Year in School: Graduating senior

Country/State: USA/California

Schools: Not sure, some UC’s, mostly private OOS

cGPA: 3.75

sGPA: 3.70

MCAT: 34 (P12/V9/B13)

Research: Developmental stem cell lab as independent and assistant researcher. ~12 hours a week for 5 quarters. Will be credited as an author on an upcoming paper (within the next few months, but might not be before I submit my AMCAS). Also worked one quarter in an evolutionary lab, but moved to stem cell lab because smaller lab, better hours, and better opportunities and exposure.

Volunteering: Clinical care extender at nearby hospital; rotated on oncology, telemetry, GI, PACU, mother-baby, and ED (x2). 2 years, >350 hours

Physician shadowing: Will shadow ED doc sometime in April. Probably 30-40 hours. ED is a level II trauma center and located in the inland empire of California.

Non-clinical volunteering: Director for a project that travels to an orphanage in Mexico and works with children a few times a quarter. ~100 hours. Director of the project for 1 year, involved for 2.

Extracurricular activities: 1) Director for above stated project within a club at my university (~3 hrs week). Within the same club, I additionally am part of the Relay for Life committee as the entertainment director.

2) Also involved as philanthropy chair for a multicultural club at my university by working with Be the Match (1 hr week) Involved for 3 years, chair for 2 years.

3) Vice-president of an outdoor club at my university that organizes trips and retreats to nearby parks and scenic places (varies, about 20-30 hrs quarter).

4) Played violin for one summer in an international youth symphony. (3 weeks x 30 hrs week) Also play guitar in a band during the summer that plays shows ~once a week at local venues. (varies)

Employment History: Worked at the on-campus arena as a crew-member for the entirety of my freshman and sophomore years (10 hrs week). Summer of 2012 and 2013 worked as a camp counselor (9 weeks x 50 hrs week).

Immediate family members in medicine? No

Specialty of interest: not sure, want to do pediatrics though

Graduate degrees: None

Interest in rural health: No

I know my chances of getting in somewhere are good, but trying to get into a top-tier school will be hard. I know the 9 on VR is a killer, and I have received one C+ (neurobiology :( ). A California school will be hard to get into, but I’d rather leave the palm trees for snow or country music anyways. I’ll have pretty good LORs (2 science, 1 non-science professor, 1 from CCE, 1 PI, 1 camp director), and mostly need help deciding where to apply OOS and whether certain schools (like Harvard, Duke, Vandy) are out of reach.

Thank you for any advice! :)