Hey everyone, been lurking for a bit and listening to the podcasts. Figured I’d pop in to introduce myself as well as ask for some general advice.
I’m a non traditional student in my late 20s. I attempted college for two semesters when I was 18 and I left with a 1.8GPA and feelings of disillusion with the whole academic system. I worked several odd jobs and eventually became a paramedic, and have been working full time in EMS for just under 7 years now. I had a job as an ER tech in a hospital which sparked my interest in pursuing medicine. I returned to college two years ago after a gap of 5 years and have only 6 classes left. I’ve done OK as a student and have a 3.1 overall GPA (including the not-so-great early stuff) and project I’ll be in the ballpark of a 3.15-3.2 when I’m done. I’ve started studying for the MCAT which I’ll take next winter/early spring. Outside of class I’ve been working nights/weekends full time 36-48 hrs/wk, teaching EMT classes for 4 years, and I’ll be an official tutor for organic chemistry next semester. I have some physician shadowing lined up for later in the summer and will be joining a victims assistance/grief counseling organization as a volunteer in the fall. I’m currently a psychology major.
My main concern, like many others, is my GPA. Its not terrible but not particularly good. I’m mainly wondering if it would be worth my time to do a post bacc/add another science major to increase my GPA a bit. My main hesitations are continuing to rack up my student loan debt, and the fact I have such an obscene amount of college credit even a 4.0 semester raises my overall GPA by such a tiny amount. (I have a 3.5 from a two year degree at a technical school, but have no idea how applicable that credit is for med school applications) I started out by retaking a couple of classes but stopped after grade replacement ended. I also am beginning to feel my frustrations with the academic system return, I took 8 credits (a not insignificant amount of time & $$$) of classes my adviser told me I needed, when it turned out I didn’t need them at all because of transfer credit that had not been reflected on my records correctly. The first pre health adviser I met with told me to “consider other career options” 5 minutes into our first meeting. I’m pretty confident in my goals but it becomes especially challenging when the people who are supposed to guide and advise take the wind out of your sails barely after you’ve left the starting line. I’ve found a better pre health mentor that is more experienced with helping non traditional students, and she has set me on a much better track.
So assuming I finish with around a 3.15 and a reasonable MCAT score, in addition to all of my clinical experience, would it be worth to add another major/unofficial science post bacc to boost it just a bit further? I know admissions committees are starting too look at trends/recent college credit but I still worry about getting screened out early. On top of that the official recommendation for the pre health committee is not to apply with less than a 3.4 GPA. They’ll still will put a file/letter together for you if you request but I worry about going through their process with my lower numbers.
Welcome to the site!
I’m glad you already realize that GPA isn’t everything, and I can’t really comment on what you would need in the rest of your file to counter a GPA on the lower end of matriculants. However, some data from AAMC that looked purely at GPA + MCAT show that it is possible to get into a school with a 3.14, especially if you have a stronger showing on the MCAT. https://www.aamc.org/data/facts/applicantmatriculant/157998/factstablea24.html
I’m not sure what the DO stats are. But again, that doesn’t account for the rest of your application, so it’s hard to gauge much from it other than it’s possible to get in…
It sounds like you already know the answer to your question, but only you can really decide if such a minimal bump in your gpa is worth the time and money it takes to get it done. I would say ride the wave of your trending GPA and hope that they overlook your really old stuff. I’ve seen other posts that say certain schools (LSU-somewhere) only do a really hard lookback at your most recent 35 hours or something. You GPA should be good enough for any autoscreening (does that still exist?), so your trend should be appreciated by a human reviewer.
I’m of the camp that believes it’s never a bad idea to weigh other options so you’re not scrambling when plan A doesn’t work out. “Consider other career options” isn’t necessarily bad advice in my opinion. It seems like you have a pretty solid fallback option, though, since you’re already working full time.
@Kennymac wrote:
Welcome to the site!
I’m glad you already realize that GPA isn’t everything, and I can’t really comment on what you would need in the rest of your file to counter a GPA on the lower end of matriculants. However, some data from AAMC that looked purely at GPA + MCAT show that it is possible to get into a school with a 3.14, especially if you have a stronger showing on the MCAT. https://www.aamc.org/data/facts/applicantmatriculant/157998/factstablea24.html
I’m not sure what the DO stats are. But again, that doesn’t account for the rest of your application, so it’s hard to gauge much from it other than it’s possible to get in…
It sounds like you already know the answer to your question, but only you can really decide if such a minimal bump in your gpa is worth the time and money it takes to get it done. I would say ride the wave of your trending GPA and hope that they overlook your really old stuff. I’ve seen other posts that say certain schools (LSU-somewhere) only do a really hard lookback at your most recent 35 hours or something. You GPA should be good enough for any autoscreening (does that still exist?), so your trend should be appreciated by a human reviewer.
I’m of the camp that believes it’s never a bad idea to weigh other options so you’re not scrambling when plan A doesn’t work out. “Consider other career options” isn’t necessarily bad advice in my opinion. It seems like you have a pretty solid fallback option, though, since you’re already working full time.
Thanks for the reply! I’ll have to gauge where I stand after the MCAT and next semester on whether I want to do more coursework. I plan on a mix of MD and DO applications. I’m not sure what the DO averages are either, but the averages have been trending upwards in recent years.
Following up on the “consider other options” quote, I really found it dismissive and like I should start looking elsewhere now when I had just returned to finish undergrad in order to pursue a graduate education in medicine. The advice I got from the pre health office upon returning to a 4 year university was “get As in everything and do volunteer work”. They pretty much shrugged when I asked if working full time or having full time clinical experience while in class had more/similar weight on applications than generic “volunteer work”. When she saw my grades from 5 years prior, that is what prompted the “seek other options” comment. I have a reasonably well paying job and have had many plan Bs throughout my life, as a firm believer in Murphy’s Law. It just seemed dismissive and unprofessional of the adviser to tell me to start looking elsewhere so early on when I had approached them for guidance. Dr Gray did a PreMed Years episode about this recently regarding dismissive advisers looking to protect their school’s stats; which partially prompted my initial post.
I’ll continue to lurk and post updates as I progress. This community and Dr Gray’s podcasts have really been helpful in keeping my head up when I don’t fit into the mold of most of my peers at my university. Thanks everyone for sharing your stories and insight.