Nothing really stellar about my background, but I’d like to believe that I’m a fairly well-rounded applicant. CA residency and being an Asian male doesn’t really help my case either, I’m afraid. I plan to apply broadly OOS and see what happens.

I need some help with my list of schools:

• Is it worth applying to the 10K+ applicant schools (e.g. BU, GW)?
• Should I remove my high reach schools (e.g. Duke, Dartmouth, UCSF)?
• Is it worth applying to public Texas schools?
• If anybody has experience applying to 30+ schools, what was the process like? Any regrets, protips, changes?
• Should I take OOS tuition into consideration? My family is low income, and I would most certainly be paying 100% with loans.

Year in School: 1st gap year post-college.

State of Residence: California.

Schools to which you are applying:

• Albany
• Albert Einstein
• Baylor
• Boston
• Creighton
• Dartmouth
• Drexel
• Duke
• Quinnipiac
• George Washington
• Georgetown
• Hofstra
• Loyola Stritch
• Medical College of Wisconsin
• New York Medical College
• Oakland
• Penn State
• Rosalind Franklin
• Rush
• St. Louis
• SUNY Downstate
• Temple
• Thomas Jefferson
• Tufts
• Tulane
• UC Davis
• UC Irvine
• UCLA
• UCSD
• UCSF
• University of Arizona - Phoenix
• University of Miami
• University of Michigan
• University of Southern California
• Virginia Commonwealth
• Virginia Tech

Cumulative GPA: 3.74

Science GPA: 3.70

MCAT: 34

Research: 1 year clinical research, 1 year bench research with honors thesis and poster presentation.

Clinical Volunteering: 250+ hrs hospital volunteering

Physician shadowing: 30 hours radiology, 10 hours ENT. Hoping to shadow an anesthesiologist soon.

Non-Clinical volunteering: Nothing substantial/longterm. I love teaching and am looking into tutoring programs. Just have to rearrange my schedule to fit it in.

Extracurricular activities: Fraternity officer. Musician. TAing.

Employment History: Paid research intern. Paid TA. 1 month medical scribe. Currently a research associate in biotech.

Weekly commitments: Work (45 hrs), Hospital Volunteering (6 hrs).

Immediate family members in medicine? No.

Specialty of interest: No idea, but surgery sounds appealing.

Interest in rural health? No direct experience with this, but I am definitely interested.

Thanks for your time! I’d greatly appreciate any advice, critiques, and/or comments.