Hi folks,
I’m brand new to the boards and am looking forward to meeting some new people with similar ambitions and desires. Thank you for having me.
I have a question and am interested in what you all have to say. Please be brutally honest if necessary!
Firstly, some quick background: Currently, I have a 2.8 GPA in my undergrad work. I earned a BS in EE in '05 and found this to be an extremely difficult accomplishment due to my maturity level at the time, the breakneck pace of the quarter system and level of difficulty of the course material. I’m now 30 and have never done any kind of engineering. My career since graduating has been mainly technically oriented business to business sales (sales engineer). I very much want to pursue a career in medicine but fear that once my premed classes are finished, my GPA will still be my undoing in the application process. Not to mention, I’m also concerned about spending another decade (my thirties) of my life working toward something I could have nailed 10 years earlier had I chosen a different major and made better decisions.
My question: How do I get around the GPA and age issues? Lets say I pulled off an amazing MCAT score, did exceptionally well in courses like Ochem and Biochem and moved my GPA to ~3.0. What is the likelihood of getting accepted somewhere? Which types of extracurriculars would you all recommend to help mitigate any issues my GPA might create? What facets of your pre- Medical School transcript are the admissions faculty most interested in?
Thank you all in advance for your help and insight.
Ken
Hi Ken,
Welcome to the boards dude. Here is the good news - your age should not be an issue. Most folks on the board are 30 years plus and have children and, most importantly, are in medical school, graduated medical school, or are on their way to medical school. To answer your other questions, your GPA is a bit suspect but you can do things to improve it. You could take a solid two years of course work (sixteen courses) and assuming you ace all your classes you could bump up your overall GPA to around a 3.3 AND your BCPM will be a 4.0. Assuming you also rock the MCATs I think there are schools out there that will consider you for an interview. I wanted to also suggest getting a Masters of Science but if you haven’t taken the pre-med requirements yet, you will need to do those first anyway.
What I think probably would be the best idea is to approach a medical school admissions counselor with your concerns. You would be shocked by how helpful they can be. One counselor/officer told me what courses I needed to take and my chances of getting an interview if I did not take them and if I did. She even told me what my target MCAT score should be. I was amazed. Maybe you might want to take a visit to your state medical college and ask them for a sit down interview.
BTW - extracurriculars don’t overshadow a poor GPA and don’t boost a good one either. They are just one part of the application schools look at.
You got a long road ahead of you dude. I wish you luck!
- EEtoMD Said:
I'm brand new to the boards and am looking forward to meeting some new people with similar ambitions and desires. Thank you for having me.
I have a question and am interested in what you all have to say. Please be brutally honest if necessary!
Firstly, some quick background: Currently, I have a 2.8 GPA in my undergrad work. I earned a BS in EE in '05 and found this to be an extremely difficult accomplishment due to my maturity level at the time, the breakneck pace of the quarter system and level of difficulty of the course material. I'm now 30 and have never done any kind of engineering. My career since graduating has been mainly technically oriented business to business sales (sales engineer). I very much want to pursue a career in medicine but fear that once my premed classes are finished, my GPA will still be my undoing in the application process. Not to mention, I'm also concerned about spending another decade (my thirties) of my life working toward something I could have nailed 10 years earlier had I chosen a different major and made better decisions.
My question: How do I get around the GPA and age issues? Lets say I pulled off an amazing MCAT score, did exceptionally well in courses like Ochem and Biochem and moved my GPA to ~3.0. What is the likelihood of getting accepted somewhere? Which types of extracurriculars would you all recommend to help mitigate any issues my GPA might create? What facets of your pre- Medical School transcript are the admissions faculty most interested in?
Thank you all in advance for your help and insight.
Ken
To help you we need to know the MCAT score.
2.8 is way low for even DO schools from what I know, a 40 MCAT will not help a lot, MCAT and GPA are weighted close to the same equal. So you need to work on the GPA and get it up to at least 3.2 for a DO school.
DO schools may consider you with a 3.2 and a strong MCAT but average in DO schools are 3.3 and 3.4 and a MCAT around a 28 at least. MD schools are at 3.5 and 3.6 and 31 MCAT at least average. These are not the lows and the schools do a poor job at helping you understand what is a good chance or no chance.
In fact no one can do this, but we can tell you what seems to be the better chance stats.
What I would do..... Masters or Post bac. Most with poor Undergrad (under 3.1) go and do this and do well then some do get accepted. It does work.
Is the GPA of 2.8 the colleges or all you college grades ever earned averaged together, this includes retakes averaged in. This is crucial to know where you stand, it is how AMCAS and the US medical schools do the GPA.
Volunteering and clinical Patient experience can make the difference in the case of lower stats, but 2.8 is just too low IMHO. DO schools traditionally look at the "WHOLE" application not just the stats.
Let us know.
One of the keys is to figure out what you need to change about the way you approach school work to be very successful. If there is a clear, obvious line between the guy who got the mediocre grades previously and the person you are now, that helps adcoms see whether you can be successful in med school. So the first thing is to make sure you are are ready to kick butt on your pre-req courses. Then you may take a few additional science courses to hammer the point home. Even if your cumulative average does not climb to an attractive level, if you can build up a solid record of achievement from this day forward, you have a chance.
Don’t despair, Ken.
Medical schools do realize that electrical engineering is one of the most difficult curriculums to study as an undergraduate and engineering courses in general are notoriously known to be graded very harshly. So a recent, great GPA upswing of biomedical coursework combined with a great MCAT score will be noticed and can make you a very competitive candidate for medical school. Just ask the many posters on this board who had lower GPAs than yours and are now medical students or medical school graduates.
The other posters probably don’t realize that you only need a year of organic chemistry and a year of biology to finish-up your premedical prerequisites. You should have taken everything else (a year of chemistry, a year of physics, and a year of English, a year of math, and a least 90 semester credits completed) in your electrical engineering curriculum. So if you can manage it financially, you really should consider an full-time advance-level post-baccalaureate program where you take advanced-level premedical coursework that is beyond the premedical prerequisite level to help prove your academic ability in biomedical coursework to medical schools and to also help you develop relationships with biomedical course instructors that you can ask for recommendation letters later on.
With that said, before you start anything toward medical school, you should make sure you know what you are getting yourself into. Shadow a few physicians and ask questions (this is probably one the best extracurriculars you can do). Pay particular attention to the regrets and frustrations they have about medicine. Everyone on this board will agree that medicine is in no way as glamorous as how popular TV shows try to make it.
I have posted the following on other topics, but I think it help you defeat ageist thinking:
- ihopetobeado2 Said:
- ihopetobeado2 Said:
Medical schools do realize that electrical engineering is one of the most difficult curriculums to study as an undergraduate and engineering courses in general are notoriously known to be graded very harshly.
I do not disagree with a lot of what you say,
But I have to ask, How do you know what is in bold above? SO many premeds say these things, after speaking to an adviser, common wisdom or one or two ADCOM members commented this.
I tend to believe this kinda stuff is "Urban Myth" and really "What is hard for one person is easy for another" and ADCOMS do know this. They expect you in fact to do what comes easier to you to get all A's and there is nothing wrong with that since we all excel at one thing or another.
From my experience, the engineering majors I’ve run across in medical school have indeed had somewhat lower GPAs and do get cut a little bit of slack on the GPA, especially when the lower grades are in engineering courses.
That being said, the OP has a low GPA even for an engineering major and needs to work at proving to the adcoms that the past GPA was reflective of maturity level and not intellectual capability. Finish out the pre-reqs with A’s, take some additional upper level biological/medical science type courses, and do well on the MCAT and see where you stand. Don’t forget about the other aspects of your application such as shadowing, volunteering, etc. etc.
Good luck! (FWIW - my original ugrad GPA was a 2.78 and I didn’t really take a lot of tough classes)
- Emergency! Said:
That being said, the OP has a low GPA even for an engineering major and needs to work at proving to the adcoms that the past GPA was reflective of maturity level and not intellectual capability. Finish out the pre-reqs with A's, take some additional upper level biological/medical science type courses, and do well on the MCAT and see where you stand. Don't forget about the other aspects of your application such as shadowing, volunteering, etc. etc.
Good luck! (FWIW - my original ugrad GPA was a 2.78 and I didn't really take a lot of tough classes)
I can believe that possibly at some schools there is some ADCOM's that think one course of study may be a little tougher then another, But when it comes to cutting "Slack" I cannot believe that this matters that much, a MD school to admit someone below a 3.3 when they turn down a 3.5 GPA because one is engineering and one is psych is, IMO not happing, there must be other factors and not as simple as that, a 2.8 to get accepted, that is 2.8 undergrad with out any other work like a Post Bac or Masters that proves a Higher GPA, will not get accepted in the USA at this time, there are too many with better Applications and that is my Main point.
Everyone who replied…
…thank you for taking the time to do so. I really appreciate all of the insight you guys have provided.
The plan of action I will be taking is this: I’m going get a masters in Biomed Engineering. The core classes I’m missing for this program happen to be many of the premed classes (kill 2 birds with 1 stone). My goal is of course to earn nothing but A’s and bring my GPA to an acceptable level for med school. I’m hoping the total credit hours and grade points from all my masters and premed classes will carry enough weight to influence my GPA.
If I can’t get accepted anywhere, then in the very worst case I’ll have my masters degree and can move on to the Ph.D. level.
Thanks again everyone! I’ll post updates as they occur.
Best regards,
Ken
P.S. Emergency - How did you manage to address your undergrad GPA with the ADCOMs? How did you get them to accept you in light of it?
- DRFP Said:
You're absolutely correct - it's not as simple as GPA. If it was, I would have never gotten into medical school. Even with a 3.98 in 45 or so semester hours of postbacc work, I only brought my cumulative undergraduate GPA up to a 3.1 or so. I think the average GPA of my class was around a 3.6 or so. But, I DO think that ALL OTHER THINGS BEING EQUAL (i.e. MCAT, pre-req grades, etc), a school WILL give consideration to the fact that student X probably had to work a hell of a lot harder for his 3.3 GPA in engineering than student Y had to work for his 3.5 GPA in psych and not automatically write off student X because of the GPA.
In no way was I implying the the OP or anyone could/should apply with a 2.8 undergrad and no other post-bacc or masters work and think that they have a reasonable shot at being accepted. I do think, however, that it's being overly pessimistic to tell people who have low undergrad GPAs that they have very little chance at US MD schools and they should concentrate on DO and the Caribbean. I think it is reasonable to tell them what the averages are and what they need to do to make their applications as competitive as possible given their original GPA, but I don't think that people should be discouraged from applying from US MD schools because no matter how many post-bacc courses they take, they will only be able to bring their overall GPA up to a 3.1 or 3.2
I personally feel that you can't just take the GPA and application statistics from the MSAR and tell people that they don't stand a chance because of their original ugrad GPA. Schools look at a lot more factors than just GPAs. Some will argue that schools will pre-screen. My experience is that the vast majority of schools do NOT pre-screen people solely based on GPA.
I do think that people should be told what they need to do in order to get an adcom to look at them - excel in post-bacc or SMP work, do well on the MCAT, get good LORs, make sure that you have as killer of an application as possible in all other aspects (shadowing, ECs, personal statement, etc). And, they need to realize that even if they do all that, there is still no guarantee that they will get accepted to a US MD or DO school, given the competitiveness of med school admissions.
- EEtoMD Said:
As mentioned above, I kicked butt in my post-bacc work. I did reasonably well on the MCAT (although still slightly below the average for my school). I feel I had great LORs and that I was able to present my background in a very positive way. I think the contrast between my ugrad GPA and my post-bacc GPA and MCAT was stark enough that the adcoms could clearly see that my overall GPA was not reflective of my abilities. Beyond that, though, I think they just looked at the rest of my application and decided I was interesting enough for an interview. I was asked about my ugrad GPA at all of my interviews. They all seemed relatively satisfied with my explanation of immaturity and rebellion (my parents were pretty strict with grades and when I got to college and didn't have that threat hanging over my head, I slacked off quite a bit).
Again, though, there are lots of intangibles. I am from a state with a large number of medical schools relative to the population and in-state applicants have a far better shot here than they do in other states (such as Cali).
When I was considering this, I talked to admissions people at two different med schools and a couple of very good pre-med advisors. All of them told me that most med schools look at the entire application and not just GPA and that if I did well in the pre-reqs and on the MCAT I would have as reasonable shot as anyone else of getting into medical school.
As it turns out, that is the case. I applied to five medical schools, two of them ranked med schools, and was accepted at all five. I don't throw this out there to brag - merely to prove my point that I didn't just get lucky and find one sympathetic adcom at a less competitive school.
Work HARD from here on out and see where it takes you. Talk to as many admissions people at as many medical schools as you possibly can. You will be surprised at how helpful some of them will be and the great advice that you will get.
Emergency I know, I just feel the need to make it clear, before someone misunderstands and spends time and money and Hope on something they believe is a good shot, I think what you did is what it takes,
For me its hard since I decided to go to a Caribbean school and path, different, it is a lot easier to get accepted in the Caribbean as we well know.
US is difficult path for some.
I’m passionate about helping others on this path.
Thats why I care. I think anyone who is willing to work and dedicate themselves to this, can succeed, with the right advice.
It’s funny to see I posted this 2 years ago. Just wanted to give those in this thread an update.
I went back to school and got into a biomedical post-bacc. I ended up pulling As on all 50 units finishing up at a cGPA of 3.3 and a sGPA of 3.2.
My MCAT was a 29.
Before I start applying, I’d like to run this by you guys and get some thoughts.
I’m not going to bullshit my way around the Adcoms. I’m going to feed it to them straight. I don’t have any “I did volunteer work in a third world country and now I love people” stories. But I do have 15 years of people-related experience and the reality is that I love working with people.
With this in mind, I am now 33 and ready to move forward.
What are my chances?
Thanks a ton guys, this thread has kept me motivated the last two years while I cranked out the post-bacc work.
- EEtoMD Said:
What are my chances?
'love working with people' is not very conducive to maximizing one's aforementioned 'chances'. I think 'love working with people' is easily one of the most overused cliches that adcoms hear. In fact I would go so far as saying DON'T EVER EVEN MUTTER IT. Don't make a statement that you can't back up with your actions.
You have to tell the adcom a story. A story about who you are and why you would make a good doctor. Every story has something that needs to be told. Have you ever spent an hour reading a book or an essay and at the end of it wondered, "What the hell was that about? I just wasted an hour of my life and gained nothing"? Well the bullshit you refer to is what needs to be inserted into your story so adcoms don't get that 'empty' feeling.
Your 'bullshit' could be your clinical volunteering, your interactions with a sick relative, your experiences working with handicapped individuals etc. Irrespective, there has to be some meat to your 'story' - your 'chances' are only as good as your 'story' and the bullshit contained therein. You may have to use copious amounts of perfume to cover up the stink and make your bullshit presentable but you still have to use it!
- Dazed Said:
- EEtoMD Said:
What are my chances?
'love working with people' is not very conducive to maximizing one's aforementioned 'chances'. I think 'love working with people' is easily one of the most overused cliches that adcoms hear. In fact I would go so far as saying DON'T EVER EVEN MUTTER IT. Don't make a statement that you can't back up with your actions.
You have to tell the adcom a story. A story about who you are and why you would make a good doctor. Every story has something that needs to be told. Have you ever spent an hour reading a book or an essay and at the end of it wondered, "What the hell was that about? I just wasted an hour of my life and gained nothing"? Well the bullshit you refer to is what needs to be inserted into your story so adcoms don't get that 'empty' feeling.
Your 'bullshit' could be your clinical volunteering, your interactions with a sick relative, your experiences working with handicapped individuals etc. Irrespective, there has to be some meat to your 'story' - your 'chances' are only as good as your 'story' and the bullshit contained therein. You may have to use copious amounts of perfume to cover up the stink and make your bullshit presentable but you still have to use it!
Hi Dazed,
Thanks for the input, and I could not agree more. For the sake of brevity I used the terrible wording above in my post.
In reference to the "bullshit", what I meant was avoiding offering "typical" excuses for poor performance in undergrad and taking ownership and responsibility for the mistakes that were made, while bringing focus to recent accomplishments and hopefully shedding light on the differences between who I was then, and who I am now.
I'm thinking this approach would be much better than wasting the Adcom's time with excuses they hear all the time.
Rather than trying to explain everything away, I would be up front and direct with the Adcoms while drawing on specific experiences with people , both medically-related and non medically-related, that have created the desire to pursue medicine.
I appreciate the input and I've copied your post into my prep folder so I can review it while preparing for any possible interviews.
Thanks again, Dazed
