Sorry, everyone. I'm not on SDN much. I answered a few of you via message, but I'll give my two cents here for anyone else lurking for info.
MiBS is a great experience if you are looking to fill in certain gaps in your knowledge to either bump/salvage poor undergrad performance or better prepare you to take/retake an MCAT. It also does a great job at forcing you to do some research. I HIGHLY suggest you be smart and do more meaningful research (get a poster out of your work at the very least) than pretend to shadow a physician for about 8 hours a week for 3 months; it will be more beneficial to your application in the long run.
As far as my stats, I'll start off by saying I'm not in medical school. I'm a PhD student. When I started MiBS my intention was to re-apply to MD schools, but for personal reasons (older, non-trad, free tuition, stipend, etc.) I decided to do a PhD right after MiBS. This was a good choice for me, but especially because I did not feel like I was compromising my ultimate goal. My intention was never to go into private practice or be a surgeon. I knew I wanted to work in academia, ideally as an MD-PhD, however, my abysmal uGPA (I think last calculated was 3.2) was not going to make that happen. Especially with a 504-505 MCAT. For context, I had never taken Biochem and had a heavy social science background; I score 90%+ in critical analysis and 98% in psych, but epically bombed biochem section...wonder why. I never retook my MCAT after MiBS, although I'm sure that section would have drastically improved (the MiBS Biochem class is excellent) and I'm not sure I have any intentions to do so in the future. I felt doing my PhD would keep a lot of doors open for me in the future, and if I still felt some burning desire to add two extra letters to the end of my name, I'd still have that opportunity (i.e. new 3 year MD programs for recent PhD grads) in the future.
Let me be exceptionally clear about this next point. There is NO link between MiBS and Miller. In fact, I think Miller doesn't really like MiBS students too much. That is solely based on my impression of the miller dean who came to talk to us once and said "why would I give someone a chance who it took 5-6 years to get into medical school over someone who did it right the first time". That is almost a literal quote, if my memory serves me right. From my class ONE person got into Miller and he came into the program with decent stats and killed it on an MCAT retake (over 90% in all sections I believe). Other people got into plenty of other programs and are now in medical school, both MD and DO, and even two dental schools. One kid even interviewed at Princeton (don't know where he is now). It's what you make of it.
Be realistic about what you want, where you are in your journey, and what you genuinely like to do. Don't believe any magic graduate degree (including a PhD) will save your uGPA. The only thing that can partially redeem that is, like many of you already know, performing well on your MCAT. It won't hurt if you do well in a graduate program, of course, but it won't replace either.
