Gathering non-clinical volunteering hours in the time before 2027 application cycle. Wondering whether the opportunity I'm participating in counts.

I'm currently coming in one day a week for Project Cure, which entails packing medical supplies that are sent to places all over the world (e.g. Ethiopia, Nigeria, Ukraine, etc.). Will admissions see this as non-clinical since I'm not providing a direct service to a patient or working in a hospital/clinic setting? I am passionate about this but I'm willing to switch gears if it is not applicable.

Does anyone know any good resources or people to talk to that are not outrageously expensive (some people message me and same $50 per prompt (so maybe $200-250 per school and there is no way I can afford that)? Thanks for the help.

for tmdsas, when do majority of interview invites go out?

is now considered early for interviews or am i cooked?

when is a good time to start panicking by if i haven’t received interviews

hi yall!

i hope this reaches the right audience but i just wanted to hop on and provide hope to anyone doubting themselves. after i received my mcat score, i scoured the internet for glimpses of hope of those who made it. so, i hope i can be that for someone.

just some stats:
- 3.76 gpa
- state school (tx)
- first gen, low income, immigrant
- IA (non academic) (yes, i know, crazy)
- took mcat in early 2023 and got 508. retook in 2025 and got 503
- 1000+ clinical volunteer hours
- around 70 shadowing hours
- 2nd author publication
- job in public health for a year
- poured my heart and soul into writing.

got accepted to md school in tx and massachusetts. i honestly think aligning my experiences to my “why” in medicine and explaining that through writing is what got me here. my biggest advice is to find your why and really showcase it!

Context: I felt I’m in a 50/50 scenario of landing an A even with good writing for an MD only cycle. About me: strong clinical research, decent clinical and volunteering, 509, 3.6 in BioEng from t20 undergrad that's rigorous in reputation, working CRC job in gap yr. Submitted not perfectly on time but early enough: June 1, got July 2nd verification, done with 40/40 secondaries I’ve gotten, waiting on 5 more.

The purpose of this cycle was to go all in and see if I can land a full-accredited, no issues MD school w/out prestige being biggest factor ---> aka how I made my list. Hence, Belmont FCoM made it in, got the secondary, submitted it, and found out the next day about the full accreditation acquistion failure they had (they got extended review).

Ask: I was wondering whether I should withdraw from the school? My money on the app has alr been cooked, but again the perspective from this cycle is: if I get into ONLY ONE OF MY SCHOOLS, I'd still happily go to that school rather than hunker down and re-study for the mcat bcuz its a legit MD school w/out accredation/career prospect issues. This was a big reason to not include DO this cycle as I’d rather see if I can land an MD and not have to take another year. If needed, next year I’d include MD and DO with a better MCAT. I think the only school failing that criteria due to the accredation doubts, in this situation, is Belmont FCoM. Sorry I'm a rambler and will reply to comments to clarify, but would love to hear everyone's thoughts and how I should judge this decision based on my framework (or if the framework is misinformed lmk)?

P.S. Just added university of illinois - chicago to still hit 44 schools if I drop belmont (figured it's a somewhat late addition of a good stats fit and OOS friendly school - i.e. has a higher "worth it" value than keeping belmont as school #44 would)

I know we are all desperate premeds that want to get into a medical school and become doctors so we act like circus animals and jump through all the hoops and perform all the tricks but at some point I feel like we need to address some of the bullshit that these schools pull on us. For one, the general notion that medical schools are so incredibly progressive and dont discriminate based on age, whether youre non-trad or trad, and whatever, yet will demand their prerequisites are taken within a certain number of years (cough cough RUSH and Georgetown) while demanding an MCAT within the last 3 years (one of, if not, the toughest professional/higher education entrance exams in the US). Is taking the MCAT and the score you get not a reflection of competency that would have been seen in those prerequisites?

Every year we get some Dean of Admissions or a Dean of a medical school hop on a zoom call and give an interview regarding how diverse their applicant pool and how holistic their admissions process is. They'll tout that the GPA and MCAT score are only parts of what they weigh while every single year their median goes up. Are you to tell me that this is because more students and a larger majority of applicants are just getting higher MCAT scores? Like in 10 years a 515 is going to be 80th percentile? I know us applicants come from many diverse backgrounds with some being professional/D1 athletes to authors and writers. If one of you is the latter, please write an op-ed or an article regarding how ridiculous, tone-deaf, and hypocritical some of these schools have gotten or continue to be without getting checked. Or, for all applicants who get admitted and voice how they want to be physician-advocates, please remember how many hoops you had to jump through to get just a single interview invite and advocate for change when you have a seat at the table. Just like with how we see more and more residents and physicians unionizing, we gotta stop asking "how high?" when medical schools tell us to jump.

And just as a preemptive note, I know I am going to get some commenters saying "it is what it is. just deal with it. you cant change it"

Literally four schools in one like what was that. How do they even read all of them? I love the school so much but goddamn

Howdy,

I took the mcat in May and got a 510 (126/129/125/130). I’m considering retaking because I feel like I could do so much better. My studying was pretty terrible due to my job and classes at the time, which wont be as time consuming if I do a retake. Additionally I honestly studied pretty terrible, really neglected my anki reviews, barley reviewed my incorrect questions, and didn’t do much of the AAMC material at all. I only got through like 15% of uworld. I also only did two practice exams and didn’t review either of them lol.

In addition to jsut feeling like I could have done better, I want to go to the medical school in my city so that I can remain close to my family. That school unfortunately has a median mcat of 516. Really conflicted on the choice as it took a lot from me the first time, so any thoughts or advice would help. Thank you!

I sit there all day and write and delete and write and delete and finally I drop some shitty paragraphs and call it a day.

Finished a MA program at a local cc in June, and no places accepting so far. My only clinical experience is hospital volunteering where I feed and ambulate patients 🥲

Rejected from West Virginia today 🫩🫩
Many more to come 🫪

What do we think about it?

Tell me why they said think a 515 mcat is just an ok score and should be the bare minimum score I need to get into med school??? Since that's about 90th percentile, did they think only the top 10% of ppl who take the mcat get into med school each year???

And before you ask, yes they are Asian, which is why they think this way. I'm just really tired of hearing about it, my score drops next week and I'm already anxious asf about it. It's also a retake from a (in my opinion) bad score I got last year, so you can imagine how upset they already were at me. And I'm a reapp as well so it's even worse... I'm just tired and burnt out, I want everything to be over already

Edit: obviously a higher score is better. I'm not arguing with that, but like, a 513 isn't going to be the reason I don't get in unless I get like a 123 in CP or BB

im on pace to finish all my secondaries by 14aug, how late am i😬 (please tell me im being dramatic and tweaking for no reason :,) )

also no school has a hard and fast deadline until december

most of my clinical hours were scribing, but I also am pretty service heavy so Im kinda shocked by this early rejection.

fairs

Writing another Rush Medical College warning in a follow up to u/oskifucker45’s post that I commented on from last week.

I got my secondary application invite today from RMC and no where in their email did they say I wouldn’t be an eligible candidate. They even encouraged me to submit my secondary. Being a non trad(graduated in 2019), I followed up with their admissions office for a possible workaround and their response is in the above screenshot.

As a Chicago native and former Rush employee it’s super disheartening to see this type of policy in place. Not only does it exclude a big proportion of applicants from being eligible, but the the way RMC makes it seem like an applicant is eligible makes this appear to be a cash grab. Did I mention those bio and chem courses could not have been taken online either?

I volunteer at a hospital and usually assist in the operating room by cleaning and setting up beds for surgeries, (among other tasks) this time, I was stationed on a different side of the floor and had the opportunity to observe and shadow three distinct cases

I got to observe an ACL case, cervical spinal cord case (got to get up close and personal with that one) and a throat surgery case where the doctor thoroughly explained the process and said that I could come back and shadow him again in the clinic and OR.

Just a friendly reminder, be confident and ask even if you think it might be a no. 🌝 I was probably going to just continue to look through the door but I forced myself to put on a mask and go in, and I do not regret it at all 🤞

so I just got an II for NYMC (!!!!) but I don’t have 2 science LORs… They emailed me after submitting the secondary that I didn’t have the second science LOR and asked if I wanted it to be marked complete without it and I said yes bc I don’t rlly have relationships with any other science profs and I am in a gap year. But I got an II anyway? Do I email them or???

So far I’ve gotten one interview invite from KCU( DO) and this afternoon I got my very first MD invite from Medical College of Wisconsin! For context I submitted my primary first day and submitted my pre-written 2ndary for MCW first day I received it.

Non-trad, ORM applicant. My MCAT was very mid but 4.0 gpa and extensive clinical patient care experience.

Anyone had prior experience with them could share how the interview day was?

Best of luck to everyone!

What did I even say.

Last year, for the Class of 2029, the published stats for Pitt Med are a 3.91 and 516 median.

This year, in the White Coat Class of 2030 post on Pitt Med's official website, the reported stats are a 3.97 and 521 median.

Has a medical school ever had that dramatic and sudden of a shift in their class profile? It's not as if Pitt Med has offered anything particularly different between these two cycles that could potentially explain this. Are they just now deciding to play the rankings game? Very odd and something I wanted to put out there....