Med School Advice Request

[doctor2be]

As my ID conveys, I am an aspiring doctor to be.

Based upon the following quantitative elements, can you please “guesstimate” the chances of acceptance to medical school? And perhaps some constructive feedbacks…

DEGREE: #1 BS International Business, #2 BS Medical Technology
SCIENCE GPA: 3.75
NON-SCIENCE GPA: 3.8
MCAT SCORE: 23R
* 5+ years of work experience, volunteer work, extracurricular activities, and hospital experience.
* Currently working towards a masters degree in science field.
* Have firm understanding of medicine, and the implications and responsibilities of becoming a physician.

Also, I was reading a posting that was made by an osteopathic medical student and was curious about transfers. Do allopathic medical school accept transfers from osteopathic schools? Has there been successful cases? Is there specific allopathic school that has been more accomodating in osteopathic transfers?

Thank you for your time and feedback.

[thymol_blue]

Were you having a bad day when you took the MCAT? Were you sick, or depressed, or something like that? I ask because in my mind, and I’m sure in the minds of the adcoms as well, your poor showing on the MCAT (~40% percentile) just doesn’t square with your generally excellent performance in school as claimed by your reported GPA.

Are you sure you’re calculating your Science GPA correctly? You do know that AMCAS only considers Biology, Chemistry, Physics, & Mathematics courses in the Science GPA? The MCAT is simply a test of the basic premed science requirements with a little bit of logical reasoning thrown in the mix to make it more challenging. So, if you did well in the basic science classes, you generally do as well on the MCAT. And this brings me to the next point.

From conversations with several med. school administrators, I’ve come to know that they use your MCAT score to validate your GPA numbers. Thus, when you have big discrepancies between the two, it raises a serious red flag. From your GPA numbers, one would expect an MCAT score at least in the low 30s. In your case, they would likely question the quality of your undergrad institution if you presented your application as is.

So where do you go from here? I don’t want to paint a picture entirely of doom and gloom, though to be (brutally) honest I don’t think you’ll get in to an MD school right now, but all is not lost. You can, of course, take the MCAT again and score at least a 30. I would recommend the Exam Krackers people. I’m not associated with them in any way, but I have taught Kaplan MCAT prep in the past, and I think the EK stuff is better value for money. Your other options are DO school and a Caribbean medical school. As for your question about transfers, the short answer is no. Transfers do happen in the first and second year classes between MD school and MD school, but they are rare, and you have to have very good reasons (marriage, illness, etc.) for requesting one. I’ve never heard of transfer from DO school to MD school though. For a more definitive answer on that question, call up some of the MD schools you’d be interested in transferring to and ask them directly.

You may be interested in checking out this website: http://www.mdapplicants.com
Caveat Emptor: Keep in mind when looking at that site that the sample size is small, the data is all self-reported, and you are likely only looking at the top half of the distribution of applicants, since the ones who did really poorly likely won’t post. But, it’s still useful.

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