WAMC/School List, Reapplicant 3.71 GPA/515 MCAT ORM

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Potential reapplicant here. Hoping for some feedback on why this cycle hasn’t gone well, if you think I am ready to reapply, and potential school lists/ types of schools I should or shouldn’t apply to.

I am not sure if I can reapply this year or if I would greatly benefit from waiting a year, doing a post-bac and volunteering.


I spent my gap year working as a clinical research coordinator and medical assistant in an allergy/immunology practice.

cGPA: 3.71, sGPA: 3.60 aoGPA 4.00

(First two years in community college and last two at T20 undergraduate- gpa per year from freshman to senior: 3.55, 4.00, 3.47, 3.75)

MCAT: 515 (130/130/126/129)
CA resident
Asian & white
T10 undergraduate

I included my hours at the time of my first application and my projected hours upon reapplying in this format: (2023 hours | 2024 hours)
Clinical experience (660 hrs in 2023 | 1650 hrs in 2024):
- EMT (500 hrs/ 500 hrs). for a private ambulance company mainly doing IFT (Los Angeles)
- Physical therapy aide (150 hrs | 150 hrs). working with pediatric sports medicine patients (Oakland, CA)
- Medical assistant allergy/immunology (10 hrs | 1000 hrs). (los angeles)


Research experience (70 hrs in 2023 | 1520 hrs in 2024).
- Clinical Research coordinator (50 hrs | 1500 hrs). working on immunological biological therapies mostly phase 4 trials but much involvement in one phase 3 trial. (los angeles)
- Research assistant (20 hrs | 20 hrs). looking at health literacy within a safety net hospital orthopedic clinic. Lots of exposure to non-English speaking and low SES patients. (long beach, CA)

Shadowing (70 hrs in 2023 | 110 hrs in 2024). Emergency medicine, allergy/ immunology, pediatrics

Non-clinical volunteering (70 hrs in 2023 | 120 hrs in 2024). (not too much official or consistent volunteering that I would be able to report on aamcas)
- Volunteering within my church (70 hrs | 120 hrs). Mainly helping out with pastoral conferences and volunteering within the welcome center


Other extracurricular activities (3360 hrs in 2023 | 3410 hours in 2024).
- Starbucks barista (2000 hrs | 2000 hrs).
- Campus Fellowship (800 hrs | 800 hrs). Leadership in small group format, training for campus flyering/evangelism.
- Various athletic hobbies (560 hrs | 800 hrs). climbing, soccer, spartan races, backpacking held various coordinating, training and leadership rolls independently

-NEW videography (0/ 50hrs) made documentaries detailing the lives of people I met while backpacking and the outdoor experience.




I applied broadly to 36 schools and submitted most of my secondaries in July/August (a few in October). 1 IIs (Western University DO), 1 WLs. Is the issue with my school list?


Secondaries I sent in last cycle: TUFTS, Wake Forest, Albert Einstein, Sidney Kimmel, Kaiser Perm, Geisinger, UCSD, MCW, Drexel, Loma Linda, University of Michigan, University of Vermont, Emory, Saint Louis, USC, Cooper, Case Western, Creighton, UCLA, Penn state, Vanderbilt, Western Pomona/Lebanon, Quinnipiac, UCI, University of Minnesota, UCD, Rosalind Franklin, UCSF

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[Fluidity of Movement]

Not An Expert:

I think you would be OK to reapply this year if you hammer out some non-clinical volunteering hours starting now and through part of the summer. But even still you are planning only 120 hours even by next year? That's still below the "minimum" of 150. It's not a numbers game, but in comparison to the rest of the hours you posted this is a big discrepancy IMO.

It seems like you are putting numbers in the wrong places. I feel like that may have come through in your app. Many schools are mission minded and you don't need thousands of clinical hours and research. Having 1500 research hours and 120 volunteer hours is a big, big signal.

70 hours is also plenty for your shadowing. If you do wait until next year would only add one or two more just to show continued interest, or if you find a really cool opportunity you are interested in.



Would get some professional assistance with your AMCAS writing, and work on non-clinical volunteering hours and reapply this summer.

Congratulations on your great MCAT, and I know Cali is rough!

 

[Med Ed]

It's the non-clinical volunteering. Your time management skills look very good, but your time prioritization strategy needs work.

I find it helpful to organize the ECs by time invested:

7050 Total (the equivalent of 3.5 years of full-time work)
2000 Barista
1500 Clinical research coordinator
1000 Medical assistant
800 Campus fellowship
800 Athletic endeavors
500 EMT
150 PT aide
120 Non-clinical volunteering
110 Shadowing
50 Videography
20 Research assistant

Only 1.7% of your EC time was spent on non-clinical volunteering. The hours you do have were spent with your church, and I daresay that helping out with pastoral conferences and sitting in the welcome center doesn't sound like something outside your comfort zone. Some committees may therefore determine that you have zero meaningful non-clinical volunteering, which is usually an app-killer.

This pattern of heavy clinical/research with scant service/volunteering is not uncommon, and probably the single biggest reason applicants with solid metrics end up empty handed.

 

[chilly_md]

Moved to WAMC.

Additionally, some of the schools on the list take few OOS students without ties to the state or are not from the region:

Geisinger
Cooper
Minnesota

Michigan and Vanderbilt were reaches and the CA schools are very competitive.

If you gain 200 hours of non-clinical volunteering (think homeless shelter, local soup kitchen, food bank, working with refugees), I suggest applying to:

Tufts
Wake Forest
Albert Einstein
Rochester
Hofstra
Sidney Kimmel
Drexel
Temple
MCW
University of Vermont
Saint Louis
Creighton
Quinnipiac
UCI
UCD
CUSM
Rosalind Franklin
Dartmouth
Colorado
Nova MD
USF
Miami
VCU
EVMS
Wayne State
Oakland
Hackensack
Belmont (when it opens)
Western Michigan

For DO, I suggest:

Western
Touro CA
Touro NV
KCU
PCOM
DMU