MarinaS
Application cycles: 07/27/2009
Demographics: Female, 37, Caucasian
Home state: Ontario
Last Active: 03/01/2010

Brief Profile: Oops...! Didn\'t realize I was being stalked ;).
Will update and comment when done. You comments are appreciated.

GPA: Above 3.95
MCAT: Above 32 (See why below...)
\'Major\': I am doing an Honors program in Neuroscience. Also, physiology and psychology minor (although I may not complete the Psych minor).

Research Experience:
1 year in clinical psychology/neuroscience lab.
1 summer in pediatric neurology lab where I did surgery on mice. For independent research project, preliminary data was accepted/published/presented to national conference (no/few undergraduates and medical students were there - a total of maybe 4 including me).
Planning to work on undergraduate thesis project in the neurology lab in the upcoming year, and get enough data for a paper.

Student Leadership:
Executive positions for two years for Neuroscience club.
Executive positions for two years for big health professional club.
Executive position for one year planning fundraisers/marketing for club to raise money to train residents in Ghana.

Clinical/Volunteering:
1 year volunteering in hospital, physiotherapy (~100 hours I\'m guessing).
Volunteering in Ghana (West Africa).
Volunteering to teach grade 5/6 kids about helmet safety and spinal cord injury prevention.

Hobbies:
Ballroom dancing. Dance at Gold level for both latin and standard.
Visual arts - very accomplished in this.
Music (piano and alto saxophone).

Other:
Not my \'first\' career. Worked as a model in high school and took a year off before college. Elite Model Management (world-renowned agency).

MCAT:
Long story? Didn\'t end up studying very much because I was really busy with research and stuff that came up there. Had several presentations right before the test date. Essentially got the same score as in my pre-study diagnostic. I wanted to retake it, but there just wasn\'t enough time if I wanted to submit my app early, and it\'s not *THAT* bad despite what some people said. I really hope this doesn\'t keep me out of schools. Otherwise, I will look into the GRE and apply for a Masters as well.

Not on AMCAS:
Enjoy exercise a lot and work out often. I trained with a Dragon Boat team for one semester in 1st and 2nd year, but had to quit because of a change in my course schedule in the second semester both years that conflicted with the training one.
Learned to do electromyograms (EMGs) to a pig (poking nerves with a needle, guided by ultrasound). It\'s quite fun.
Licensed SCUBA diver.
Overnight Habitat for Humanity fundraiser.
I have 3 passports: Russian Federation, Israel, and Canada. I also lived in Greece for a month.
I speak Russian and English. I used to speak Hebrew too, but haven\'t in ~12 years, so would say I forgot it. I know a bit of French. I want to learn/re-learn these two languages and then learn Spanish. Mandarin would be cool as well because it would be useful and so unexpected!

Any comments/advice are much appreciated.

Wish me luck! I want to go so bad! I am not a U.S. citizen, so somewhat nervous about not getting in...

// Applications //

Application Cycle One: 07/27/2009

Undergraduate college: Prestigious
Undergraduate Area of study: Biological/Life Sciences

Total MCAT SCORE: 472
MCAT Section Scores: B/B 118, C/P 118, CARS 118
Overall GPA: 0.00
Science GPA: 0.00

Applied, Rejected

Vanderbilt University

Mayo Medical School

Application Complete

University of Pennsylvania

Yale University

Washington University in St. Louis

Stanford University

Tufts University

New York University

Mount Sinai School of Medicine

Johns Hopkins University

Emory University

Harvard University

Dartmouth College

Columbia University

Albert Einstein of Yeshiva University

Application Complete, Rejected

Northwestern University

Georgetown University

Case Western Reserve University

Brown University

Invited for Interview

Duke University

Cleveland Clinic Medical School

MD Applicants

MarinaS