I know my basic stats aren't great and my MCAT completely sucks (I'm planning to retake):
cumGPA: 3.3
sciGPA: 3.4
MCAT: BS 9, VR6, PS 6
But I am currently working in a lab where I did my senior thesis research and I eventually will be lead author on that publication but it won't be ready to submit until this fall. We are considering submitting to Nature. I know that is a long shot and that is my only first author paper so I'm not banking on it getting me in.
I currently have one publication in PNAS and we are submitting manuscripts to Nature Medicine and Nature Biotechnology. The Nature Biotech paper I am second author on and the Nature Med I am fourth (or maybe third since there are two authors who got first authorship/equal contributions). We always have upwards of 10 authors on our papers because we do very multidisciplinary work. Also will be on a clinical paper that we are submitting to New England Journal of Medicine but probably not until the end of summer/fall as we are just starting to write that one. I am on 4 more studies where we will be writing the manuscript soon.
BUT my numbers suck and the earliest I could retake the MCAT and still apply this year is August and getting my scores in September. I already asked for LOR from my PI, a neuropathologist and neurosurgeon I work with who all agreed to write one. If I can get everything else in and my MCAT scores come in september does that make me a strong enough applicant to compete? Or should I just wait even later to take the MCAT and apply next year? That way I would have more accepted publications on my app too.
I work in neurosurgery and already know I want to go into that specialty and since their residency is so long (7 years) I'm a little hesitant to wait to apply another year when I am already taking a year off. I don't want to delay for publications if they don't matter as much, but with the Nature Med, Nature Biotech, my thesis and another study I have contributed significantly to the creation of the manuscript and wrote parts of them.
What should I do???
cumGPA: 3.3
sciGPA: 3.4
MCAT: BS 9, VR6, PS 6
But I am currently working in a lab where I did my senior thesis research and I eventually will be lead author on that publication but it won't be ready to submit until this fall. We are considering submitting to Nature. I know that is a long shot and that is my only first author paper so I'm not banking on it getting me in.
I currently have one publication in PNAS and we are submitting manuscripts to Nature Medicine and Nature Biotechnology. The Nature Biotech paper I am second author on and the Nature Med I am fourth (or maybe third since there are two authors who got first authorship/equal contributions). We always have upwards of 10 authors on our papers because we do very multidisciplinary work. Also will be on a clinical paper that we are submitting to New England Journal of Medicine but probably not until the end of summer/fall as we are just starting to write that one. I am on 4 more studies where we will be writing the manuscript soon.
BUT my numbers suck and the earliest I could retake the MCAT and still apply this year is August and getting my scores in September. I already asked for LOR from my PI, a neuropathologist and neurosurgeon I work with who all agreed to write one. If I can get everything else in and my MCAT scores come in september does that make me a strong enough applicant to compete? Or should I just wait even later to take the MCAT and apply next year? That way I would have more accepted publications on my app too.
I work in neurosurgery and already know I want to go into that specialty and since their residency is so long (7 years) I'm a little hesitant to wait to apply another year when I am already taking a year off. I don't want to delay for publications if they don't matter as much, but with the Nature Med, Nature Biotech, my thesis and another study I have contributed significantly to the creation of the manuscript and wrote parts of them.
What should I do???