Hey all,
I Graduated a year ago undergrad with a 3.0 GPA in physics. I had some bad times in undergrad which didn't help out the low gpa (significant other being very second during second year and being diagnosed with cancer the year after). Do I have a shot at ever getting in? I'm strongly considering a master's in neurology starting next year. Is there any chance? are there things that would improve the odds?
Thanks for any advice
Welcome, and sorry about your awful experience.
Most honest people here would likely say that it's impossible to predict how you would fair--in part because you have only provided a small part of the data needed to be a competitive medical school applicant. MCAT, experiences, volunteer work, shadowing, letters, college pedigree all matter.
Realize that this has nothing to do with ability. Medical school work is plentiful but it is not that academically challenging. It's all about presenting yourself as a low-risk applicant for academic failure, and a good fit for the profession. You are going to need a high MCAT score. That goes without saying. Once you have secured that, the odds are still stacked against you with a GPA < 3.5, which I suspect you already know. This will see you screened out by a computer in the first pass. People have been accepted with less, but it's phenomenally rare and I would not bank on being one of those exceptions.
A high graduate GPA might help for some schools that use that algorithm (and it's tough to know which ones do), but this will not be averaged into your undergraduate GPA and so you will still be screened out m many schools that do not take the time to look (and with 8000 applications, this is reality).
Have you considered a special masters linkage program like the Georgetown SMP (
http://smp.georgetown.edu/)? That usually gets the attention of admissions directors.
Good luck!
