u/Awkward-Remote

Basically title, after a failed MD cycle Im reapplying and adding DO to the mix. From what I can see most DO schools are similar in quality and mission so how did y'all make your school list? What factors did you consider and are their any schools you think should be on every list?

A little more about my interests in case anyone has any suggestions: I am super passionate about health equity and working with marginalized communities and I would like to stay in urban areas. I'm in between obgyn and family med for my specialty. I'm more focused on community service than research but do have a little bit of research under my belt. I'm a VA resident and an ORM.

Thanks in advance!

Edit for requested info:

I have a 3.89 gpa and a 510 mcat

To start I wanna just say that I do mean this very genuinely and am open to all and any responses. I am 22 and still learning a lot so I hope you can be kind but at the same time I get that I am coming from a place of crazy privilege in writing this.

In short: I have rich parents and also am anti-capitalist and super involved in local leftist spaces, if you were my peer what would you wanna see from me?

In long:

I have rich parents, I lived entirely off of them in university and they also payed my tuition in full. The wealth is not generational, my mom is a dentist and co-owns practice with 4 locations. In fact I still remember living under the poverty line. I saw that the only reason my family was able to reach this wealth was community support (people housing us for free, feeding us for free, my mom's sister co-signing her loans etc. while my mom got through dental school and was able to start practicing). That was is a big factor in why I am an anti-capitalist today.

So I'm super engaged in my local community, including leftist spaces. I both work with local orgs and am part of the people's assembly and go various political education events and all that. I loveee being in these spaces and connecting with my neighbors but have always felt a bit awkward when the conversation of money/jobs/renting etc. comes up. I generally try to stay quiet cause it's not really about me but occasionally people ask me to chime in. Of course I'm honest about the fact I'm living off of my parents but it always feels like the wrong thing to say in the moment? Like it definitely feels awkward if nothing else cause it tends to put a halt in the conversation or accidentally move it in a different direction. But deflecting feels dishonest and like I'm hiding something which I don't want to. I think it's important to accept and acknowledge that privilege.

I've been wondering for a long while if there's something I should know about how I move through these spaces other than just the basics of being up front and honest and giving as much as I can when I can.

Imperfect parallel but I see how in anti-racist spaces there's a lot expected of white people when it comes to how unlearning their white supremacist upbringing and how they should be moving (Im not white). I feel like I might need to learn more about whats expected of someone with financial privilege in a similar sense.

Allllll that to say...is there anything you all would want someone like me to know if I was a community member of yours? Is there anything you think I should read or learn from? Do you think there is a way I could best use my privilege in leftist spaces?

If you read this whole thing I also just wanna say thank you so much for giving me that time and thank you in advance to anyone willing to answer <3