3.1 cGPA from MIT, 4.0 GPA in post-bacc

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wiloghby

Perpetually interviewing
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Hi everyone,

Long time reader, first time poster.

UNDERGRAD: I graduated in 2007 with a 3.1 GPA -- including one D in a quantum physics class -- from MIT with a degree in engineering. I'm now planning to transfer my problem-solving skills to a career in medicine. My GPA at MIT was poor because I didn't have any goals that required good undergraduate grades and I'm generally goal-oriented.

Long story short...I learned a lot of the premed prereq material but not in the proper science departments so I want to take the proper sequence of courses in the proper departments both to avoid any eligibility problems and to prove that I'm actually super smart.

Everything that follows is stuff I've accomplished in the last 14 months.

POST-BACC: 65 credits (so far) at local colleges since moving back to NJ and gotten A's in all of them. These include Bio I*, Microbiology*, A&P I*, A&P II, CMB*, Genetics*, Nutrition*, EMT training*, General Chemistry I (4 cr), and General Chemistry I Lab (1 cr). Courses with an asterisk were taken at a community college albeit a good one. The others were taken this summer at Rutgers Newark as part of the post-bacc pre-med program there, though my official entry into the program doesn't start until this fall.


The remaining courses will be taken at Rutgers Newark as part of the post-bacc premed program before applying to med school:

Gen Chem II w/ Lab (5 cr)
Organic Chemistry w/ Lab, I & II (10 cr)
General Biology II with lab (5 cr)
General Biology I with lab** (5 cr)
Physics I & II with lab** (10 credits)

** = not strictly necessary. I have taken these classes already, but they were in the 2003-2004 school year (almost 10 years ago) or at a local community college.

If I continue to get A's in all of those classes, my final cumulative undergraduate GPA stats will be: 3.55 cGPA, 3.75 sGPA MCAT should be around 32-36 conservatively as I'm quite good at those kinds of tests. I am hoping to enter medical school in Fall 2014.

RESEARCH: I also applied for a mini-grant ($2000) to do basic bioinformatic research at my local community college and was awarded the grant. The project involves the construction, sequencing, and analysis of a metagenomic library from local soil. Some of these sequences were submitted to GenBank.

VOLUNTEER: I'm a certified EMT now, and I've been volunteering in a small community hospital's ER.

School list:
UMDNJ--NJmed
UMDNJ--RWJ
Cooper??


1. Do I have a reasonable chance of getting into medical school in the USA for an MD program somewhere in the northern US?

2. What other schools (outside of NJ) do I have a reasonable shot at? Cost is kind of an issue. I don't mind going to into debt as long as I don't go bankrupt trying to make payments during residency or something :p

Feel free to ask any other questions. Sorry this post is so long....hopefully the bold parts will be brief enough.

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You have a very good chance at getting into a US MD program. Without knowing for sure what your MCAT is however, it's tough to say what schools you have the best chances at. Difference between a 32 and 36 is extremely drastic in the flexibility you will have while applying. You can overcome your lower GPA with a fantastic MCAT score, but only to a certain extent.
 
Yeah I understand that my MCAT score is a big wildcard at this point. I am not going to take the test until I have finished the organic chemistry sequence in May 2013.

I just want to make sure I'm not wasting my time working to get into medical school if it is truly impossible to overcome my performance at MIT. I'm hoping that AdComms will focus on the fact that I've gotten a 4.0 in every class I've taken since I graduated rather than the fact that I got a 3.1 from MIT over 6 years ago (as of the time I actually apply).
 
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