I hope the mods will not mind me posting this thread because I do have a thread in the postbacc board asking whether or not I should do an SMP. I wanted to post this here to go into much more detail and I think this board may be more appropriate + gets more traffic. This is going to be a bit long - please bear with me.
My cGPA is slightly under 3.5 and my sGPA is slightly under 3.4 from a large but not prestigious state school. I had some very strong semesters (3.9+) and some not so great ones. My prereqs are almost all A's. I have graduated already and am in a gap year right now (I did not apply as a senior). I took my MCAT in April of last year after a couple weeks of studying (I decided to take at the last minute) and scored a 30 (8 PS, 11 VR/BIO). I applied to many schools and had an interview with one school. They rejected me post interview (I think I was a poor fit for the school, plus they may have felt my interest in medicine not to be genuine or not well thought out due to my limited EC). I am still waiting on hearing from 8-9 schools.
My letters of recommendation I think were average at best. I didn't really know any of my professors very well in UG except for one. My EC are very slim with nothing my first two years of school. I did a summer of volunteering at a hospital, community service through the premed club, and I have done a year of hospital research in my gap year with a publication in progress right now. I am planning on continuing researching through the summer (with a different institution). I have also done about 50 hours of shadowing during this year.
I did one semester of GPA repair this year and got a 3.7 for the semester although I think it will be downgraded by AMCAS due to the weird GPA conversion they do with the school I attended. I am only researching right now - no school.
My question is, should I apply again this upcoming year? I was planning on retaking the MCAT in May if I am reapplying this year because I think with adequate study (more than the three weeks I did last time) I can do much better (the two responses I rec'd in the other thread said do not retake). My recs would probably be the same ones from the year prior but with additional strong recs from my research job.
The other option is to not reapply this upcoming year and perhaps take the MCAT in August. Then I would do a year of post-bacc classes or an SMP or some sort of Masters degree before reapplying. If I do this option - in particular post bacc classes - how many credits should I take each semester? I have taken virtually all the UG bio classes offered at schools in my area (there isn't that much variety), so I would have to take remaining 500 level courses and perhaps 600 level grad courses since they allow senior/post-baccs to take them. How many could/should I do in a semester? - I am afraid of overloading and then performing poorly.
Thank you in advance.
Edit: I do not want to say my state of res, but it is one of the "desirable" states (not TX).
My cGPA is slightly under 3.5 and my sGPA is slightly under 3.4 from a large but not prestigious state school. I had some very strong semesters (3.9+) and some not so great ones. My prereqs are almost all A's. I have graduated already and am in a gap year right now (I did not apply as a senior). I took my MCAT in April of last year after a couple weeks of studying (I decided to take at the last minute) and scored a 30 (8 PS, 11 VR/BIO). I applied to many schools and had an interview with one school. They rejected me post interview (I think I was a poor fit for the school, plus they may have felt my interest in medicine not to be genuine or not well thought out due to my limited EC). I am still waiting on hearing from 8-9 schools.
My letters of recommendation I think were average at best. I didn't really know any of my professors very well in UG except for one. My EC are very slim with nothing my first two years of school. I did a summer of volunteering at a hospital, community service through the premed club, and I have done a year of hospital research in my gap year with a publication in progress right now. I am planning on continuing researching through the summer (with a different institution). I have also done about 50 hours of shadowing during this year.
I did one semester of GPA repair this year and got a 3.7 for the semester although I think it will be downgraded by AMCAS due to the weird GPA conversion they do with the school I attended. I am only researching right now - no school.
My question is, should I apply again this upcoming year? I was planning on retaking the MCAT in May if I am reapplying this year because I think with adequate study (more than the three weeks I did last time) I can do much better (the two responses I rec'd in the other thread said do not retake). My recs would probably be the same ones from the year prior but with additional strong recs from my research job.
The other option is to not reapply this upcoming year and perhaps take the MCAT in August. Then I would do a year of post-bacc classes or an SMP or some sort of Masters degree before reapplying. If I do this option - in particular post bacc classes - how many credits should I take each semester? I have taken virtually all the UG bio classes offered at schools in my area (there isn't that much variety), so I would have to take remaining 500 level courses and perhaps 600 level grad courses since they allow senior/post-baccs to take them. How many could/should I do in a semester? - I am afraid of overloading and then performing poorly.
Thank you in advance.
Edit: I do not want to say my state of res, but it is one of the "desirable" states (not TX).
