Any UND experts out there that can help me?

I am not familiar with UND but I think I can help a little.

First check out the schools stats (AAMC website, the schools website, give them a call). If a large percentage of applicants are from instate, then being a resident obviously helps. However, if that is not the case don’t let that discourage you (Maybe your state make such good applicants that they end of getting into other programs, or they just want to get out).

If you decide to reapply next year: Your low GPA could be a FLAG that marks your application for special review (anything under 3 was flagged at my school). A 2.75 is pretty low for medical school, so you may want to think about addressing it in a positive light in your personal statement (how you have grown since then). Plus, the fact that you sound like a non-traditional student (EMS experience and Pilot experience) helps; include those things in your personal statement too.

The "rural medicine" point that you brought up is good fodder for the interview, but will be of questionable help in the written application.

Besides the GPA you sound like a good overall candidate. If this year doesn’t work out for you, consider reapplying, but be very timely (as in: the day AMCAS opens is the day you submit).

Good luck.

Erik

University of North Dakota median matriculant stats are a 3.7/27. Their bottom 10th percentile for GPA is 3.3, but your relatively higher MCAT score will compensate to some extent for a low GPA. Moderating factors may be your nontrad status, interest in ruralmed (if your ECs show a fair amount of experience in rural areas and you maybe live in one or grew up in one), and two-plus years of recent high GPA, and your high BCPM GPA. If you've lived and worked in N.D. for three years you will be considered in-state, but I'm not sure you'll get full points if you didn't go to HS there. UND is not an AMCAS school; they have their own application system and their own way of calculating application GPA. Applying more widely than just that one school would be advisable.

AMCAS will include all retaken grades averaged in with everythiing else, including all your postbac work. What is your GPA with that?

AACOMAS (DO med school application service) only includes the retake grade, not the original, as long as the credit hours are the same or greater. What is your cGPA if you include only the second grade earned?

The next question to be answered is: Do they have an automatic cut off for GPA? You might call the admissions office and ask this question. Also ask: Do they weight the two or three most recent years of grades more heavily? Some do, and this would help you.

You might consider posting or PMing some of this season's applicants from this current UND thread to ask, too: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=625494&highlight=Dakota

I found some additional excellent information in the UND thread from the year before the above at: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=550792&highlight=Dakota

From Crevac: bolding is mine

"One of the other members sent me a private message about some of the information I had provided earlier in this thread and wanted me to add some more to the topic. So I will try to add a little bit about what I know about the interview process at UND.

The point system is used for granting interviews and is not overly influential on admission, other than you can't get in if you don't interview obviously. I had said earlier that there are 300 points max given for the interview and this total is broken down into 100 for state residency, 100 for MCAT, 50 for overall GPA and 50 for science GPA. About the only other thing that the pre-interview points do is kind of affect when you are scheduled for an interview, but like the school says in the application materials that if you need to have a specific date for interviewing they will try to work with the student to best fit their schedule.

I don't know what the cutoff is for what level of pre-interview points will get someone an interview but last year they had a total of 140 interviewed applicants. It appears that the lowest pre-interview point total was 147. Compared to other schools UND has a much more condensed interview since everyone is interviewed over a 3 week period or so. And by this I mean that instead of taking an entire day or half day for the interview, all of the activities are completed in around 1.5 to 2 hours. When you first arrive you have your picture taken and get to meet several current students and the associate dean of admissions. You also watch a video about the school at this time. There are 4 students scheduled for each interview time slot.

Once all of this is done you have your interview in front of a 3 person group. I think that the groups consist of a current faculty member, a current student and then one more person associated with the school. This interview usually lasts around 45 minutes to an hour and the 3 people then write their own comments about you to take back to the full admissions committee. This complete committee is all 4 groups that conducted the interviews of the students, so there are 12 total committee members. At this point each student is presented to the committee and voted into one of 4 categories by each member. The higher you are rated the more points you receive from that vote and you can receive a total of 36 points. From these totals the process is basically complete as the students with the highest point totals are offered a spot in the class, with a larger number of spots given for ND residents and then the rest for MN/WICHE state residents.

This is about all I can think of right now for this process but I also might have missed something. If you have any other questions I will try to answer it as best I can. And good luck to everyone in this process! "

"no you do not get any points for having great ECs or LORs."