Chances and advice please!!!

[yovo]

I am currently a junior with about 1-1.5 years left before I start applying and have not taken the MCAT, so there is some time for me to make some corrections or alter what I'm doing. Please help me to be a better candidate!

Health promotion and education major, emphasis in EMS, UT resident....willing to apply anywhere!

cGPA- 3.45
sGPA- 3.12
(GPA is what I'm worried about the most)

Clinical exposure:
Volunteered with hospice center (around 50 total hours)

Non-clinical volunteering:
Over 200 hours in various programs (actively involved with local campus community service institute)
2-year volunteer mission with church

Research:
2 semesters with cardiac and pain research program with university of utah hospital Emergency Medicine Department, 2 semesters of detailed research with CARES (cardiac arrest registry) with Emergency Medicine Department. Funding and possible publication with this last one. Between the two, about 200-250 hours total.

Shadowing:
A few hours (about 10) with ER physician. Currently working on more.

Leadership:
Program director for English Skills Learning Center. (Essentially ambassador for program with university).
Local Church Leadership.

Employment:
2 years as medical assistant for family practice clinic. PRN, averaged around 10 hours/week.
Currently Central Processing Tech with hospital. Part time, 30+ hours/week.

General questions:
1. When applying, for 1st application I've heard that you can only use experiences from 3 years previous. Is this true? (All of the stats I've given are within last 3 years).
2. Do my EC's make up for my moderately low GPA?
3. What should I do from here to improve?

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[zzxxzz]

General questions:
1. When applying, for 1st application I've heard that you can only use experiences from 3 years previous. Is this true? (All of the stats I've given are within last 3 years).
2. Do my EC's make up for my moderately low GPA?
3. What should I do from here to improve?

1) No, but you better have an amazing reason to include an experience from high school.
2) No. Plenty of applicants with better GPAs and equivalent ECs.
3) Ace the MCAT, and get straight As. You have time to fix your GPA, so don't worry.

 

[Goro]

100 concur. And unless you were delivering babies on your mission trips, they won't count.

1) No, but you better have an amazing reason to include an experience from high school.
2) No. Plenty of applicants with better GPAs and equivalent ECs.
3) Ace the MCAT, and get straight As. You have time to fix your GPA, so don't worry.

 

[gyngyn]

100 concur. And unless you were delivering babies on your mission trips, they won't count.

If he was delivering humans, I want the name of the aid organization.

 

[yovo]

Thanks everyone!

It's good to know that I won't have to abandon the experiences I've had that are more than 3 years away from when I apply. I wouldn't include anything from high school (shoot, I didn't even do anything there anyway, haha). I was just worried about things I did freshman year not being included (I went one year of school, then left for said 2 year mission).

My real question (because I know that my chances are a little less likely to get into an Allopathic school) is how competitive would I be in applying to a DO school? I'll obviously try for both, but I just want to have a realistic approach to things.

Also, no delivering babies unfortunately, haha. I did get to help with a vaccine campaign though for the Red Cross in Benin and Togo..... Although, I was cursed a couple of times by some voodoo shaman (that might be why my GPA is so low, haha!).

 

[Goro]

The sGPA might hurt at CCOM, but if you ace the MCAT, i can't see it being a problem. Just apply broadly (skip LUCOM) and you'll be fine.

 

[yovo]

The sGPA might hurt at CCOM, but if you ace the MCAT, i can't see it being a problem. Just apply broadly (skip LUCOM) and you'll be fine.

Cool! Thanks!

Could you define "ace"ing the MCAT. Like above 30?