I'm currently studying for the MCAT and will be taking it early August. If all goes well, I plan on applying to all 9 schools by the end of September.
Saying without the MCAT the applying to all 9 schools is odd with those grades in my personal opinion. Applying to all 9 schools will cost you $440.
Just saying that you should at least cross off Des Moines & Midwestern AZ off that list and save the $70 and a rejection letter....unless you are going to randomly get a high 20s on your MCAT. Just some constructive criticism is that you may get interview offers from all these places, but you should think about a top 4 (I would say Kent State, Scholl, NY, and Barry since those are 4 of the 5 largest schools and also have the lower end of the GPA among applicants in recent past). Sometimes it comes down to the cost of travel for these interviews. I would expect the admissions committees to realize that they'd rather persuade the top 10% of the applicants to come to their school by offering good sized scholarships than admit someone who has a 2.9 cumulative GPA from undergrad.
Just an FYI, from last years entering class here was the first year enrollment at some of the other schools: Western (CA): 35, California Sam Merritt: 46, Arizona Midwestern: 31, Des Moines: 55. So the three Western US Podiatry schools last year had just 112 students combined (two CA + one AZ), while Scholl, NY, Temple, and Kent State all had at least 101 students....Again the location of the schools is also a major part why I am not even bothering to apply to the 4 most western pod schools. I live in Michigan, I could care less about staying here if I make it through podiatry school, but for the time being I really only have looked at a few because of my grades and location.
My personal opinion is that for grades below a cumulative 3.0 hopefully you don't live that west in the USA. Even though the two California pod schools don't have the highest average GPA, those two schools don't tend to have more than 80 combined students in an incoming class (from past data). The furthest west school I believe your GPA stands a chance at is Scholl (in Northern Illinois). Sometimes it sounds harsh, but this is just some constructive criticism & I am not trying to be a d**k about anything. I know my grades aren't stellar at all, but I would never apply to all 9 schools because I would rather save myself $185 by only applying to a max of 4 schools because if I can't get into Kent State, Barry, Temple or Scholl then there is simply no way I would be getting accepted to any of the other 5. Again, if your parents are the ones paying for it and they are well off and that $185 is practically nothing to them then go for it, but for me $185 is an extra $185 I could be putting towards my undergrad student loans and I would rather use it on that than applying to Des Moines, Samuel Merritt, Midwestern, and Western.
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