I’ve been crunching some numbers today, and it’s really got me bogged down in FUD. My gpa as calculated by my university is 2.54, and with a bunch of A’s I can bring that up over a 3.0. I didn’t take into account grade replacement, though. I went back and recalculated, and it brought me down to a 2.1. Then there’s my first year of college when I attended a different school…I don’t even know what those grades are, but I remember they were bad, and they’re just going to bring things down further.
The end result is, I’d have to take something like 300 undergraduate credit hours to get my cumulative gpa over 3.0. I know it’s a marathon and not a race, but I really don’t want to be an undergrad for that long. There aren’t that many subjects I’m interested in to take 300 credit hours!
So, I don’t know where I should go from here. Finish the bachelor’s I’m working on and go ahead and apply, hoping the adcoms notice that my current grades are awesome? Add a 2nd (and maybe 3rd) major to bring up my gpa as high as possible? I’ve thought about SMP’s after graduation, but it seems most of them have a minimum gpa of 3.0, too.
FWIW, I won’t finish my undergrad degree until the spring of 2014, but I like to be prepared and plan ahead 
I’m a glass is half full kind of guy, but you’ve definitely got your work cut out for you. Med schools do notice upward trends, but below a 3.0 overall is going to be a hard sale. 300 hours is the rough equivalent of 2 bachelor degrees…that’s an awful lot of class!
Furthermore, when you recalculated with grade replacement and your GPA went down, I take that to mean you did worse the second time around. You typically see an upward trend with grade replacement, I’m not entirely sure I’m following you in that aspect.
Here’s a link to the SDN D.O. underdog thread for the previous year.
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=8…
To be honest with you, if I couldn’t get my stats up to some of those accepted on the thread, I think twice. Just being honest.
I sincerely wish you the best!
Dan
AACOMAS only uses the final repeat of a course in calculating GPA - so if you repeat some of those courses you did poorly in that could really bring things up (they will still see all grades, but they aren’t all factored into the calculation).
I should have said I recalculated without grade replacement. I retook the classes I failed and replaced the F with a better grade, which wiped out the F in the university-calculated gpa. Just some background: I attended college from 1996-2001, and had many different majors. In 2001, I was 1 credit from a business degree but had to stop going to school because of a financial aid mixup, and I never went back. So one reason this is difficult is because I already have a ton of credits.
I was unaware that AACOMAS only uses the final repeat. That makes me feel much better.
This is just all so frustrating. All of my horrible grades are from 10+ years ago. I fully intend to, and I know I’m capable of, getting all A’s from here on out. I’m just worried that I’ll do all of this work and still not get anywhere, y’know? Ugh, now I’m just whining…
So, would you choose more undergraduate credits over trying to get into an SMP? My thought was a low undergrad gpa with a strong upward trend and a 4.0 for the last 80-120 credit hours and an SMP with a high gpa would look better than just a slightly higher undergrad gpa.
- MeghanP Said:
Hopefully you won't need to go down this path, but if it ever comes to that, you should consider moving to TX, gaining residence there, and then invoking the Academic Fresh Start. I don't know if it would wipe out grades taken at institutes outside TX, but you could check. The whole thing would take you 6+ years. Two years to establish TX residence, and 4 years for an undergrad. It's really out there, but I'm tossing out ideas...
Before you do anything further, I suggest you figure out exactly where you stand. I was a bit confused as well by the GPA #'s. You’ll need to get an unofficial transcript of your first undergraduate enrollment (usually avail online), and the second.
In the interest of time, you may want to just finish one degree, and then begin working on GPA improvement. Once the retakes are factored in (assuming you improve), I think you’ll be in better shape.