MD CA ORM School List Help

[CatAttack]

Hey guys! I'm new here planning on applying this cycle. I know I'm way too top heavy and would love to hear any recommendations for adding or removing schools to better my chances. Thank you in advance for taking the time to review my post!

1. cGPA: 3.95, sGPA: 3.95
   
   
2. MCAT score: 520 (130/129/131/130)
   
   
3. State of residence or country of citizenship (if non-US): CA
   
   
4. Ethnicity and/or race: White (ORM)
   
   
5. Undergraduate institution: UCSD Biology
   
   
6. Clinical experience (volunteer and non-volunteer): 1500 hrs volunteering as an MA
   150 hrs underserved primary care volunteering
   
   
7. Research experience and productivity: 1500+ hours. 1 (mid author) pub, 1 (first author) in the works
   
   
8. Shadowing experience and specialties represented: 80+ hours in multiple specialties
   
   
9. Non-clinical volunteering: 200 hrs tutoring at low income HS (mainly tutored science)
   100 hrs Mentoring
   200 hrs TAing
   100 hrs club officer
   
   
10. Other extracurricular activities (including athletics, military service, gap year activities, leadership, teaching, etc): 2000 hrs minimum wage work, 150 hrs MCAT tutoring
11. Relevant honors or awards: College Honors
    
    
12. Anything else not listed you think might be important: 1st author paper probably won’t be submitted by the time I apply.

Current School List:
Stanford
UCSF
Yale
UCLA
UCSD
USC
UCI
Kaiser
Harvard
Johns Hopkins
Perelman
Columbia
Vanderbilt
Duke
NYU Grossman
Cornell
Mayo
UMich
Northwestern
Pritzker
Icahn
Emory
Einstein
Davis
Georgetown
Hofstra
Case
UCR
NYMC
CUSM

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[Faha]

Remove UCR unless you are from that region. You have a good list and should receive several interviews. You could add these schools:
Washington University (in St. Louis-almost a guaranteed interview with your stats)
Cincinnati
Jefferson
Pittsburgh
Rochester
Boston University
Tufts

 

[Mr.Smile12]

You don't have any service orientation activities listed, and you come across as wanting to be a teacher with so many hours of tutoring or teaching. I understand if you have to work to afford school, but tutoring and teaching alone doesn't help premeds stand out.

 

[CatAttack]

You don't have any service orientation activities listed, and you come across as wanting to be a teacher with so many hours of tutoring or teaching. I understand if you have to work to afford school, but tutoring and teaching alone doesn't help premeds stand out.

I wrote about my tutoring in a way that definitely emphasizes service orientation, but I agree that the activities themselves don’t stand out. Are there certain schools you’d recommend I remove from my list if that’s a concern?

 

[Mr.Smile12]

I wrote about my tutoring in a way that definitely emphasizes service orientation, but I agree that the activities themselves don’t stand out. Are there certain schools you’d recommend I remove from my list if that’s a concern?

Tutoring does not address distressed needs. I could give you slack if they had communication disorders or disabilities, but tutoring/teaching demonstrates your subject matter expertise (ie. an academic activity). It is not helping individuals with activities of daily living or addressing foundational needs such as food security, housing security, or financial security. I'm only going with the information you provided above as we don't have access to your AMCAS/AACOMAS (and for privacy purposes, you shouldn't share that information).

As a nation, we are in dire need of qualified teachers which I argue can make a greater impact to society at large. It's great to be the role model to younger children and encouraging them to go to college. But that's not what "service orientation" means whenever I have had such discussions with my faculty adcoms. Similarly we are in dire needs of nurses.

Read

Thought provoking op-ed and why community service to the vulnerable matters

This piece in the NYTimes is my gift to you. It gives a glimpse of the non-clinical issues that face physicians in 2024 and why, reflecting back on the advice I've given here over the years, non-clinical volunteering with the poor in America is very relevant to the practice of medicine...

forums.studentdoctor.net

Maybe your lived experience informs you about some effective non-profit/non-government organizations. Maybe you have participated or worked for them. If so, I don't see it above.