Hi all! Looking for more advice about my applications timeline since my advisor is on vacation.
Planning to apply to ~30 MD and 7/8 DO, and I’m worried about trying to do so many secondaries at once. Does it make sense to wait to submit my AACOMAS after I’m mostly done with my MD secondaries or should I be submitting both AMCAS and AACOMAS as soon as possible?
I’m trying to fill out the work/activities section of the AMCAS and I’m fully stuck because I have a ton of questions that Google isn’t answering. Are there like tutorials or YouTube videos that I can use?
Example questions:
I got 2 similar awards on the same day, can I make them one entry?
How do I figure out hours/ contact informations for awards? Like I got a piece of paper at an hour long ceremony what do you want me to say?
For my most meaningful experiences, do I write in both boxes or just the one that gives me more characters?
Idk how you guys do this help me plz.
I’m putting together a school list and it looks like I would be a great applicant to UWASH stats-wise, but I’ve seen people be told not to apply due to a west coast bias. I have the MSAR and I see they’ve taken people from my state before (MA). Is there a way to get more detailed information about demographics or is the map on the MSAR website the best I’m gonna get?
Hi! I’m starting to think my med school application isn’t as strong as my advisor believes it is. I plan on applying to MD and DO. Competitiveness/ school rank doesn’t matter one bit to me, as I plan on going Peds/ FM.
General:
MA resident
BS in Bio 2025, liberal arts school in MA
23 y/o white, LGBTQ+ female
MCAT: 502, 5/30 retake, recent practice exam 513
AAMC PREview scheduled for June
GPA: 3.63
sGPA: 3.5 (3.54 for DO due to lack of consideration of math)
Clinical experience:
Medical scribe: 1700 hours, continuing
Volunteer experience:
Clinical: 50 hours on a patient floor
Non-clinical: 350 hours in the same hospital, non-clinical
60 hours doing admissions events/ panels/ tours of the science buildings for my college
50 hours in a soup kitchen/ food pantry/ charity run thrift store (recently started, ongoing)
Extracurricular activities:
Tutor w/ certification: 1100 hours
Vice President of an acapella group
Leadership for my college’s choir
Event Coordinator for my college’s video game club
(This might seem weird to include but I organized events that raised over $10,000 for LGBTQ+ charities and I feel like it gives my app some personality)
Member of Pinky Swear Pack
(If I need to give these hour estimations let me know)
Awards:
Award for Outstanding Achievement in Organismic Sciences (1/1 recipient)
Award for Outstanding Achievement in General Biological Sciences (1/2 recipients)
The problems:
No shadowing
I feel like scribing makes up for this, as my job is to literally follow a doctor around all day to all his appointments and discuss the cases with him.
No research
I went to a small liberal arts school with very little opportunity for research. I spoke to my advisor when I switched majors to Bio about this, and I was told that not all med schools require research and that I should be fine to apply without it. However, I just recently bought the MSAR and am seeing that most schools have 85%+ students with research hours. I’m a little frustrated with my advisors but what can I do. TBH I have no interest in research but I would have done it if I had known it was that important. I’m getting more worried about this gap as time passes.
I need to get out of my family home so I’m very unwilling to take another gap year. Are there things I can be doing to up my competitiveness, or am I overthinking this? Are there schools I should avoid applying to with 0 research?
FL 4, 5/16: 508 (125, 130, 126, 127)
FL 6, 5/22: 513 (126, 130, 127, 130)
I’ve been spamming Pankow for the past 2 weeks so it makes a little sense my p/s went up, but by that much? Also the Cars felt really hard and c/p felt really bad but I still did fine. I know FL 6 is new, but it it really that different from the other FL’s?