraternity sophomore through senior year. Did not hold any leadership positions. Not planning on putting this on my application unless it is recommended I should.
No X factor, unique hobbies, or awards (aside from dean’s list sophomore through senior year)

Current school list:
University of Washington
Washington state university
Boston university
Georgetown
Stanford
UC San Fran
WashU
Duke
Columbia
University of Chicago
NYU
UCLA
Northwestern
Cornell
University of Michigan
Mount sinai
USC
Dartmouth
Drexel
George Washington
Case western reserve
Florida Atlantic university
Eastern Virginia
Emory
Kaiser
Temple
Loyola university
Mayo
Wisconsin
New York medical college
Nova
Oakland university
Penn State
Saint Louis
UC Irvine
University of Vermont
Thomas Jefferson
Brown
Tufts
Tulane
University of Illinois
University of maryland
University of miami
University of Pittsburgh
Vanderbilt
Wake forest

Thanks a ton for any help you guys can provide!

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[AJS59]

On the whole you seem pretty well situated; one thing worth noting though is that some schools may not give a lot of weight to your crisis text line volunteering because it is online. See if you can get some hours at a place like a soup kitchen, food pantry, etc. to demonstrate commitment to in-person service.

For these reasons I would recommend removing Saint Louis and Loyola; both lean very heavily into several hundred (sometimes thousands!) of hours of in person service. I would also consider removing Maryland (not very OOS friendly) and Illinois (very expensive OOS).

Otherwise your list looks okay. You should be well-positioned for getting an interview out of Washington at least.

 

[hillbillybuck]

On the whole you seem pretty well situated; one thing worth noting though is that some schools may not give a lot of weight to your crisis text line volunteering because it is online. See if you can get some hours at a place like a soup kitchen, food pantry, etc. to demonstrate commitment to in-person service.

For these reasons I would recommend removing Saint Louis and Loyola; both lean very heavily into several hundred (sometimes thousands!) of hours of in person service. I would also consider removing Maryland (not very OOS friendly) and Illinois (very expensive OOS).

Otherwise your list looks okay. You should be well-positioned for getting an interview out of Washington at least.

Thank you for the response! I really appreciate the advice. I definitely agree in regards to Crisis Textline. There is a local food bank in my area I could volunteer at. Do you think adcoms would look down on me starting an activity this late, or do the positives outweigh the negatives since I would have such limited in-person non-clinical volunteering otherwise?

 

[AJS59]

Thank you for the response! I really appreciate the advice. I definitely agree in regards to Crisis Textline. There is a local food bank in my area I could volunteer at. Do you think adcoms would look down on me starting an activity this late, or do the positives outweigh the negatives since I would have such limited in-person non-clinical volunteering otherwise?

If they look down on it at all it's better than not doing it period.

 

[Faha]

You could remove Oakland, Wake Forest, Penn State, Drexel, NOVA, Eastern Virginia and Florida Atlantic since they will "yield protect" with your stats. UC Irvine admits very few non residents

 

[hillbillybuck]

You could remove Oakland, Wake Forest, Penn State, Drexel, NOVA, Eastern Virginia and Florida Atlantic since they will "yield protect" with your stats. UC Irvine admits very few non residents

Thanks a ton for the input! I will remove all of those from my list. I feel as if my app is in a bit of an awkward spot where I am a high-stat applicant, but my ECs are lacking in terms of getting into top schools. I feel like this puts me into a situation where I'm not quite competitive enough for those top schools but am also going to get yield protected by lower-yield schools (hence why I'm shooting for a large-ish school list). Anyways, thanks again for the help!

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Thank you for the response! I really appreciate the advice. I definitely agree in regards to Crisis Textline. There is a local food bank in my area I could volunteer at. Do you think adcoms would look down on me starting an activity this late, or do the positives outweigh the negatives since I would have such limited in-person non-clinical volunteering otherwise?

Some schools may be more skeptical if you started so soon to an application cycle, but it's better than having none. Trust the process otherwise.

... I feel as if my app is in a bit of an awkward spot where I am a high-stat applicant, but my ECs are lacking in terms of getting into top schools. I feel like this puts me into a situation where I'm not quite competitive enough for those top schools but am also going to get yield protected by lower-yield schools (hence why I'm shooting for a large-ish school list). Anyways, thanks again for the help!

You need to decide what is important for you: being an average applicant for a brand school (which you aren't necessarily there without the hours, so-called X factor, or the mission fit) or getting into a "lower tier" school who will accept your profile for what it is (because your mission fit aligns).

Get your list down to 30 schools.

 

[LunaOri]

UMass is OOS friendly to high-stats applicants, so that can replace one of the “unfriendly” schools.

 

[hillbillybuck]

Some schools may be more skeptical if you started so soon to an application cycle, but it's better than having none. Trust the process otherwise.

You need to decide what is important for you: being an average applicant for a brand school (which you aren't necessarily there without the hours, so-called X factor, or the mission fit) or getting into a "lower tier" school who will accept your profile for what it is (because your mission fit aligns).

Get your list down to 30 schools.

That makes sense. Thank you for the advice, I will work on trimming the list down.