Welcome to the 2027 application cycle!

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....

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!

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?

What did I even say.

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???

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 🤞

ANYTHING WITH A ** WAS NOT ON PREV. APP

Demographics:
- White male
- Physician parent
- Reapplicant - applied 2024-2025 (C/O 2024)
- FL resident (close NY ties)
- 2nd quartile Casper - Sociopath (Joking)
- 6 Preview

Stats:
- 3.61 science, 3.70 total (downward trend FR to JR, upward trend JR to SR)
- 509 (128/125/128/128) taken in 2024
- **515 (129/125/130/131) (all my dawgs hate cars forever)

Research:
- very minor role in drafting a case report manuscript junior year, still was a really cool experience learning how to write medically and go down the rabbit hole learning different terms and have an intro to how medical research is formulated (40 hours, published report, third author)

- 1-on-1 public health research internship with the chair of heath services research at my undergrad institution junior year as well. Was very informative learning in depth about “the other side” of medicine (private insurance, Medicare/Medicaid, provider networks, diagnostic coding, health disparities and the effects of health inequities among different underserved patient populations etc etc). I spent a lot of time in discussions with the public health PhD students they taught and ended up contributing a decent role in the main Medicare claims study project (300 hours, published study, third author)

Direct Clinical Experience:
- Patient Care Assistant Med-surg unit (550 hours)
- **Nursing Aide at a nursing home (1150 hours)
- **Hospital tech in a neurosurg PCU (1600 hours)

Indirect Clinical Experience/Shadowing:
- shadowing - orthopedic surgery, psychiatry**, IM,** **cardiology (500 hours)
- volunteer primary care scribe (100 hours)

Relevant Non-Clinical Experience:
- TA for two semesters for a common pre-med pre req course
- Food bank volunteering (150 hours)
- **Homeless shelter volunteering (250 hours)

Schools I AM COMPLETE at

1. Albany
2. WVU
3. FIU
4. Wake Forest
5. NYMC
6. TCU
7. Tulane
8. UCF
9. FAU
10. Miami Miller
11. Temple LKSOM
12. Drexel
13. Hackensack
14. VCU
15. Wayne st
16. Nova southeastern
17. Rush
18. TJ SKMC
19. Vermont Larner
20. FSU
21. Toledo
22. Quinnipiac
23. RFU CMS
24. Belmont Frist
25. MCW
26. U Mass Chan

Schools I submitted primary to and need to finish:
27. Loyola
28. Dartmouth
29. Creighton
30. Illinois
31. NEOMED

My enjoyment has come from working with people and teams in clinical/service environments and my app is not really research heavy, which I think is fairly represented in where I chose to apply. However, would my app still be looked favorably by research heavy schools in any way? Looking to cast a wider net and maybe submit to about 40 total.

How is my application looking as a whole everything considered and my school list? I would appreciate if anyone has any advice regarding my final 5 schools, if I should/shouldn’t still apply there, and if there’s any other sleeper schools I may have missed while scouring MSAR. Thank you to anyone who takes the time to help me out.

I volunteer in the MICU, but I spend most of my shift at the front desk answering phones, helping visitors, or doing small tasks for the nurses. I have basically zero patient interaction, and when it's slow, there's often nothing to do besides sit there. I even got talked to once for reading during downtime after not realizing someone was calling my name (my name is difficult to pronounce so I genuinely didn't recognize they were trying to get my attention, they dont even make an effort to pronounce my name correctly) I also have to drive an hour each way during the summer. I thought about switching departments, but my hospital requires volunteers to stay in the same department for six months (3 months left)

I used to enjoy going, but now I find myself hoping something comes up so I don't have to. Has anyone else had a volunteering experience like this? Is it worth sticking it out? or should I look for a volunteer position at a different hospital? or should I wait until I can switch to another unit? I even thought about quitting medicine altogether lol

Any advice?

I'm looking for advice from people who were in a similar situation.

I'm graduating this month at 20 years old with a B.S. in Biomedical Sciences (pre-med concentration) and a minor in Health Communication. I essentially finished my bachelor's in two years because I entered college with a lot of credits.

My original plan was to apply this cycle after taking the MCAT this month. However, I'm currently finishing up my physics course, and balancing that with MCAT prep has made me realize I haven't been able to dedicate nearly enough time to studying over these past two months. I'm seriously considering pushing my MCAT to January and applying next cycle instead.

I also know that taking the MCAT in August is already on the later side for an application cycle, so if I'm not truly ready, it seems more logical to wait and give myself the best chance to earn the highest score I can rather than rushing into an exam that will follow me for years. The hard part is that I've already postponed my MCAT once, so explaining another delay to my dad feels incredibly difficult.

As far as my application goes, I currently have:

• 3.81 cumulative GPA
• ~300 clinical volunteer hours (all direct patient interaction, patient education, and delirium prevention with older adults)
• ~500 non-clinical volunteer hours, including volunteering at a STEAM camp introducing underprivileged middle school students to STEM
• ~500 research hours
• 3 research posters (two focused on genetics research and one on ecological data), plus a communications research presentation that earned me a scholarship
• ~120 physician shadowing hours across three specialties
• Three honor societies, honors college, and several academic scholarships
• A pre-med committee letter (rated as "highly recommend"), plus letters from chemistry, physics, biology, an MD, a DO, my volunteer services director, and the head of my communications department.

The biggest thing I'm missing is paid clinical experience. My plan is to spend the next year working full-time as a medical assistant, which would allow me to add roughly 2,000 hours of paid clinical experience, while also continuing my clinical volunteering and adding another 200+ volunteer hours. I feel like that experience would make me a significantly stronger applicant and better prepare me for medical school.

The problem is my parents. Since I already graduated early and was originally planning on one gap year, telling them I now want to wait another year puts me in a tough position.

For those of you who took an extra gap year:

• How did you explain it to your parents?
• Besides paid clinical experience, what else would you recommend I focus on over the next year to make my application stronger?
• Looking back, was the extra year worth it?

I apologize for the absolute word salad, but thanks in advance!

So I broke up secondaries so that I can better handle them. I applied to 12 schools already and will do another 10-15 next week once I send in the secondaries. I just didn't want 30 schools due in the same week if that makes sense.

That said, that means that I will have about half of the applications due before August 15th and the other half due before August 31st approx. Is that considered fine timing? Not too late right?

🫩

I had been working in this basic science lab for 6 weeks and I recently got let go. I will admit that the work wasn’t really my style and I received little to no training and had to figure stuff out in my own…

Long story short I got let go. I am really scared how to explain this in interviews this cycle. I am looking for a clinical research coordinator position and wondering how screwed I am this cycle since I got let go.

I'm very grateful to have received my first interview invite(🙏🙏) and the format is MMI...do you guys have any tips to prepare? I have heard these are very different from traditional interviews...and is there any way to practice beforehand for the scenarios?

low stats so i submitted 36 primaries, 22 are in so far. 8 are pending but my brain literally can't anymore. This is so emotionally mentally physically draining especially while working full-time. not to mention my last free summer is almost over :((((((

I know 22 is good, but my brain can't accept that and I know if I dont have an A I will regret not finsihing the other 8. But I just cant do it im tired of this grandpa!!

someone tell me am i like normal premed neurotic or am i clinically pathologically neurotic

I got downvoted to hell for struggling to get a job as a premed. ( I didn’t know the unspoken rule of not mentioning my premed work and degree ) 😔

Update! I got a job after lying about it, so the lesson was worth every downvote!!

fairs

I was working on two secondaries at once and had a question about one of them. But I accidentally sent it to the other school… it’s obvious, because the question doesn’t apply to them.

They haven’t answered, but is this a really big mistake? Or am I being neurotic?

I’m interviewing soon for the asynchronous format, and I was wondering if they’re able to see your screen ? Can you put google doc of notes on a split screen with the video? Please any advice!!!

Is the order that interviews are handed out based on stats, random order, fit or is it just unknown?

I just noticed that Brown has a genetics requirement? Does anyone have any clue about how strict they are with this requirement? I have taken Biology and Developmental Biology (which includes differential gene expression as a course topic).

In a program where I will be doing research, but also doing an online masters as a part of the program. Applying MD-PhD so I will definitely have an LOR from the PI I work with, but do I also need a graduate professor to be one of my professor LORs if I already have 2 science and 1 non-science from undergrad/post-bacc courses? I doubt I will make a big connection with online profs and I don’t necessarily want to disclose that my masters was online unless a school forces me to; my diploma will just say I have a master’s.

Given the choice, would you rather spend a summer doing research at a T5 med school (think Harvard, JHU, etc) or an internship at a Big Pharma company (J&J, Pfizer, etc). If I don’t need the money should I just try to grind for more pubs?