How many schools to apply to?

[Guest DoNair]

Hey guys,

 

I am really confused as to how many schools I should bother applying to. My BCPM GPA is 3.53 and overall 3.42 (completed BSc from the U of Alberta) and my MCAT scores are 30N and 31M.

 

I bought the MSAR and looked through all the schools that accept international students (I'm a Canadian citizen), paying careful attention to GPA's and MCAT. I considered schools that had average GPA's of up to 3.7. This left me with a list of 51 schools! If I consider schools with GPA's of up to 3.6 then I'm left with about 20! (Btw, my MCAT is competitive for all 51 schools)

 

How many schools should I apply to? Is there a good rule of thumb to follow? Since each school has a secondary application if I apply to 20 schools, that will be a lot of extra work to do. Is this too much?

 

Any advice from Canadians who are currently attending or applying to US med schools would be greatly appreciated. I'm starting to freak out here.

 

Thanks

[Guest moo]

There's really no magic number. It depends on how confident you are about your application, really. Twenty schools is a good number for most people, some go less, others go more. Since your GPA is a little on the low side, I'd apply to more schools. If money is an issue, I wouldn't apply to the Harvards and Yales.

[Guest arachniphobic730]

hi

i sent you a private msg...

 

-arachniphobic730

[Guest DoNair]

How high a schools overall GPA (of admitted applicants) is too high for me?

 

I have a BCPM of 3.53 and an overall GPA of 3.42 (MCAT of 30N and 31M, re-writing this August)

 

I have been looking at a bunch of US school and still can't decide how many schools to limit my application to. I realize that more is better, but it gets REALLY expensive just to send the primary application. I'm already at around $1200 US with AMCAS, and that isn't all the schools I have scoped out.

 

What I would like to know is, if a school has a overall GPA of 3.7 or higher, should I just not apply there? What about schools with GPA's of 3.65? 3.6? Where do I draw the line?

 

I just don't want to go overboard and spend too much money and waste time on schools that I have no chance of getting in to (especially as an International applicant.)

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks.

[Guest 007]

I once received the advice that you should apply to 2-3 schools you know you can get into, 2-3 you're not sure of, and 1-2 "dream" schools. (You may wish to revise this statement to be for interviews, rather than acceptances). I didn't apply to the States though, so I may not be the best person to reply. Doing any more than 10 applications seems a bit excessive to me though. You could try to narrow things down by considering things like whether you'd actually want to live in that particular city etc.

 

Good luck!