Chance Me!
Originally had what I thought was a good list, but I'm realizing most of these schools are reaches and I don't have enough target/safety options. Built my updated list using a combination of admit.org, Claude, and MSAR data, but want a human sanity check before I pay to add all of these to my AMCAS.
I already applied to 24 schools and I'm keeping all of them since secondaries are basically done — just adding target/safety schools to balance it out.
Stats:
- IL resident
- cGPA: 3.91 | sGPA: ~3.97
- MCAT: 514 (CP: 130, CARS: 125, BB: 129, PS: 130) — 89th percentile
- Clinical hours: 1,100 (CNA at two long-term care facilities)
- Research hours: 1,000 (undergrad lab + NIH summer internship)
- Non-clinical volunteering: 56 hours
- Shadowing: 0 hours, but have some things lined up for end of summer
- Publications: None
- 6 LORs: PI, post-doc in my lab, two bioengineering faculty, director of the institute I studied abroad at, DON at the nursing home I work at
Background: Bioengineering major, Spanish + Chemistry minors, UIUC, graduating May 2027. Socioeconomically disadvantaged/first-gen. Gilman Scholar, studied abroad in Costa Rica.
Primary submitted: June 7th (still awaiting verification)
REACH (17): Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Yale, Penn, Duke, WashU, Hopkins, Northwestern, UMich, UChicago, Mt. Sinai, UVA, Case Western, Vanderbilt, Mayo, BU
TARGET (11): Emory, Brown, Pittsburgh, UCLA, Carle Illinois, Kaiser Permanente, NYU Grossman Long Island, Ohio State, Cincinnati, Georgetown, Tufts
SAFETY (10): Loyola, Rush, UIC, Rosalind Franklin, SIU, Wayne State, Temple, MCW, EVMS, Morehouse
Does this look reasonably balanced, or am I still too reach-heavy? Many of the reaches I already have secondaries done so am just going to keep them. Any schools with in state preferenes or targets/reaches that i'm missing. Thanks for any advice!
