Would like some advice/critique

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megaman1

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I graduated college about 2 years ago and ended up with 3.2 BCPM cumulative GPA and a 3.7 AO cumulative GPA, and my overall cumulative GPA is 3.35. I had 3 years of uptrending GPA for my science classes from a 2.5 to 3.3 to a 3.6 and then dropped to a 3.0 my last year while my other non BCPM classes were from a 3.31 to a 3.34 to a 3.7 to a 4.0. I applied for postbac programs and no places would accept me, so I'm planning on doing my own informal postbac at a UC school. I'm going to strive for a 4.0 for my informal postbac. My goal is to pursue an MD, and was wondering if it's possible at all if I choose to apply to schools out of state of in state. I don't want to try this out and get nothing from it except more loans. Thanks.

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I would recommend getting that cGPA to at least a 3.5. You do not need a formal program. You can take courses at a CC, UC extension school, or Cal state. However, many MD schools do not accept CC or online credits so be aware of that. If you are a CA resident, the state schools will be difficult but there are plenty of OOS private schools that accept a large amount of CA applicants every year.
 
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this is a bit of a thread hijack, but I notice a lot of people say its hard even as a CA resident to get into CA schools. Is that b/c the ratio of schools to state residents is just bad or does CA not favor it's own residents or?
 
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Comparing the 4 most populous states:

....total.......total....public....total
....population..MD apps..MD seats..MD seats
CA....39144818.....6520.......729......1232
TX....27469114.....4254......1579......1579
FL....20271272.....3324.......937.......937
NY....19795791.....3585.......624......1886

..public seats...total seats..public seats..total seats
...as % of pop...as % of pop..as % of apps..as % of apps
CA...0.0000186.....0.0000315.........0.112.........0.189
TX...0.0000575.....0.0000575.........0.371.........0.371
FL...0.0000462.....0.0000462.........0.282.........0.282
NY...0.0000315.....0.0000953.........0.174.........0.526


Of note, the per-state matriculation stats vary drastically. Vermont matriculates 60%, Arizona matriculates 29%. See https://www.aamc.org/download/321466/data/factstablea5.pdf

Notes:
1. state populations per wikipedia 2015
2. AAMC data from 2015-2016 cycle https://www.aamc.org/data/facts/applicantmatriculant/
3. Baylor is public and Miami is public in the same sense that UCSF and UCSD are public. Heavily state subsidized, lots of OOS students, instate preference clear on admissions FAQs.
 
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Did you apply to the USC Post-Bacc? Unless you already had a majority of your pre-reqs completed, you should have been accepted there.
 
The UCs are really good UG schools. UCLA alone could fill every CA MD school with its grads alone. Hence, CA is an unlucky state for med school candidates, even from CA. The upside of this is that my own school gets lots of good CA students!


this is a bit of a thread hijack, but I notice a lot of people say its hard even as a CA resident to get into CA schools. Is that b/c the ratio of schools to state residents is just bad or does CA not favor it's own residents or?
 
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Note: MSAR lists Baylor and U Miami as private schools.

Comparing the 4 most populous states:.

....total.......total....public....total
....population..MD apps..MD seats..MD seats
CA....39144818.....6520.......729......1232
TX....27469114.....4254......1579......1579
FL....20271272.....3324.......937.......937
NY....19795791.....3585.......624......1886

..public seats...total seats..public seats..total seats
...as % of pop...as % of pop..as % of apps..as % of apps
CA...0.0000186.....0.0000315.........0.112.........0.189
TX...0.0000575.....0.0000575.........0.371.........0.371
FL...0.0000462.....0.0000462.........0.282.........0.282
NY...0.0000315.....0.0000953.........0.174.........0.526.

Of note, the per-state matriculation stats vary drastically. Vermont matriculates 60%, Arizona matriculates 29%. See https://www.aamc.org/download/321466/data/factstablea5.pdf

Notes:
1. state populations per wikipedia 2015
2. AAMC data from 2015-2016 cycle https://www.aamc.org/data/facts/applicantmatriculant/
3. Baylor is public and Miami is public in the same sense that UCSF and UCSD are public. Heavily state subsidized, lots of OOS students, instate preference clear on admissions FAQs..
 
the whole point of discussing instate vs OOS is that state supported aka "public" schools have strong instate preference which is an app advantage. baylor and miami have substantial instate preference. baylor has instate tuition. there's no comparison here with a Vandy or Emory or Stanford where state of residency is a trivial admissions consideration. thus the explanation i offer in my 3rd note about methodology. the considerations here may be less apparent from your DO admissions perspective because there are so few public DO schools.


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So most DO schools are private ??! I have to look again at msar booklet. I didn't realize this and was just searching/ looking at only state schools...which seems like a stretch for me right now.


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I graduated college about 2 years ago and ended up with 3.2 BCPM cumulative GPA and a 3.7 AO cumulative GPA, and my overall cumulative GPA is 3.35. I had 3 years of uptrending GPA for my science classes from a 2.5 to 3.3 to a 3.6 and then dropped to a 3.0 my last year while my other non BCPM classes were from a 3.31 to a 3.34 to a 3.7 to a 4.0. I applied for postbac programs and no places would accept me, so I'm planning on doing my own informal postbac at a UC school. I'm going to strive for a 4.0 for my informal postbac. My goal is to pursue an MD, and was wondering if it's possible at all if I choose to apply to schools out of state of in state. I don't want to try this out and get nothing from it except more loans. Thanks.

Have you considered DO? It may be the shortest and perhaps best and only chance of becoming a physician. The drop to 3.0 may have killed your chances for MD and the fact that no one would take you for a post bac kind of supports that.

Best of Luck
 
I would recommend getting that cGPA to at least a 3.5. You do not need a formal program. You can take courses at a CC, UC extension school, or Cal state. However, many MD schools do not accept CC or online credits so be aware of that. If you are a CA resident, the state schools will be difficult but there are plenty of OOS private schools that accept a large amount of CA applicants every year.
I just calculated and I would have to take 12 classes at 4 units each with an A to get a 3.50 cGPA. Are there any good/easy OOS public or private med schools you have read about or can recommend I research?

Did you apply to the USC Post-Bacc? Unless you already had a majority of your pre-reqs completed, you should have been accepted there.
I didn't apply for the USC Post-Bacc, and I have all my pre-reqs completed. It's just that I screwed up in some courses like Genetics, gen chem, intro bio, etc, so my GPA is weighed down a lot.

Have you considered DO? It may be the shortest and perhaps best and only chance of becoming a physician. The drop to 3.0 may have killed your chances for MD and the fact that no one would take you for a post bac kind of supports that.

Best of Luck

I have considered DO many times. It's just that I change my mind often, and I might want to pursue a specialty like derm or ortho, so I don't want to limit myself by choosing DO. I realize that it's much easier and cost effective. I can just go back and take the easy courses like bio and gen chem to take advantage of grade replacement.

Let's say I aim for a 3.5 cGPA like brochacho123 mentioned. Would I have a decent chance of getting into an MD program? I believe the reason for my postbac denials were my weak letter of recs and submitting letters of rec that didn't meet the requirements (ie. letter of rec from volunteer in place of science professor, etc). And assuming I kill the MCAT, how do my chances look? And supposed my chances aren't good. Would I have a good fallback plan with DO by having done a postbac?

Thanks a lot everyone!
 
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A 3.5 is low for MD but with a great mcat never know. So work on you gpa and see what happens. If you do well enough apply to both. If now then a 3.25 is good enough for DO.

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Thank you, DrMikeP. I'm just gonna work hard and see what happens. Thank you very much for your insight!!
 
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