Hi everyone,

Now that the cycle is pretty much over and I have come to terms with how it didn't quite go as I hoped (1 II -> 1 WL out of 34 apps), I am really hoping for some advice on what I could do better as a reapplicant this coming cycle. I was initially relatively confident that I had a competitive app, but have been rather sad recently with people (mentors, parents, etc) telling me that they aren't super surprised things didn't work out for me this time around. I didn't really rely on any of these people during my first cycle because I knew that the kind of support they would provide me was not what I needed, but now it's really getting to me as I turn to them for help out of desperation, for lack of a better term.

Here are my stats:

GPA: 3.82, MCAT: 518, Preview: 8, Casper: 2nd quartile lol

CA F ORM, 26 yrs old, in my 3rd gap year

~6500 hours in neuroscience research, no pubs because very very long-term experiments (will probably have 2-3 pubs after I ultimately leave), 4 posters at big national conferences

~600 clinical hours as a volunteer in an unhoused community clinic, was a general medical volunteer for one year and then a co-manager for the next. I feel like these hours are relatively low, especially compared to my research time, but pretty much everyone in my life has consistently advised me to not leave research to gain more clinical hours

~900 non-clinical hours. I broke this up between the stuff I did for my clinic outside of direct patient care and volunteering at the animal shelter

no paid clinical hours

~150 hrs shadowing

~150 hrs tutoring

~something like 10k hours working with animals in paid positions (vet, guide dogs, etc) before transitioning to medicine

PS: surrounded patient advocacy and how it is a big part of my job working with animals in research and with patients at my clinic, gave specific examples. talked about what i loved about research but why medicine made more sense for me.

I think I am considered non-traditional considering my age/gap years, work experiences, taking 6 years to finish undergrad after spending 2yrs at a 4-year, 2yrs at a CC, and then 2yrs at another 4yr. I had to explain this in a lot of my secondaries and unfortunately it was mainly due to mental health stuff that I have grown from a ton since then, but I know mental health is a bit of a no-no to talk about so I really tried to frame it as something I learned from rather than something that brought me down. I think, overall, my writing was maybe on the poorer side and what I've chalked up to be a big problem in my app, along with submitting secondaries late throughout September. I just want to know if there is like an obvious gap or red-flag that could have led to having essentially zero interest in my app besides my dream school (please oh please WL movement). My mentor that I have turned to since getting WL'ed told me that I am the most basic applicant possible (asian F with dr parents) and that hurt me, but I don't know what I can do about that. He thinks I am not ready to apply again and that I have "2 years worth of work" to do before I should, but that is simply does not align with my goals at this time in my life. I'm just really upset because I never took on any experiences to check boxes for medical school- I just really honestly did the things I loved and wanted to contribute to. Now I am feeling that this was a mistake.