bubabuggy

[bubabuggy]

quote:

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Originally posted by bubabuggy

Something that would help a lot is having publications. Have you had any? Look at student MSTP profiles on studentdoctor.net under applicant profiles to see the GPAs and MCATs of student that got in. LORs are extemely important from research professors as well. In terms of what admissions people take into consideration– I really do not know whether or not they are looking through applications to find excuses for a student. My approach to this stuff is to assume these admissions people are going to be heartless because of the many applications. If you keep that kind of mind set, it keeps you motivated to work harder. I also am interested in applying MD/PhD and completely understand how busy everything is with school, work, and ECs. Good luck!

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[bubabuggy]

Something that would help a lot is having publications. Have you had any? Look at student MSTP profiles on studentdoctor.net under applicant profiles to see the GPAs and MCATs of student that got in. LORs are extemely important from research professors as well. In terms of what admissions people take into consideration– I really do not know whether or not they are looking through applications to find excuses for a student. My approach to this stuff is to assume these admissions people are going to be heartless because of the many applications. If you keep that kind of mind set, it keeps you motivated to work harder. I also am interested in applying MD/PhD and completely understand how busy everything is with school, work, and ECs. God luck!

[bubabuggy]

Hi! I think the best thing to do is increase your MCAT– you’re getting there!! Aim for a 35– MCAT weighs out GPA by a lot. Don’t worry about your GPA– if you get a 35 you’ll beat a person with a 3.8 and a 27 MCAT anyday.

[bubabuggy]

Hi! Yeah, sounds like you are doing all of the right things. In terms of other ECs, try pursuing things outside of medicine that you like: ie. drawing, playing tennis etc. That will give your application more dimensions. []

[bubabuggy]

I would say for most med schools across the US your scores are not low, but for CA they may be. The most important thing would be to increase your MCAT score and keep up your GPA.!

[bubabuggy]

Hi,
Yes, they will definitely look at your community college grades. Probably more weight wil be given to your university level grades, but you still want to do well at a cc.

[bubabuggy]

Noooooooooo,
You definitely do not want to get a second undergraduate degree. Usually a post-bac program which is 1-2 years in length with a good GPA in the science courses will suffice. Focus in on doing well on your MCATs!!

[bubabuggy]

Honestly, focus on your MCAT because a stellar MCAT will get you much further than a person with stellar GPA and average MCAT scores. Take me for example. I graduated with a 3.8 and majored in Animal Physiology and Neuroscience. Now I’m working on a Master’s degree– however, I am also a California resident which means I need above a 30 on the MCAT to be competitive– in other words something like a 35. I’m not getting that yet so all of my obsessivness with GPA, research, volunteering, etc. is kind of going down the drain because my application probably would not make the first point cut off when they mutiply your GPA times your MCAT. Meanwhile, another girl from California went to a small unknown school with a 3.3 GPA and got a 35 on her MCAT. Guess where she’s at? UCSD– one of the top schools. She had research experience etc. but that stuff doesn’t matter until you pass the first cut-off and only then your application will get looked at. Conclusion: you did what you did with your GPA– it’ll take years to bring it up to a 3.7– do well on your MCAT and you’re set– don’t do the stuff I did it’s a waste.

[bubabuggy]

Lots of times the people re-post on the admission consultant thread and get their question answered.

[bubabuggy]

Hello,
What you can do is enter a post-bac program ( those are usually 1-2 years) and can take all of the science classes again. Getting a great GPA in the post-bac program should help mediate your previous GPA. As for now, focus on the MCAT, because even if you had a 4.0 GPA, a poor performance on an MCAT will probably prevent most applicants from getting their applicaiton looked at since the MCAT seems to be more important than the GPA. A person with a 30 on their MCAT and a 3.5 GPA from a challenging university will have a higher chance of getting in than a person with a 3.9 GPA from a challenging university and a 24 on their MCAT.

[bubabuggy]

I don’t have any advice, but wow–that really sucks!

[bubabuggy]

You really have to be careful wtih AP credits. Some medical schools accept only a certain amount of AP credits, so you may still have to do general science courses in college even if you did get AP credit for them. Bottom line: figure out what med schools you want to go to and what their policy is on AP credit.

[bubabuggy]

I think you should definitely do the research internship, since that will help you both in applying to med school and will be a good fall back if you decide to go to grad school. In terms of having a clinical internship, I think you should volunteer once a week in a hospital. Most volunteers do 4 hours per week. That’s what I did for 2 years= 400+ hours. Even if you go for half a year for 4 hours you should accumulate 104 hours. For med school they just want to see that you have some experience in the hospital and that you know what you’re getting yourself into. I don’t think the intensity of the experience really matters. If you go to studentdoctor.net, almost all of the applicants have volunteer experience– it doesn’t help you stand out in the crowd even if it is ” a clinical internship” since it’s almost a prereq to volunteer if you want to get into med school. Bottom line: do the research internship and volunteer once a week in a hospital.

[bubabuggy]

Your MCAT score is great, but I think that if I was in your shoes, I would do a post-bac to mediate the problems in the pre-med classes. I think that if you applied without doing that, then you could still probably get in but you wouldn’t have too many choices in terms of what school you’d want to go to. Given your MCAT score you have obvious academic med school potential but it would be good to show med admissions a higher gpa.

[bubabuggy]

To begin, I know it says that I’ve had lots of posts, but I’ve been answering questions outside of the Admission Consultant’s Thread so that’s why. I started at a community college and then transferred to UCSD. I was full-time at UCSD, however, I had personal reasons for why I wasn’t always a full-time student when I was at the jc, although some semesters I had 19 units. I figured med schools would frown at the fact that I wasn’t always full-time and I decided that I had to prove that I could handle a full-time course load. So I took a total of 60 quarter units as junior and 63.5 quarter units as a senior and did well ( 36 units per year is considerd full-time at UCSD). Right now I’m getting great in depth research experience by participating in the UCSD Biology Master’s program, and had 27 units in the fall quarter, I’m taking 31 units right now, and next quarter should also be 30 units= 88 units for the entire year ( still pulling off 3.8 and above). Of course for each quarter as a Master’s student, I get 12 units for working in the lab– that’s good because I’m there 50 hours a week. Do I still have to talk about why I wasn’t full-time earlier on in my career in my personal statement?

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