Non-Trad low undergrad GPA realistic?

[legioneye]

Hello all!

Looking to see what advice I can recieve. First off I appreciate all critism as I have earned the negative but hope for positive! I am recently married and the father of two children. I am hoping to attend the local state medical school (MD Program) and have been studying to take the MCAT in the first few waves of the 2015 MCAT. As such I will not be applying until next seem for admission to the 2016 class. The details:

I graduated college with a wooping cGPA of 2.68, sGPA 2.72! I attended graduate school directly after since I was quite discouraged both by faculty advisors and my previous acedemic performance. I started as PhD in Chemistry and graduated with as M.S. Chemistry (cGPA 3.24). This raised my sGPA to 2.83 and cGPA to 2.75. My grades do show an upward trend as I matured over time. I have since worked in a State Health Lab as a chemist analyzing patient samples for various analytes of intreset. I have worked for the state for approximately 2 years now but by the time I end up applying it will have been over three years. I have plenty of extra-cs from undergraduate and about 20 hours of shadowing at this time. I plan to work on increasing my shadowing time as I find it quite enjoyable but I do not plan to spend any time volutneering given my current position in life (husband+father+full-timejob). My questions to the general public here would be does the current GPA I have stand a chance at getting accepted to a midwest state medical school. I have lived and worked in my state my entire life so I am hoping this works in my favor. Also in your opinion what should I do at the present to increase my chances for success? I know without an MCAT score these questions will be difficult to answer. Thanks in advance for all responses!

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[vfr670]

Hello all!

Looking to see what advice I can recieve. First off I appreciate all critism as I have earned the negative but hope for positive! I am recently married and the father of two children. I am hoping to attend the local state medical school (MD Program) and have been studying to take the MCAT in the first few waves of the 2015 MCAT. As such I will not be applying until next seem for admission to the 2016 class. The details:

I graduated college with a wooping cGPA of 2.68, sGPA 2.72! I attended graduate school directly after since I was quite discouraged both by faculty advisors and my previous acedemic performance. I started as PhD in Chemistry and graduated with as M.S. Chemistry (cGPA 3.24). This raised my sGPA to 2.83 and cGPA to 2.75. My grades do show an upward trend as I matured over time. I have since worked in a State Health Lab as a chemist analyzing patient samples for various analytes of intreset. I have worked for the state for approximately 2 years now but by the time I end up applying it will have been over three years. I have plenty of extra-cs from undergraduate and about 20 hours of shadowing at this time. I plan to work on increasing my shadowing time as I find it quite enjoyable but I do not plan to spend any time volutneering given my current position in life (husband+father+full-timejob). My questions to the general public here would be does the current GPA I have stand a chance at getting accepted to a midwest state medical school. I have lived and worked in my state my entire life so I am hoping this works in my favor. Also in your opinion what should I do at the present to increase my chances for success? I know without an MCAT score these questions will be difficult to answer. Thanks in advance for all responses!

We actually have very similar stories, except I have been an ophthalmic technician for the last year and my M.S. is in Biology. My premed advisor told me to shoot for a 30 at least for the MCAT (of course I actually made a 27...my oldest son was teething the whole week before the exam!). I have sent in primaries for this application cycle and I'll keep you posted. Generally schools prefer their state's residents but it depends on applicant pool and what seems like 1000 other factors. I wish you the best of luck and study hard for the mcat!!!

 

[gyngyn]

If you look at the sticky above, you will notice that the graph does not include your gpa. Even with an MCAT score, none of us can give your odds of success because there are insufficient numbers of successful candidates with your gpa to provide historic norms.

The most efficient way to increase your gpa is to use the grade replacement system employed by the DO schools.

 

[Goro]

Like my learned colleague gyngyn, I am not sanguine as to your chances at any MD school.

Hello all!

Looking to see what advice I can recieve. First off I appreciate all critism as I have earned the negative but hope for positive! I am recently married and the father of two children. I am hoping to attend the local state medical school (MD Program) and have been studying to take the MCAT in the first few waves of the 2015 MCAT. As such I will not be applying until next seem for admission to the 2016 class. The details:

I graduated college with a wooping cGPA of 2.68, sGPA 2.72! I attended graduate school directly after since I was quite discouraged both by faculty advisors and my previous acedemic performance. I started as PhD in Chemistry and graduated with as M.S. Chemistry (cGPA 3.24). This raised my sGPA to 2.83 and cGPA to 2.75. My grades do show an upward trend as I matured over time. I have since worked in a State Health Lab as a chemist analyzing patient samples for various analytes of intreset. I have worked for the state for approximately 2 years now but by the time I end up applying it will have been over three years. I have plenty of extra-cs from undergraduate and about 20 hours of shadowing at this time. I plan to work on increasing my shadowing time as I find it quite enjoyable but I do not plan to spend any time volutneering given my current position in life (husband+father+full-timejob). My questions to the general public here would be does the current GPA I have stand a chance at getting accepted to a midwest state medical school. I have lived and worked in my state my entire life so I am hoping this works in my favor. Also in your opinion what should I do at the present to increase my chances for success? I know without an MCAT score these questions will be difficult to answer. Thanks in advance for all responses!

 

[candbgirl]

And I don't think AMCAS combines BS and MS grade so you are still sitting with your undergrad GPA. Maybe if you had done extremely well in grad school it would have helped some but you didn't. If you only plan to apply to one school I don't hold much hope for an acceptance. You should check out DO schools and the grade replacement options. It is your only hope really and you are going to have to work really hard to raise your GPAs.

 

[gyngyn]

And I don't think AMCAS combines BS and MS grade so you are still sitting with your undergrad GPA. Maybe if you had done extremely well in grad school it would have helped some but you didn't. If you only plan to apply to one school I don't hold much hope for an acceptance. You should check out DO schools and the grade replacement options. It is your only hope really and you are going to have to work really hard to raise your GPAs.

I can confirm that post grad grades are not included in your undergrad gpa. Your ability to handle medical school (at least at MD schools) will be based almost entirely on the undergraduate gpa. Post grad grades are viewed very differently..

 

[legioneye]

Thanks for the feed back. I could get my GPAs both up to 3.2-3.25 with a single year of retakes perhaps this is the best option.

 

[deleted480308]

Thanks for the feed back. I could get my GPAs both up to 3.2-3.25 with a single year of retakes perhaps this is the best option.

it is.....I did rehab on my gpa to get my DO gpa to a 3.2, my MD gpa of 3.0 got me no love at all. an mcat over 30 landed my interviews at 80% of the DO schools I applied to. You have the benefit of an MS in a science field that I did not have too. I'm not sure of the structure of your PhD program but some run them like you get an MS if you aren't making satisfactory progress for the PhD but managed to pass a certain point. If that is the case with you, try to focus on earning the MS and stay away from not getting the PhD.

you'll be surprised how fast a gpa rises with a few strategic retakes.

 

[legioneye]

I passed everything in the PhD Program with easy. I had completed my cums and was working on my Comp Oral. I realized then that wasn't what I wanted to do so I left with my masters. I actually have over 90 graduate hours but like 70 of those hours are research and do not have a grade associated with them(They just say CR). I was looking at both md do grade calculations and didn't see where I could use those hours to my advantage. Also there is a class I would like to replace but my college offered it as a 4 hr and I can only find a 5 hour equivelent. Will AACOMAS accept this as a repeat even though the credit hours do not match?

 

[deleted480308]

aacomas has pretty specific rules for grade replacement...you'll need to read them, I'm sorry I don't remember all the stipulations

 

[GypsyHummus]

I can confirm that post grad grades are not included in your undergrad gpa. Your ability to handle medical school (at least at MD schools) will be based almost entirely on the undergraduate gpa. Post grad grades are viewed very differently..

How does your school view Post baccs or SMPs?

 

[GypsyHummus]

it is.....I did rehab on my gpa to get my DO gpa to a 3.2, my MD gpa of 3.0 got me no love at all. an mcat over 30 landed my interviews at 80% of the DO schools I applied to. You have the benefit of an MS in a science field that I did not have too. I'm not sure of the structure of your PhD program but some run them like you get an MS if you aren't making satisfactory progress for the PhD but managed to pass a certain point. If that is the case with you, try to focus on earning the MS and stay away from not getting the PhD.

you'll be surprised how fast a gpa rises with a few strategic retakes.

Grade replacement is the reason I still have hope that one day I will be a physician.

 

[gyngyn]

How does your school view Post baccs or SMPs?

I'm not sure I understand... They are evaluated in the context of the rest of the application.

 

[GypsyHummus]

I can confirm that post grad grades are not included in your undergrad gpa. Your ability to handle medical school (at least at MD schools) will be based almost entirely on the undergraduate gpa. Post grad grades are viewed very differently..

I'm not sure I understand... They are evaluated in the context of the rest of the application.

In the above quote you said that medical school handling is based almost entirely off of undergrad GPA. What about people who do Post Baccs or SMPs? Would an adcom still use undergrad performance as a determining factor or lean twords the more recent coursework in the context of the application. I understand bad scores in undergrad simply don't "Disappear", but is slack given to people who preform well in an SMP at your school?

 

[gyngyn]

In the above quote you said that medical school handling is based almost entirely off of undergrad GPA. What about people who do Post Baccs or SMPs? Would an adcom still use undergrad performance as a determining factor or lean twords the more recent coursework in the context of the application. I understand bad scores in undergrad simply don't "Disappear", but is slack given to people who preform well in an SMP at your school?

Post bac grades are averaged into the undergraduate gpa and evaluated for trend (where indicated). SMP's stand alone as another piece of data. I can't say that I can recall many instances in which they turned a borderline candidate into a strong one, though.