Help with med school list?

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
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<p>Hi everyone! I'm applying to medical school in June 2013, and would really appreciate some feedback on the school list I've put together. I'm an Asian female, CA resident, and am a junior at a top 25 university. </p>

<p>Overall, location and status are important selection factors for me. I would prefer to live somewhere urban and near either coast. In addition, I am not really focused on research but would still love to go to a top school. </p>

<p>1) UCSD
2) UCSF
3) UCLA
4) USC
5) UCI
6) UCD
7) UCR
8) Yale
9) Northwestern
10) Baylor
11) Columbia
12) UPenn
13) U Rochester
14) UConn
15) U Wisconsin
16) Tufts
17) U Maryland
18) U Vermont
19) SUNY Downstate
20) Rush</p>

<p>Here's some info about me:
cGPA: 3.66 (upward trend, expected 3.71 after next semester), sGPA: 3.52 (expected 3.57)
MCAT: 38 (PS13, VR13, BS12)</p>

<p>Leadership roles:
- VP of a cultural organization for 3 years
- Mentor to high school students for 3 years
- Mentor to a pre-med undergrad for 3 years
Clinical volunteer activities:
- Intern at a hospital for 280 hours in surgery, postpartum, ER, medsurge; includes some shadowing
Non-clinical activities:
- Helped at health fairs a couple times
- Writer for campus newspaper on pre-health topics for 3 years
- Member of pre-medical org for 3 years
- Play music at senior homes periodically
Research:
- Preventive medicine research for one semester (5-6 hours a week)
Shadowing:
- Shadowed at a private practice for one summer (10 hours a week)
- Shadowed different specialties at a children's hospital for one week, about 10 hours a day</p>

<p>How is my list? Is there a good amount of safeties, reaches, and target schools? Any schools I should add or remove? Thanks for your input!</p>

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<p>Any advice at all would be great!</p>

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<p>Can anyone help please?</p>

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<p>The top medical schools are very competitive and one needs good numbers and a bit of luck for admission. It appears that you are a strong candidate for medical school but your grades are a bit low, especially in the sciences and you do not have significant research experience.
This means that schools such as UCSF, UCLA, Yale, Penn and Columbia are reaches for you.
I suspect Northwestern and UCSD would also be reaches. Baylor tends to favor Texans and it might also be a reach. It would not surprise me if you were accepted to any of the above but I would not count on it. Do not know much about Rochester. I think you are very competitive at USC, UCI, UCD and Tufts. Rush, SUNY Downstate, U Conn, Wisconsin and Maryland all heavily favor residents. Do not know much about Vermont although they appear to take a lot of out of state students. Might you consider U of Oregon on the west coast and perhaps some private east coast schools such as Drexel, Jefferson, New York Medical for safeties and schools such as BU, Brown and Dartmouth as possible matches?</p>

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<p>Thank you so much for your reply! I really appreciate it. :)</p>

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<p>Do you think I should apply to more than 20 schools to get in with my stats?</p>

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<p>I think you will get into a few of those schools. but remember, applying for top schools are like crapshoot. Your gpa might be a red flag to the admission but if you have the chance to explain yourself in the app, please do that.</p>

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<p>dont know a lot about it, but on sdn, they have the lizzym score…perhaps run your numbers using that and see? the spreadsheet also has info about number of oos students, matriculants, number of applicants, interviews</p>

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<p>Here’s a version of the LizzyM worksheet, not sure if it’s the most recent:</p>

<p><a href=“Medical School Matriculants Data (SDN) - Google Sheets”>Medical School Matriculants Data (SDN) - Google Sheets;

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<p>Even though I have heard of LizzyM for many years, I still do not know whether its correct formula is GPA * 10 + MCAT, or GPA*10 + MCAT - 1?</p>

<p>It appears some SDNers were confused as well:</p>

<p>"The link above is to the thread that introduced the SDN medical school matriculant spreadsheet. For those who have downloaded this and use it, my question is why under the “Your Stats” tab is LizzyM score calculated as (GPA * 10) + (MCAT) - 1 while on the “Main Sheet” tab the LizzyM score is clearly calculated as just (GPA * 10) + (MCAT)?</p>

<p>Is there a reason for this? What is the correct formula?"</p>

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<p>I thought it was the forumula without the -1. But I got that from somewhere here, not directly from LizzyM.</p>

<p>Update: I downloaded the Excel file and went into the Your Stats sheet where it calculates the index. I entered a 4.0 for gpa and 30 MCAT and the index calculated 69. So at least using this spreadsheet it does use the -1.</p>

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<p>as there is so much pre entered info in the lizzym spreadsheet sure son would like to use it…but question…how much in general should mcat be adjusted if applying to md/phd… most of the averages i saw were about 2 points higher than straight md researching some schools…does that match what other think? ie if average mcat for md admission is 30, would 32 be a good estimate to use for mdphd?</p>

<p>when i put in gpa and one of the practice mcat scores it doesnt calculate a lizzym score, its just blank??</p>

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<p>You need to use the “Your stats” tab to calculate your LizzyM score.</p>

<p>(Also make sure you downloaded the full interactive version of the spreadsheet. If you just downloaded the public view version–it doesn’t run. To access the full version, you’ll need to sign into google docs.)</p>

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<p>i used the your stats tab, but just downloaded the one from the link up thread, didnt sign into google docs. thanks</p>

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<p>wowmom thanks that was the problem, works fine now and does take -1 off.</p>

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<p>TO OP: Forget Rush, add some of the Pennsylvania state schools-they accept a higher percentage of out-of-state applicants.</p>

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<p>Thank you for answering my question! :)</p>

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<p>Apples, I think your list needs some pretty serious rethinking. I’ve got a few thoughts for you.</p>

<p>1a.) Take this seriously. There are basically two ways to get rejected from medical school. The first is to to have bad numbers, and fortunately you have a strong MCAT score to compensate for the rest of your application, so overall I’d say you’re a little bit better than borderline in this respect. But the second way to get rejected is to pick your application list poorly. If you handle this end of things thoughtfully and realistically, I don’t see any reason why you should get rejected.</p>

<p>1b.) Do your research. You need to think hard about each school’s average MCAT and GPA, their in-state versus out-of-state preference, and above all their admissions percentage. We need to get you into a medical school, and it’s absolutely crucial to maximize your odds at each of the places you’re going to spend time and money on. Buy an MSAR and a subscription to US News’ listings of medical schools, and make yourself an Excel spreadsheet to track the relevant statistics for each of the schools you’re considering. Look through every single California school and every single private school in the country, and have a solid, quantifiable reason for the 25 to 30 schools you’ll eventually apply to. </p>

<p>1c.) In general, do not apply to out-of-state public schools. I know I’m repeating myself, but this is absolutely crucial and this instantly removes five of your schools. The extent to which they favor in-state applicants means that your odds will be very, very poor. This is just odds – you have to find the odds that favor you, and OOS publics will almost never qualify.</p>

<p>In sum, find medical schools that: (A) Don’t have abysmally low admissions percentages (this removes, for example, very popular schools like Georgetown); (B) Have an average index score among matriculants no higher than a 70 or MAYBE 72 if you’re feeling like a gamble; (C) You would be willing to attend; (D) Don’t favor in-state students, or at least still have a high admissions percentage for out-of-staters.</p>

<p>Fortunately you have plenty of time to do this; you won’t actually need to apply anywhere until May.</p>

<p>2.) California residents are in bad shape, so you need to apply broadly. This is particularly true of Asian American candidates, which is why I am being so negative with you. Your (excellent) MCAT score will help make up some of the problems with your GPA, your school (Berkeley or UCLA, it seems like), and your extracurriculars, but your demographics put you into a pretty bad spot to begin with. Again, this is why a thoughtful, broad-spectrum application is so crucial for somebody in your position.</p>

<p>3.) Don’t be geographically picky. You say you’re interested in attending school in an coastal, urban area. I was about to advise you to reconsider, but then I noticed that, geographically, your list is pretty flexible already. Rochester, Wisconsin, Vermont; Baylor, Northwestern, Rush.</p>

<p>This is a good thing. In general I tend to say that young people tend to overestimate the strength of their geographic preferences. “Oh, I could never live in the South.” “What, there, with all those hipsters and wannabe movie stars?” “I could never give up Chinese food.” “What is there to do there?” But it’s too early in the application process for that attitude – we just want to make sure you get in somewhere. Second, it’s too early in life! It’s good for folks our age to get outside of our expectations. I would NEVER have chosen to live in the cities I’ve gone to for school, but I’ve learned to love them.</p>

<p>For reasons that I’ve never understood, everybody LOVES study abroad (“Yay! Meet new people who have a different outlook on life!”) but hates studying in other parts of our own country (“Ugh! Meet new people who have a different outlook on life?!”). I certainly did when I was 18; I had to be forced to leave. But I’m so glad I was.</p>

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<p>Thank you for your very in-depth, organized, and extremely helpful reply. This will really help me rework my list.</p>

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<p>Overall, location and status are important selection factors for me.</p>

<p>I can understand that location might be important, but “status”??? The goal is to get accepted to at least one SOM. They’re all very good. </p>

<p>And since your GPA isn’t super and you’re an ORM, you need to apply without concern about “status.” </p>

<p>I think you should take off most/many of the OOS publics unless they are known for accepting a good number OOS kids. Many state SOMs either take NO OOS kids, or will only take some if they have a “tie” to the state or they’re MD/PhD. </p>

<p>there are no “safeties” for med school. That said, where are your non-top-raked privates??? Those would be the closest thing to safeties for you.</p>