Chance me for T20s - Asian male, Molecular Biology major, Pre-med track

If getting into medical school is your primary goal, then I would suggest a completely different strategy. Going to a T20 as an asian pre-med can be completely counterproductive. Medical school admissions is focused on two main things: 1) GPA and 2) MCAT. Other important secondary factors are 3) State of residence 4) Race/ethnicity. Prestige of academic undergrad degree doesn’t matter much.

So I say go to a place where you can get as high of a GPA as possible, and be near the top of your class. If you can get a full merit scholarship, thats even better. Small liberal arts colleges would love to have you. Its much easier to stand out to a med school admissions committee being the valedictorian of a small LAC than to be the 500th asian student applying from Big State U.

Read through the admissions stats published by the AAMC below. Especially the table titled “Undergraduate Institutions Supplying 50 or More Asian Applicants to U.S. Medical Schools, 2021-2022”

You’ll see that at the big universities, nearly half of the applicants to medical school are asian. Take UCLA for example. Nearly 1300 applicants, and 612 Asians. If you go to a college like this it will be a cut-throat atmosphere. Essentially you will be competing against other Asians for medical school slots.

So I would say avoid this altogether and go to a college that has few Asian pre-meds.

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