Undergrad in Chemical Engg And Grad in Environmental Engg

[wizzkid07]

Hi All

I have an BS in Chemical Engg (3/4 gpa) from india and MS in Environmental Engg (3.3/4 gpa) in USA and 3 yrs experience working as an environmental engineer here.
Getting into med school was my childhood dream but due to family pressure i had to take another route. Now that i am independent and working i am seriously considering med school. I know that my GPA in undergrad and grad is less but is there a way med schools will even consider me if i take higher level courses in biology, physics and organic chemistry and raise my GPA to 3.5/3.6. I believe i can get a good score in MCAT too. What are med schools going to look into, my 4 yr undergrad gpa from india or my 2 yr grad gpa from US. someone please throw some light on this.

Thank you

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[Engineer2MD]

Wizzkid -- thumbs up from another engineer here. BS/MS nuclear engineering. 3 years with Lockheed Martin.

I did a post-baccalaureate study where I finished up all of the requirements - Organic Chemistry, Biology with lab, Genetics, Biochem, and Microbiology.

Then I took the MCAT.

I am applying this cycle. I'm still a little confused about how they look at your GPAs. Mainly I have been presenting mine as Undergrad GPA, Grad GPA, Post-Bacc GPA. Then AMCAS decides what your "Biology Chemistry Math Physics" GPA is and submits that as well.

I am just expecting that if a question comes up in an interview, I will explain that my grades came from an engineering school - one that is notorious for NOT inflating grades.

Just rock your post-bacc courses and I'm sure you will be fine.

 

[wizzkid07]

Thank you for your reply Engineer2MD.
Thats what i am planning on doing and lets see where it goes from there.

 

[bihari]

Wizzkid -- thumbs up from another engineer here. BS/MS nuclear engineering. 3 years with Lockheed Martin.

I'm in a similar situation, but still an undergrad. I'm studying Electrical and planning to study Nuclear for graduate school during which I plan to take the MCAT.

Good luck to you all

 

[nabeel76]

A lot more weight will be given to your undergraduate grades. Postbacc courses like genetics, biochem, etc. will be taken at the undergraduate level and will count towards your cummulative undergraduate gpa.

So in your case since your undergrad school was in another country I am not sure how that will be viewed in terms of competitiveness. My advice would be to take as many postbacc science courses at the undergrad level as you possibly can to give adcoms an idea of how well you do here in the US.

But to answer your question all postbacc courses taken at the undergrad level here will be added to your undergrad 3/4 gpa from india to give you a new cummulative undergraduate gpa. Any graduate level courses taken as a postbacc will add to give you a new cummulative graduate gpa. The same goes for the sciences, only sciences taken at the undergrad level 0-400 maybe 500 level will count towards the BPCM undergrad gpa so keeping that in mind I would focus on postbacc classes at the undergrad level since these are more important.