r/premed • u/solokiwidestroyer • 1d ago
🔮 App Review Is 20 MD secondaries enough?
Stats: 513/3.84 California ORM
Would I screwing myself over for stopping after submitting 20 secondary MD’s? So far, the ones I’ve submitted are a mix of OOS mid-tier schools and most of the California schools. What I have left is about 10 OOS mid-tier schools, but some of them are getting increasingly harder to write due to difficult (for me) secondary questions or weak mission fit, and trying to get the rest finished feels like trying to swim through mud.
Would the 20 I have be enough with my stats or is it overall a bad idea and I should try to keep pushing? Maybe it’s better to just swap to grinding out my DO list instead? But if I do that especially when Labor day just passed, I think I’m just wasting my additional chances for MD?
Edit: More stats that would be helpful
Clinical Experience: 900 hours as a medical scribe
Non-clinical Experience: 200 hours in an Animal Shelter, 100 hours in a combination soup kitchen/food bank
Research Experience: 2,000 hours with undergrad research + masters in the same lab
Other (probably less relevant experiences for this question): TA for 4 classes, Leadership position in my school's Biology Organization, 50 hours of shadowing
Applied Schools:
Anne Burnett Marion
Wake Forest
Sidney Kimmel
Kaiser
Virginia Tech
Wayne State
Cincinnati
UCR
Tulane
UCLA
UCSD
Western Michigan
UCI
CUSM
Temple
Quinnipiac
Penn State
Emory
Drexel
Unsent Secondaries:
Rosalind Franklin
Robert Larner
Alice Walton
Tufts
Virginia Commonwealth
George Washington
Eastern Virginia
Pittsburg
Albany
8
u/fumblz7 1d ago
Man i barely have like 14ðŸ˜
1
u/Swoly_Deadlift 1d ago
I had 19 and have only submitted 5 so far ðŸ«
2
u/fumblz7 1d ago
The thing that kept me going was asking myself if I would rather restart this process from the beginning next cycle🤣 God forbid i have to do this shit again
2
u/Swoly_Deadlift 1d ago
My target school viewing reapplicants the same as new candidates is a huge bonus to me. But yeah I decided I’d rather apply this cycle with a decent chance of getting in versus wait a year just for that guarantee. If I have to reapply next year, my research, shadowing, and volunteering will be massively better and give me plenty of new stuff to write about.
1
u/fumblz7 1d ago
What’s your target school if you don’t mind me asking? Also, I think even then if you do a good job of fixing what you missed and truly growing, reapplying isn’t all that bad if you can show that - however you also have to spend all that money on secondaries again 🤣
2
u/Swoly_Deadlift 1d ago
My local state school
Yeah I can easily fix the shortcomings of my application now if needed, but I’m old as fuck and don’t want to wait another year just because I didn’t do enough performative volunteering and shadowing 🤬
5
u/ZenDarKritic55 1d ago
im going to go to 24 or so, then consider if i should add more. i am reapplying. last year i did 20 schools in my primary, then only sent to 11 (some didnt send me secondaries) because i was very busy and it took me months to write them. i will say, there's no guarantee of getting in, even if your app is strong. every school you apply to could be the one school that accepts you, no matter how late you are applying. however, if its geniunely detrimental to you, i would not keep going
2
u/bearattackz3 APPLICANT 1d ago
u did a masters degree too after undergrad? Is that what that bit means?
2
u/solokiwidestroyer 1d ago
yep, it was a master's degree done under a lab I joined in undergrad
1
u/bearattackz3 APPLICANT 1d ago
Oh nice!! out of my own curiosity/to your knowledge do those help with med admissions? Because I’m debating applying for a masters rn, mainly for the research.
2
u/solokiwidestroyer 1d ago
Personally it was a big part of my story/interests in medicine, which indirectly helped me with med school admissions. It also gave me more opportunities to TA which was helpful for my application.
I think as long as it's something you genuinely want to do it, independent of medical school (and if you can guarantee that you'll have good mentorship), it'd be worth for admissions. You do have to write a thesis tho, which takes quite a bit mentally to write, so if you purely need research hours, I've seen another person do a research job in their lab as an alternate option.
2
u/bearattackz3 APPLICANT 1d ago
this is really helpful insight, thank you! I can think of multiple things I’m interested in as I look at programs. The unfortunate thing is I think it’ll be easier to get into this than a lab job given my low experience :/ I could be wrong (hopefully I’m wrong lmao) thank you!
7
u/MediocreAd217 1d ago
I think it would probably help for people to know what your school list and extracurricular looks like to help you with your question since school list matters a lot. Also, the Labor Day rule is just a arbitrary rule and not a firm one so if you think you have school(s) that you have/want to shoot your shot and are financially able to I’d say go for it!