Medical Am I having a weird cycle? (Basically just needing some reassurance)

[Goro]

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Hey all,

Firstly wanted to thank the members of this board for taking the time to address people's questions and concerns. It must be a significant task to add on to the regular day to day life but the result is a treasure trove of information for someone like me, so thanks a bunch for everything you guys do

Long story short - I applied in 2018 to disastrous effect, had no idea what I was doing, applied only MD, unsurprisingly didn't get a single interview. My stats are not impressive, to say the least - sGPA is in the 2.7x range, cGPA in the 3.0x range (do have a decent upward trend though); did fairly well but not amazing on the MCAT (balanced 511); middle of the ground ECs and some research, really nothing groundbreaking. I'm not URM but come from very low SES background, multilingual, and first generation. Honestly if I was a regular user of SDN in 2018 I probably would've considered giving up medicine altogether because of how out of place my numbers would've seemed

Fast forward to this cycle - couldn't afford taking more classes, so instead I now have 2800+ hours of patient experience from working in a clinic as an MA - decided to reapply with a PS that feels more authentic, but overall the "cold hard numbers" of my application really changed. I'm also applying to both MD and DO schools, and was complete at most schools by late September (not great, I know). To my complete disbelief, I've somehow landed an MD interview from a state school that prescreened me out of even getting a secondary last time. I have not really heard much from any of the DOs yet, but my understanding is their cycle is a little longer in terms of how things move

So basically I'm really not sure where I stand at this point - is there such a thing as a "sympathy interview"? Because that's sort of what I'm forcing myself to believe, given the statistical chances of someone in my position getting anywhere based on my first cycle. And I don't want to be overly optimistic, but is there any hope of getting further interviews, particularly from DO schools?

I'm going to be blunt. Medical schools don't have time to give sympathy f***s. Now, courtesy interviews are real, if you have a powerful donor of Faculty member working on your behalf.

But what most likely got you your interview was most likely your extensive clinical experience, the upward GPA trends and a decent MCAT.

And yes, DO interviews are likely. Due to the economy going south, there are more apps in this year and so med schools are having more people to review (and having to deal with COVID as well).

 

[TheBoneDoctah]

You applied with a sub-3.0 GPA and got an MD interview or did you retake some classes to raise that?

 

[tantacles]

If you got an interview, it's real, and they're interested. Do your best, and maybe this will be your shot.

 

[TheBoneDoctah]

Yep, well, sub-3.0 science GPA if that wasn't already what you were referencing. But I haven't taken any classes since graduation. I was kind of telling myself that this year was basically going to be "make it or break it" - if I didn't get any interviews, I probably would've put my medical career on hold, likely indefinitely

Wow. Congrats!

 

[tantacles]

Fingers crossed! Hopefully will manage to blow them away with the interview. I'm sure SDN has plenty of threads for advice about interviews that I can read up on?

Definitely.

 

[Goro]

@Goro do you have any recommendations for other DO schools to include in my application, given my stats? I've applied to only a couple because I didn't really feel like potentially burning money (got screened out of CUSOM, still waiting to hear from ACOM, VCOM, LECOM, and PCOM). I figure adding more MDs is probably pointless since it's pretty well along in the cycle for them

Otherwise, I have no other questions. Thanks to everyone for your replies, it really means a lot

Try ARCOM, NYITCOM-AR, KYCOM, and WCU