<p>Rising senior at a top 15-20 university. 4.00 GPA w/ double major (Math/Chem.) and 35 MCAT. No research experience but good everything else (EC/Volunteering/Internships). I was disappointed by the MCAT (practice tests were closer to 38), so I want to know given the 35 how high I can realistically aim for med school.</p>
<p>-Annoying question I know... but its hard to get objective guidance. Thanks.</p>
<p>No research will hurt you for the top med schools. But, I think you can get into a mid-tier med school probably ranked somewhere in the 25-40 range.</p>
<p>you’re going to be competitive at a great many places. I really hate the idea of giving you an assessment on where you’re headed based on “rankings” which even if they were credible are still problematic. The fact of the matter is that no research experience will hurt you at schools throughout the entire range of 1 - 125. It’s all about what each school wants and their relative priorities for those. </p>
<p>I don’t think that a huge alteration is necessary in the process of picking schools to apply to. Apply to all the schools (public and private) in your home state, examine the MSAR and USNews data on average entering GPA/MCAT scores (not the rankings) picking schools where you’re competitive stats-wise, and then any schools that you’re really interested in going to even if you don’t believe you’re that competitive. That’s the standard for anyone else, and there’s no reason you should deviate from that…maybe you try to bypass schools that make their research priorities widely known. (I think the MSAR has data on how many students entered with prior research experience…it’s been a long time since I looked at one).</p>
<p>The 2005-2006 MSAR definitely does have that data, and it’s frightening. Most of the top research schools are 90+%.</p>
<p>According to the information published by a particular school, your stat seems to be competitive:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.cvm.tamu.edu/bims/documents/OPSAMedchart06.pdf[/url]”>http://www.cvm.tamu.edu/bims/documents/OPSAMedchart06.pdf</a></p>
<p>For example, from this particular undergraduate, there are eight applicants with 4.0 GPA accepted by UTSW, and four 4.0 GPA accepted by UTHSC San Antonio.</p>
<p>I heard a rumor that some overly neurotic premed’s from UTs are considering to transfer to Texas A&M because, unlike the newly enforced +/- grading system at UTs, there is still no +/- in the grading system at Aggie.</p>
<p>It appears that many accepted applicants (like close to 10% of them) for most TX medical schools seem to have 4.0 GPA. This correlates well with what I heard on this forum before:There are much fewer high MCATs than high GPAs.</p>
<p>Maybe I should clarify… When I say no research, I mean that I have no medical related research. I do, however, have significant statistical and mathematical economics related research. Does this type of research still count as research? If so, where do I stand now? Thanks again.</p>
<p>This is a question I’ve never been able to figure out. One med school admissions dean has explicitly said that this does count and it’s just as good as biomedical research. I’ve always had trouble believing that myself, honestly, although I’m sure it’s true at that particular school (Pritzker).</p>
<p>BDM, it would make sense that research in related fields would still count. For instance, while biomedical research is obviously going to teach a pre-med student more in terms of medicine than psychological efficacy trials of different therapeutic modalities or therapy vs. psychopharmacology vs. psychopharm + Tx vs. placebo, the two have quite a bit in common – use of a placebo, standard research methods (incl. operationally defined outcome measures, etc.), and so forth. In addition, aspects of research such as literature reviews and how articles are written are fairly constant across scientific disciplines. For that reason, it would make sense that schools would see non-biomedical research experience as valuable as well, esp. if a student is planning on pursuing a career in a field of medicine that would be well-served by a practitioner with experience in related fields (e.g., a psychiatrist, neuropsychiatrist, or neurologist would be well-served by undergraduate research in neuroscience, cognitive neuropsychology, clinical neuropsychology, clinical psychology, etc., as well as experiences with biomedical research).</p>
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<p>Just 'cause it makes sense in reality doesn’t mean it makes sense in the world of medical school admissions.</p>
<p>I agree, shades, but a lot has to do with how well you sell it in your interview. If you don’t see the connection to practice, you’re not really going to be able to make much of a case for, say, how what really amounts to glorified first aid/first responder experience as an EMT-B really prepares you for medicine either. (I certainly agree it can be good experience but I’d argue that it’s all about what you say in the interview – what did you actually take away from the experience?)</p>
<p>I agree that selling is the most important part of it. Ultimately, if someone’s got it in their head that they’d rather see someone with “science” research in the class than someone with “just econ” research, that’s what it’s going to be. You can do your best to convince them that your non-science experience is just as important, but some may not buy your argument.</p>
<p>Regardless, I think the consensus is that for the highly competitive medical schools with a strong emphasis on research, any research is better than none at all, and science research may be better than non-science research.</p>