<p>Any comments on my school list? Should I add more schools (if so, should they be "safeties", matches, or reaches) or do I have too many schools and should consider maybe skipping over the secondary for some?</p>
<p>Applying MD/PhD only.</p>
<p>3.8 GPA/3.7 sGPA
36 MCAT
EC summary: 2nd author publication, poster at international conference, Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship between junior and senior years, poster at undergrad symposium, honors thesis (graduated with highest honors), hospital volunteering, shadowing, Phi Beta Kappa, music stuff</p>
<p>Intend to pursue PhD in neuroscience (specifically, in cognitive/behavioral neuroscience)</p>
<p>List:
Columbia
Cornell
Dartmouth
Duke
Emory
Georgetown
NYU
Northwestern
UPenn
UIllinois
UIowa
UMaryland
UMichigan
UNC
SUNY Upstate
Pitt
Vandy
Wake Forest
Yale</p>
<p>The reason I added Georgetown was because the program seems open to people doing cognitive neuroscience research for the PhD and my stats are well above the average for accepted med students there. Putting together my school list is proving to be a bit tricky because at some schools, most of the faculty that perform cognitive neuroscience research are in the psychology department and at most places, you can’t do your PhD in psychology. I have tried to apply to many of the powerhouses in that subject area that have faculty members with research interests that are close to mine, which is why there are probably a few more reaches than I should have…but I tried to somewhat compensate for that by adding a few more “safeties” (I refuse to straight up call any school a safety because I know that there really is no such thing).</p>
<p>What’s with the schools that are marked ## and ###?</p>
<p>I understand, but what price are you willing to pay for this? Doesn’t GT make you pay for medical school?</p>
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<p>I’ve just started putting together a list (MSTP only, with a few exceptions) for next year’s cycle. Its easier for me since I plan to continue my work in chemistry/biochemistry, and there are good options almost everywhere. Of course, I do have my dream sites
Will you consider an MD only offer? I’ve decided that I won’t. </p>
<p>I think Georgetown has recently gone to 50% tuition remission for the med school years and full tuition remission + stipend for the grad school years…which is better than nothing during the med school years.</p>
<p>The money issue would be a consideration, if I were to be admitted to Georgetown.</p>
<p>I’m afraid I don’t know much about MSTP admissions. If this were an MD-only list, I would strongly advise you to strike all OOS publics. (I believe you go to UNC, is that right? Are they on Michigan’s auto-invite list?) Are MSTP admissions reputed to be more OOS-friendly?</p>
<p>It can also be a curse to have stats too high for a school, although, again, I believe this is less important in MSTP admissions.</p>
<p>Since MSTPs are funded by the federal government (NIH) they are not allowed to have IS biases. For example, when I went to UTSW’s interview day, 1 person in my group was from texas while over 90% of the med students interviewing that day were from Texas (the interview sessions overlapped and they made EVERYONE - like 100 people - go around and say where they were from and where they went to school. It was mind-blowing, especially since all the MSTPs were in the back row since we came late from our interviews and then so after non stop UT-something, Texas Tech, Oklahoma was a string of ivies, Duke, Stanford, and Hopkins)</p>
<p>Another thing to keep in mind with the MSTPs is that it’s MUCH more competitive than med school. For simplicity, let’s look at MCAT where the national MD average is around 31 and the national MSTP average is around 36. As plumazul points out while your stats are mighty competitive for UPenn MD, you are average at best at UPenn MSTP. That’s not to say don’t apply, just don’t get confused when your MD only friends with similar stats are landing lots of top interviews and acceptances when you might not.</p>
<p>That being said, MSTP is also harder to predict because the program is smaller and how you “fit” into it is a bigger deal. If you apply to a school and they don’t see how your research or extracurricular interests fit in with them and the program they are constructing, it doesn’t really matter how high caliber you are, you’re not getting in.</p>
<p>You should definitely apply to non MSTPs but I would attend any fully funded MSTP over a non-MSTP unless you’re picking it for geography reasons that trump everything (e.g. a family/spouse).</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice. There’s definitely some non-MSTP MD/PhD programs in there (Dartmouth, Georgetown, Illinois is UIUC MSP not UIC MSTP, SUNY Upstate, and Wake).</p>
<p>I did try to apply to schools with multiple investigators that had research I was interested in, so hopefully that will help in the fit department.</p>
<p>So I guess what I’m really asking is, if I apply to all MD/PhD programs and don’t get in this time, it likely won’t be because my school list is too top-heavy statwise (although I realize that fit is relatively more important for MD/PhD programs than for MD programs)?</p>
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