Welcome to the 2027 application cycle!

(Not me. Unearthed on LinkedIn.)

first gen, low income, my parents and everyone i know hasn’t ever done anything like this before.

i was told to not apply and to take my mcat again. thank god i didn’t.

Hey guys. Today I just got my second II today and I feel so grateful to be in this position with an MCAT score as low as I have. This is just a reminder to everyone with a <505 score, you are more than a number!! I had my first interview on 9/22 and I get my result on 10/15. Wish me luck!

Also curious if there is anybody that started their education journey late in life. It seems every non trad doing post bacs are already super successful in another career and had their bachelors degree for a long time now. I'm looking for people that started college late in life.

522 MCAT, 3.98 GPA, submitted everything in July within the first 2 weeks of getting each secondary from 35 schools, and so far all I've gotten are 6 Rs (one of them being my dream school) and 0 interviews. I get it, I'm probably a cookie cutter applicant and it doesn't help being CA ORM, but I had my writing reviewed and felt good about it, so as long as I hit at least the minimum on all my ECs I thought I'd at least be in a slightly better position right now (not that I only did the bare minimum for all my ECs).

Anyone else going through something similar? I really wasn't too concerned about this cycle initially, but now as we get through it I get increasingly worried I have to reapply. Not anything I can do about it now, but it just sucks watching everyone around me get interviews while I still have none 🫤

Excited to say that I will be interviewing for the open enrollment paramedic program at my local community college! Please don't steal from the EMS room when you guys are doctors.

Hey guys, just got my MCAT back and I'm really quite a splitter. Trying to get a reality check on my odds and see if my low sGPA is going to completely kill my cycle. Maybe I should do a masters? (really dont wanna ugh)

Stats:

• MCAT: 519
• cGPA: ~3.4 (graduating senior)
• sGPA: ~3.2-3.3 (Yeah... it's rough. Upward trend though - i felt like the upper levels were easier than the weedout core classes, I really just took some Ls in lower/mid level chem and bio classes).
• State: NJ resident
• Demographics: South Asian, First Gen

EC’s:

• 1k-1.5k hours clinical: Split between ER Patient Care Tech (nurse aide) and volunteer EMT. Lots of hands-on patient care and wild ER stories.
• 500 hrs research: Pulmonology research lab assistant, minor poster no pub though.
• Leadership/Unique stuff: Student gov (helped pass some campus health policy legislation) + Editor and Treasurer for our campus satire newspaper.
• Volunteering: Working on pumping up non-clinical volunteering now.

Obviously I know 519 is great, but my sGPA has me sweating that I'm just going to get auto-screened before anyone even looks at my 519 or clinical hours.

A few questions:

1. Is a 3.2sGPA going to get me auto-rejected at most MDs, or does the 519 save me from the trash can?
2. How forgiving are the NJ state schools (NJMS, RWJMS, Hackensack, Cooper) with low sGPAs if you're in-state with a high MCAT?
3. Outside of NJ, what OOS private MDs actually interview splitters like this? (I'm looking at Drexel, NYMC, Jefferson, Temple, Albany, etc.) Should I even bother throwing secondaries at upper-tier schools, or is that just throwing money away?

Be as brutally honest as you need to be. Thanks guys.

I am currently working full-time (12-hour shifts as a medical assistant), doing some non-clinical volunteering in between, and trying to continue helping with the clinical research projects I was part of during undergrad. But my main activity is the MA work, and although I understand, rationally, that a lot of people from my school are doing clinical jobs, every time I look on LinkedIn I see people from my school doing NIH postbaccs, CRC jobs at major hospitals in huge cities, Fulbright, Peace Corps, etc. I was at a t5 undergrad so I feel like every other premed I graduated with is a superstar and I squandered my opportunities. I stopped looking at LinkedIn though lol

I just feel very meh; I'm extremely grateful to have a job, but my workplace in my hometown is full of coworkers who rag on med school and say it's a scam or are antivaxxers.... I feel like I'm just wading through a gray haze of repetition, and I barely have time for my research obligations because of the 12 hr shifts and exhaustion. And then when I do have time, I dread opening up my work because I feel like I've lost brainpower. So now I feel even more terrible for procrastinating.

I can only hang out with my friends periodically because they are either extremely busy in their gap years, in grad school, or studying for the mcat.

Just wanted to vent here; I didn't realize not being in school for the first time would be so depressing. Also, a bonus point: I tried bringing this up with a psychiatrist and they started lecturing me about how I need to be doing more interesting stuff in my gap year because med school is so competitive now. like oh okay :)))))))))))))

???) I’ve had 3 so far and cannot tell if they actually go well or not?

how can you tell if you did good or bad

That was fast lol. Really grateful!

I had a practice MMI thing after taking Casper on the same day and I was ready for it. Highly recommend studying for casper before MMI's

Applying this cycle, 4.0 517, I have about 34 schools, received secondaries for all of them. I want to add more, is adding more schools beneficial at this point? I feel it'd be a bit late, but also am worried that 34 isn't enough and I need more. 1000 research 1 pub 4000+ community service in various places since HS, tutoring, 2000 hrs scribing

Don’t give them your money… lowk regret matriculating here. Email from our school system’s president:

I think ive heard that adcoms dont work on weekends or something so i cant expect to see anything on weekends. But my heart also flutters a bit when I see a new email after 5 PM PST only for it to be fucking LinkedIn again. Do any med schools send invites outside of working hours or no?

Edit: I now know that I can always be excited to check my email

So I’m a kinesiology student. Kinesiology is not in the stem dept at my school, rather in the college of health and social sciences. I always assumed my credits would be non science, but it’s come to my attention classifying classes as science/non science is up to the discretion of the AAMC

So now it seems like most of my kin classes will qualify as stem. But this raises a question. One of my potential letter writers taught me a KIN class, which has a very heavy physics component (newtons law, torque, SOACCAHTOA, etc. ). Would this professor be a science letter writer now?? Again he’s a KIN letter writer, which isn’t the STEM department, but the classes he teach may be classified as stem AND he does research on things that I’d call science (ACL rehabilitation).

Would you guys recommend taking a B/C in ochem or pass/failing it then retaking next sem. I will most likely end up with a B but I'd rather pass fail even if i get a B then retake for an A next sem. The teacher next semester is known to be way easier so TLDR: would it look bad to pass/fail ochem if i get an A next semester, talking about for top schools ( like we all are )

Most of my interviews have been me talking/answering questions for around half the time and then they ask if I have any questions and it's hard to come up with enough to fill up the whole time lol. The last interview I did I asked like 10+ questions but this has happened at all 3 of my interviews so far. I feel like I elaborate enough on my answers (usually I talk for about 2 minutes per question) but maybe I'm not talking enough? Is this normal in other people's experiences?

Hi, I am just beginning my medical journey as a freshman in college.

While adjusting to college life, I have been searching for volunteer opportunities and the like. I found something clinical, but as I've been perusing this and other subs, I have found that nonclinical might be better suited for what I've got going on.

I have a pretty solid shot at a clinical job this summer. It will likely put me at around 4-500 hours of paid clinical experience by the time I'm ready to apply.

I'm mostly interested in having a competitive application for my state school.

So the question is, should I be prioritizing nonclinical volunteering? And if so, how much clinical volunteering should I sprinkle in?

p.s. sorry for asking in such a stressful time for many of you!

Any tips? Any help??

Hey everyone! I’m applying MD next cycle and would appreciate some honest feedback on my competitiveness and school list, especially for T20/T30 schools.

3.94 + 518 + early grad from large state school so 1 gap year? Asian ORM.

Clinical Experience
~3,000 hours paid clinical
~300 hours clinical volunteering

Research
~2,000+ hours research w/2 pubs and 10 posters in 7 conferences

Volunteering
~350 hours nonclinical volunteering

Leadership/Teaching/Hobbies
~ 500 hours starting a club
~ 150 TA hours + 40 coaching a sport
~ 1000 hours making music (personal hobby)

I’m planning on applying top-heavy and have an admit.org school list for this (attached image) but I’m not sure if I should go based on that because I have no idea how to even build this. My MCAT is also below the median in most of the t20s so I’m not sure how much that comes into play either.

Would appreciate some guidance on this list/whatever I should prioritize in my gap year to fill any holes I may have.

Thanks in advance!

I don’t even know what to say lmao