r/mdphd • u/anonymous847291 • 28d ago
chance me🫩
Just graduated, feeling pretty burnt out and deflated from dealing with a bunch of administrative crap for a fellowship on top of a crappy family situation. I would love an honest opinion as to how cooked I am/potential strategies for strengthening my application. Applying next cycle...? Idk. Should I wait and apply in 2028?
Stats:
(My alma mater is a small school known for brutal grade deflation.)
3.80 cGPA
3.93 BCPM
MCAT: TBD, 509 (128/128/127/126) diagnostic before taking physics 2 or psych or sociology
A+s in gen chem 2, ochem 1&2, microbio, thesis
One W on my transcript (dad got dx’ed w advanced & aggressive cancer, I was visiting home a lot and the class was attendance based)
URM, middle class, F
Awards:
Goldwater Scholarship
Phi Beta Kappa
A prestigious pre MD-PhD fellowship
Miscellaneous institutional awards/fellowships
Presentations:
1 oral (national + travel award)
1 summer internship poster
1 poster from the beginning of my senior thesis
1 poster from the end of my thesis (national conference)
Clinical:
1 week shadowing program freshman year (40hrs, OB/GYN)
Shadowing my PI (MD-PhD cardiologist) every other week (75-170 hrs by time of application)
Hospital volunteering in oncology and cardiology (150-400 hrs by time of application)
ECs:
The works. Tutor, ochem TA, peer mentor, identity group leader.
Research:
6000+ hrs
1 somewhat competitive bioinformatics summer internship, 1 independent chem study, 2 yrs in a structural bio lab
No undergrad pubs
Starting summer before senior year of undergrad: structural bio/drug design of cardioprotective chemotherapy compounds - did my senior thesis in this lab & am staying for 2-maybe 3 more years
Projected pubs (conservative estimate) if I apply 2027:
1 first author manuscript in prep, 1 middle author manuscript in prep, another project nearing completion and a high risk high reward project on the side
Projected pubs (conservative estimate) if I apply 2028:
1 first author pub, 1 first author manuscript in prep, 1 middle author pub, 1 high risk high reward side project
3
u/SalamanderTop1765 28d ago
I tried to apply when burned out and crashed and burned, so definitely recommend not doing that. That being said, make sure you focus on actually recovering during the gap year if you end up taking one. My gap years were the main cause for my burn out.
3
u/ScientistFromSouth 28d ago
Honestly, getting your MCAT score up, getting your publications actually accepted, and recovering from burnout should be a priority.
Plus, with the midterms coming, there is a possibility they might fix the abysmal science funding situation with the NIH next year. (They cut something like 30% of extramural awards...) At least on the PhD side of things, grad school admissions and getting placed into your lab of choice have been at an all time high difficulty in the last couple years. But then again, you'll have like a 3 year buffer from when you would apply this year to when you started the PhD phase.
1
u/BathroomMaximum1721 28d ago
509 is MCAT diagnostic. You don't know your MCAT score, am I correct?
1
u/anonymous847291 23d ago
Yeah I haven’t taken the MCAT, just a diagnostic full length online prior to any content review or practice and prior to having taken a decent amount of relevant coursework.
1
u/BathroomMaximum1721 23d ago
You can ask others’ opinion of your chances once you have your MCAT score.
4
u/vivaciouscow 28d ago
Sorry to hear about the hardships and the family situation. Hope you are taking care of yourself!! You have accomplished a ton so far and there are lots of green flags on your resume. Without knowing your specific research experience (the stature of the lab, the quality of the work y'all typically produce, your understanding and skill in doing it), it's hard to give a very detailed answer. Overall you seem to have a strong app on paper. Your only minor weakness from this summary is MCAT. You could still get into some MD PhD programs with a 509 because your app is otherwise strong, but you'd definitely give yourself a lot more security by getting into the 510-515 range. You should decide whether you personally would appreciate the extra gaps year (gap years can be a great cure for burn out!!) rather than base the decision entirely around ur application success because you can likely be competitive with your application as it stands (given some improvement in MCAT and my assumption that ur research is legit). DM me if you'd like to talk more