23 mcat, high gpa, Chances and schools, Advice please!

[phixius12345]

Hey guys, so I really messed up with the MCAT. Took it once. MCAT was 23. 8/6/9 Both my science GPA is around a 3.65 and my overall is closer to a 3.8. I worked as an EMT in an ambulance for 2 years. Became a trained phlebotomist, then worked in a hospital's lab for a year. I've been doing research for about a year, but no publications. I am currently volunteering, and basically teaching classes for underserved high schools who cannot afford proper health education.
I plan to also shadow a DO this year before applying in June. Do you guys think there's any chance of me getting into a DO school this cycle? Should I even bother applying? And what schools would I have the best chance of getting into? Thanks so much!

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[DrMikeP]

Hey guys, so I really messed up with the MCAT. Took it once. MCAT was 23. 8/6/9 Both my science GPA is around a 3.65 and my overall is closer to a 3.8. I worked as an EMT in an ambulance for 2 years. Became a trained phlebotomist, then worked in a hospital's lab for a year. I've been doing research for about a year, but no publications. I am currently volunteering, and basically teaching classes for underserved high schools who cannot afford proper health education.
I plan to also shadow a DO this year before applying in June. Do you guys think there's any chance of me getting into a DO school this cycle? Should I even bother applying? And what schools would I have the best chance of getting into? Thanks so much!

Retake the MCAT in July or maybe even August and study non-stop until then. Score a 504 or even better a 510+ and apply DO or a 515 and shoot for MD. You are throwing away a good chance at med school for little reason. Applying DO in August or Sept even with a decent MCAT will make it highly likely for you to get an acceptance.

Unfortunately, many DO schools won't even look at you because your mcat is below the cut off.

 

[MADD!!!]

I beg to differ, there seems to be a nice chunk of applicants who got in with a 23 this cycle. Your gpa is good, so it's worth a shot. PCOM Georgia seems to come to mind as having accepted at least one person with a 23 this last cycle.

If all the other parts of your application are very strong, you'll have a chance.

 

[68PGunner]

Retake that MCAT. End of discussion.

 

[crazyboi1993]

Retake, 23 is very low. I would say 25 is even low now. Aim for 26+ or a 502+. I had a 26 and 3.8 gpa, and got 5 acceptances

 

[DrMikeP]

I beg to differ, there seems to be a nice chunk of applicants who got in with a 23 this cycle. Your gpa is good, so it's worth a shot. PCOM Georgia seems to come to mind as having accepted at least one person with a 23 this last cycle.

If all the other parts of your application are very strong, you'll have a chance.

1 in 200 is pretty darn horrible odds, Would you want to risk your entire future on 1 in 2oo odds?

Applying to med school is all about maximizing chances. Applying with extremely small chances when an mcat retake could make the OP competitive for most DO programs is just gambling and begging to be in the 60% who don't get in.

 

[mathnerd88]

That 23 will just obliterate the 3.8 GPA the OP currently has. Adcoms will think his school is way too easy and hand out A's like candy. OP really needs to retake MCAT and give reassurance to adcoms that he indeed is capable of succeeding in medical school, because classes are going to be extremely difficult as well as the boards.

 

[mathnerd88]

I beg to differ, there seems to be a nice chunk of applicants who got in with a 23 this cycle. Your gpa is good, so it's worth a shot. PCOM Georgia seems to come to mind as having accepted at least one person with a 23 this last cycle.

If all the other parts of your application are very strong, you'll have a chance.

You don't know the circumstances surrounding that applicant with a 23. For all you know, he/she could've donated millions to the school, or knows someone in admissions.

Unless the OP has some outstanding EC's or serves in the military, I would say his chances are nil except maybe a school like LUCOM.

 

[MADD!!!]

I don't know, my take has been that people on SDN do tend to be harsher than in the real world.

And to DrMikeP, yea, 60% (although I thought higher) don't get in, but that also means that 40% do! But you guys make it sound like its a 99% chance of not getting in, which is not true. Adcoms do look at applications holistically (some schools more than others) and no, that doesn't mean they donated $$$ to get that acceptance. But yes, I do agree that their app had to be strong in a different way to get that acceptance.

My recommendation, and I'm not saying i'm right but it's my opinion, is to apply now with your current score. After you apply, sit down and study for the MCAT again and update schools with your new score. But don't retake until you're ready.

 

[MADD!!!]

Plus, there are 4 or 5 new DO schools opening up this year. This may be one of the easier years in a while to get accepted due to the larger amount of seats available, especially with the new schools.

 

[DrMikeP]

I don't know, my take has been that people on SDN do tend to be harsher than in the real world.

And to DrMikeP, yea, 60% (although I thought higher) don't get in, but that also means that 40% do! But you guys make it sound like its a 99% chance of not getting in, which is not true. Adcoms do look at applications holistically (some schools more than others) and no, that doesn't mean they donated $$$ to get that acceptance. But yes, I do agree that their app had to be strong in a different way to get that acceptance.

My recommendation, and I'm not saying i'm right but it's my opinion, is to apply now with your current score. After you apply, sit down and study for the MCAT again and update schools with your new score. But don't retake until you're ready.

The problem with your plan of submitting early with a lower mcat score is a number of med schools automatically reject your application and once they do it's a nightmare to get it unrejected if you can at all. I discovered that the hard way when I submitted without an mcat score (even though in theory AACOM allows such if you include a date) and one school even put a "o" put in for my score. It sucks to get a rejection hours after submitting then having to "fix it," which I didn't get an interview there, so not really sure if they "fixed" it for me or just placated me after a bunch of emails. That's why people use throw-away schools to get their app verified. I wish I had, but I was accepted so hindsight doesn't matter for me now.

My university's (now recently former) med school tossed out any MCAT less than 25 this year (except for a very few select exceptions, which were not gpa) with the avg score for this cycle being over 27, which is likely to become their cutoff this coming cycle. With 5000 applicants scoring 27+ and 10000 applicants it just becomes a situation where they have to narrow things down automatically to keep it manageable. With Aug/Sept still being on time with an even fair mcat the OP stands to lose almost nothing by waiting a couple of months.

I definitely agree with not taking the MCAT until you are ready and respect your opinion being different even if we disagree, but my goal here is to promote someone doing what will maximize chances vs. taking a wild shot.

 

[mathnerd88]

I don't know, my take has been that people on SDN do tend to be harsher than in the real world.

And to DrMikeP, yea, 60% (although I thought higher) don't get in, but that also means that 40% do! But you guys make it sound like its a 99% chance of not getting in, which is not true. Adcoms do look at applications holistically (some schools more than others) and no, that doesn't mean they donated $$$ to get that acceptance. But yes, I do agree that their app had to be strong in a different way to get that acceptance.

My recommendation, and I'm not saying i'm right but it's my opinion, is to apply now with your current score. After you apply, sit down and study for the MCAT again and update schools with your new score. But don't retake until you're ready.

Out 40% that do get in, only perhaps 1%-2% of them have a low MCAT score such as the OP's...

 

[costales]

From what I gleaned at my school, acceptances with bottom scores were special admits i.e. their apps were treated differently.

 

[AlteredScale]

Since this is about OPs chances, moving to wamc.


Sent from my iPad using SDN mobile app

 

[MADD!!!]

You guys are right... I didn't take into consideration the auto-rejects that are bound to happen. Also, looking back at last year's interview thread, not a single person posted having a 23 MCAT score. I guess for me it's surprising to see how big of a difference it is from 23 to 25, since there were plenty of 25's on the board.

 

[Doctor_Strange]

Is a 23 equivalent to a 498 or 497 on the new scale? Is it even useful to think in those terms? From what I have read, adcoms do not view the new MCAT as converted scores from the old scale...

 

[MADD!!!]

It's all about percentile rankings.

 

[DrMikeP]

A 497 is a rough equivalent to 23, but individual section scores are getting looked at more closely as schools are working to figure out how the new scores fit with applicants. My school equivalents were discussed but more weight was given to what percentile this year. We will have to see how the new scores unfold statistically to figure out if the cutoffs stand as this is the first year with the new data. Ultimately, the goal is to weed out applicants so as to prevent having to individually read 10,000 applications.

MADD!! .. Right or wrong doesn't matter as much as the goal of getting admitted.

 

[MADD!!!]

True. I'm crossing my own fingers here too! >.<

 

[gyngyn]

Is a 23 equivalent to a 498 or 497 on the new scale? Is it even useful to think in those terms? From what I have read, adcoms do not view the new MCAT as converted scores from the old scale...

We actually do convert them to percentiles (and from there to the old MCAT). It's the only way we have to understand them.