At a loss...

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Doc2Be93

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Hi all,

I’m feeling really discouraged and confused about my future. I was banking on using grade replacement in order to apply to osteopathic school and now my gpa is WAY under any screens. I’m talking cGPA 2.0 and sGPA 2.1. Is it even worth taking classes to boost my gpa? I’m URM (black) but that isn’t going to get me past any screens. Any advice is much appreciated.
 
how many credit hours are you at? You may have to go through an affiliated masters or post bacc program. How is your MCAT?
 
how many credit hours are you at? You may have to go through an affiliated masters or post bacc program. How is your MCAT?

Roughly 120. I had 18 credits transfer from high school so those didn’t have an impact on my gpa at all (thankfully).

My MCAT isn’t that stellar either. I don’t even think a post bacc will accept me in this current state.
 
Roughly 120. I had 18 credits transfer from high school so those didn’t have an impact on my gpa at all (thankfully).

My MCAT isn’t that stellar either. I don’t even think a post bacc will accept me in this current state.
If they're college courses taken in high school, they do have an impact on your GPA for med school application purposes. Unless you're talking AP classes.
 
If they're college courses taken in high school, they do have an impact on your GPA for med school application purposes. Unless you're talking AP classes.

They were credits I gained from dual enrollment when I took honors English, history and philosophy classes. On my transcript I see the 18 credits noted but I don’t see grades listed for any of them.
 
They were credits I gained from dual enrollment when I took honors English, history and philosophy classes. On my transcript I see the 18 credits noted but I don’t see grades listed for any of them.
It doesn't matter if your specific undergrad institution doesn't factor them into your GPA. If they're college-level courses that you took while in high school, and earned grades for, they will factor into your GPA for both AMCAS and AACOMAS.
 
It doesn't matter if your specific undergrad institution doesn't factor them into your GPA. If they're college-level courses that you took while in high school, and earned grades for, they will factor into your GPA for both AMCAS and AACOMAS.

This is how it’s listed on my transcript. They simply applied a credit towards college courses for the classes I took. I don’t even remember the grades I got for those classes honestly.
 

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This is how it’s listed on my transcript. They simply applied a credit towards college courses for the classes I took. I don’t even remember the grades I got for those classes honestly.
Like I said, it doesn't matter what your specific undergrad institution does. You are required to send a transcript from all institutions attended, even for courses taken during high school. If you took these courses at a college/university, I'm assuming you received a grade for them (unless you audited them or something). The grades will be listed on the transcript from that school, and will be factored into your GPA for med school apps.
 
Like I said, it doesn't matter what your specific undergrad institution does. You are required to send a transcript from all institutions attended, even for courses taken during high school. If you took these courses at a college/university, I'm assuming you received a grade for them (unless you audited them or something). The grades will be listed on the transcript from that school, and will be factored into your GPA for med school apps.


Got it, thank you. I’m still confused as to what I should do to remedy my poor undergraduate gpa.
 
Got it, thank you. I’m still confused as to what I should do to remedy my poor undergraduate gpa.
Unfortunately, I don't have much advice for that. I just wanted to make you aware that those classes would be factored into your GPA, in case maybe they gave it a little lift!

With 120 credits and a 2.0, you need a lot of classes to break 3.0...and even then, you'll be prescreened from places. I am not experienced with GPA repair, so I can't give advice. Hopefully one of the more experienced SDNers can help you. Good luck 🙂
 
Path 1: Take a bunch of post-bacc courses at your local public university for a year or two, get all A's, and then apply to SMP programs; talk to admissions officers to see if their SMP admission cutoffs are flexible.

Path 2: Move to Texas, become a Texas resident (requires one year of Texas residence), and do "fresh start," where you complete a bachelor's degree at a public Texas university from scratch. Then apply to all of the medical schools in Texas through TMDSAS. College For All Texans: Academic Fresh Start

If you're seriously committed to medicine, then you have a very long road ahead of you.
 
Path 1: Take a bunch of post-bacc courses at your local public university for a year or two, get all A's, and then apply to SMP programs; talk to admissions officers to see if their SMP admission cutoffs are flexible.

Path 2: Move to Texas, become a Texas resident (requires one year of Texas residence), and do "fresh start," where you complete a bachelor's degree at a public Texas university from scratch. Then apply to all of the medical schools in Texas through TMDSAS.

If you're seriously committed to medicine, then you have a very long road ahead of you.

Is the 3.0 cut off hard cut off? Only asking because I've seen people admitted to medical school with sub 3.0 gpas. I'm willing to put in the work, I have been doing post bacc work since I've graduated in 2015 and have done relatively well (3.5+) but I'm frustrated and disappointed in my (younger) self because I took such an immature and irrational approach to school when it mattered.
 
If they're college courses taken in high school, they do have an impact on your GPA for med school application purposes. Unless you're talking AP classes.

Honestly, thank you. I logged into the portal and am in the process of factoring in those grades as well. My gpa already jumped up by .2. This is why I love SDN. I know I have a long road ahead of me regardless but at least my gpa is getting bumped up a tad.
 
Honestly, thank you. I logged into the portal and am in the process of factoring in those grades as well. My gpa already jumped up by .2. This is why I love SDN. I know I have a long road ahead of me regardless but at least my gpa is getting bumped up a tad.
Yay!!! Glad I could help somehow 🙂
 
Path 1: Take a bunch of post-bacc courses at your local public university for a year or two, get all A's, and then apply to SMP programs; talk to admissions officers to see if their SMP admission cutoffs are flexible.

Path 2: Move to Texas, become a Texas resident (requires one year of Texas residence), and do "fresh start," where you complete a bachelor's degree at a public Texas university from scratch. Then apply to all of the medical schools in Texas through TMDSAS. College For All Texans: Academic Fresh Start

If you're seriously committed to medicine, then you have a very long road ahead of you.

OP, this is probably close to best advice you'll garner here.
 
Do something else. 120 hours at 2.0 is essentially non-recoverable.

Even if you somehow gained admittance to medical school, do you think you're mature enough to handle it?
 
Do something else. 120 hours at 2.0 is essentially non-recoverable.

Even if you somehow gained admittance to medical school, do you think you're mature enough to handle it?

Okay so I clearly calculated my gpa completely wrong. Including all credits to date my cGPA is 2.53 and my science gpa is 2.34. I am planning on taking classes through UNE as opposed to brick and mortar due to the fact that my work schedule will not allow me to take classes in a traditional setting. Now, as for your question...18-22 year old me, no chance. How I am now (24) most definitely. I took a completely different approach to school during my post bacc and received As, A-, and B+s the whole way through.
 
Like I said, it doesn't matter what your specific undergrad institution does. You are required to send a transcript from all institutions attended, even for courses taken during high school. If you took these courses at a college/university, I'm assuming you received a grade for them (unless you audited them or something). The grades will be listed on the transcript from that school, and will be factored into your GPA for med school apps.
So, do you send a transcript from high school then?
 
Okay so I clearly calculated my gpa completely wrong. Including all credits to date my cGPA is 2.53 and my science gpa is 2.34. I am planning on taking classes through UNE as opposed to brick and mortar due to the fact that my work schedule will not allow me to take classes in a traditional setting. Now, as for your question...18-22 year old me, no chance. How I am now (24) most definitely. I took a completely different approach to school during my post bacc and received As, A-, and B+s the whole way through.
that's not too bad. It is definitely recoverable. It might take 2 years to get from 2.53 to around 3.0.
 
The transcripts from college courses taken in high school come from the colleges that sponsor the courses, not the high school.
I got it. But OP said that his undergrad school didn't post grades. Fldoctorgirl says that it will be incorporated into GPA. How can it be without grades?
 
Hi all,

I’m feeling really discouraged and confused about my future. I was banking on using grade replacement in order to apply to osteopathic school and now my gpa is WAY under any screens. I’m talking cGPA 2.0 and sGPA 2.1. Is it even worth taking classes to boost my gpa? I’m URM (black) but that isn’t going to get me past any screens. Any advice is much appreciated.
1) You need to figure out why you're doing so poorly, and then fix those deficits.
2) Go visit your school's learning or education center
3) read this:
Goro’s advice for pre-meds who need reinvention
 
I got it. But OP said that his undergrad school didn't post grades. Fldoctorgirl says that it will be incorporated into GPA. How can it be without grades?
Because he got grades for the class. Just because his undergrad didn't factor them into his GPA doesn't mean AMCAS/AACOMAS won't.
 
@PashaOdesit For instance, I dual enrolled during HS as well, at the local CC. Even though my undergrad did factor the transfer grades into my GPA, I was still required to submit a transcript to AMCAS and AACOMAS from both my undergrad institution and the CC. AMCAS and AACOMAS GPAs are calculated using all courses taken for college credit.
 
Okay so I clearly calculated my gpa completely wrong. Including all credits to date my cGPA is 2.53 and my science gpa is 2.34. I am planning on taking classes through UNE as opposed to brick and mortar due to the fact that my work schedule will not allow me to take classes in a traditional setting. Now, as for your question...18-22 year old me, no chance. How I am now (24) most definitely. I took a completely different approach to school during my post bacc and received As, A-, and B+s the whole way through.
so, do you have any college transcript that has grades for these high school courses?
 
so, do you have any college transcript that has grades for these high school courses?

Yes. I was able to obtain my login information for the college that I did my dual enrollment with and my grades are: A-,A-, and four B’s.
 
@PashaOdesit For instance, I dual enrolled during HS as well, at the local CC. Even though my undergrad did factor the transfer grades into my GPA, I was still required to submit a transcript to AMCAS and AACOMAS from both my undergrad institution and the CC. AMCAS and AACOMAS GPAs are calculated using all courses taken for college credit.
That's nice. I took Calc (5 credits) in HS as dual course and got an A. My undergrad simply says CR. I can't locate that course anywhere else except my HS transcript.
 
@fldoctorgirl is definitely correct.
I took 30 credits at a community college. Failed so many of them that I couldn't go to my new University as a transfer student and so my counselor said I didn't have to transfer from my old classes if I didn't want, since it wouldn't really affect anything since I had to retake it. Seems kind of weird to me, but I basically started fresh at a new Institution, still had to include that other school on my application and into my GPA calculations, even though the university that I got my degree from didn't have it on their records or in their GPA calculations, so it definitely isn't just the GPA calculations as according to you are undergraduate Institution. Also, some schools do the numbers slightly different, like one place might have a B+ at 8 3.4 instead of a 3.3 for example or they might do grade replacement for your GPA. I realize that my situation is different, I'm just saying if you took a class that was for college credit, it should be recorded as such on aacomas, not just whatever the final tally was from your undergrad Institution.
OP I did the math, and assuming that you had a 120 credits at a 2.5, you would need 60 more credits at a 4.0 to get over a 3.0. Now when you said a hundred and 20 credits I don't know if that factored in the 18 that you had in high school or not, and those are obviously slightly rounded numbers to that 2.5, but you get the idea. 2 years, taking 2 15 credit semesters a year would get you there if you didn't get a single A-. Or like others have suggested, maybe an SMP that is only one year long or something, but I know some of those have cut-offs to but I don't know in what range. Podiatry is a super legit path to consider as well if you don't feel like putting in two more years. I was in your position at 24, or pretty similar. I went to seven more semesters full time and got a 3.9+ over a hundred more credits, did well enough on the MCAT, ended up at a 3.1, got 10 interview invites to DO schools this cycle. It sucked, thanks to me from 10 years ago, so I know the feeling, but if it's the absolute only thing you want you can do it it'll just take a long time. I definitely don't suggest what I did to everyone. But there are options. And yes not every school has a hard 3.0 cut off, but a lot of schools do. So you got some thinking to do about how much work you want to put in for it before you even get to the start line that is med school. Something like Podiatry could get you to a place where you might be just as happy but a lot sooner, it'd be worth a shadow.
 
@fldoctorgirl is definitely correct.
I took 30 credits at a community college. Failed so many of them that I couldn't go to my new University as a transfer student and so my counselor said I didn't have to transfer from my old classes if I didn't want, since it wouldn't really affect anything since I had to retake it. Seems kind of weird to me, but I basically started fresh at a new Institution, still had to include that other school on my application and into my GPA calculations, even though the university that I got my degree from didn't have it on their records or in their GPA calculations, so it definitely isn't just the GPA calculations as according to you are undergraduate Institution. Also, some schools do the numbers slightly different, like one place might have a B+ at 8 3.4 instead of a 3.3 for example or they might do grade replacement for your GPA. I realize that my situation is different, I'm just saying if you took a class that was for college credit, it should be recorded as such on aacomas, not just whatever the final tally was from your undergrad Institution.
OP I did the math, and assuming that you had a 120 credits at a 2.5, you would need 60 more credits at a 4.0 to get over a 3.0. Now when you said a hundred and 20 credits I don't know if that factored in the 18 that you had in high school or not, and those are obviously slightly rounded numbers to that 2.5, but you get the idea. 2 years, taking 2 15 credit semesters a year would get you there if you didn't get a single A-. Or like others have suggested, maybe an SMP that is only one year long or something, but I know some of those have cut-offs to but I don't know in what range. Podiatry is a super legit path to consider as well if you don't feel like putting in two more years. I was in your position at 24, or pretty similar. I went to seven more semesters full time and got a 3.9+ over a hundred more credits, did well enough on the MCAT, ended up at a 3.1, got 10 interview invites to DO schools this cycle. It sucked, thanks to me from 10 years ago, so I know the feeling, but if it's the absolute only thing you want you can do it it'll just take a long time. I definitely don't suggest what I did to everyone. But there are options. And yes not every school has a hard 3.0 cut off, but a lot of schools do. So you got some thinking to do about how much work you want to put in for it before you even get to the start line that is med school. Something like Podiatry could get you to a place where you might be just as happy but a lot sooner, it'd be worth a shadow.

Remarkable story you have. I’m not opposed to other fields in healthcare, I just haven’t explored any and haven’t grown an interest for them. I used to hate the thought of having anything to do with feet but those sentiments are long gone. Mind if I PM you?
 
Remarkable story you have. I’m not opposed to other fields in healthcare, I just haven’t explored any and haven’t grown an interest for them. I used to hate the thought of having anything to do with feet but those sentiments are long gone. Mind if I PM you?
Lol I feel you. Honestly if my MCAT hadn't gone well (exactly like it feels like when you walk out of there), my plan was to go to Podiatry School, and I figured I'd just get over it haha. For sure!
 
Something like Podiatry could get you to a place where you might be just as happy but a lot sooner, it'd be worth a shadow.
Unfortunately, 2.5 GPA is very low even for podiatry. Average cGPA is around 3.3

For example DMU averages are cGPA 3.45 and sGPA 3.28
Midwestern cGPA is 3.48, Scholl's is around 3.3 and 3.18

With 2.5 GPA, I guess some OPs prerequisites will need to be retaken as well. Even for podiatry, I think OP needs at least 1 year of good coursework. It's easier to get in and maybe faster, but not at OPs current situation.


ADDED: Even nursing and PA programs have averages at around 3.5.
Best plan going forward is bring that GPA to 3.0 and above. It is possible. Only you can decided if you still want to go to a medical school.
 
Unfortunately, 2.5 GPA is very low even for podiatry. Average cGPA is around 3.3

For example DMU averages are cGPA 3.45 and sGPA 3.28
Midwestern cGPA is 3.48, Scholl's is around 3.3 and 3.18

With 2.5 GPA, I guess some OPs prerequisites will need to be retaken as well. Even for podiatry, I think OP needs at least 1 year of good coursework. It's easier to get in and maybe faster, but not at OPs current situation.


ADDED: Even nursing and PA programs have averages at around 3.5.
Best plan going forward is bring that GPA to 3.0 and above. It is possible. Only you can decided if you still want to go to a medical school.
Thank you so much!! I totally made it sound like OP could apply as is, but I was thinking if they could retake the MCAT and get a 505 and work up to a 2.8, that might start put them in the range. I didn't mean to imply that they could just apply right now and be good. I was just meaning that the upward trend mixed with a good MCAT would still probably lead to a shorter and more reasonable path. Guess currently it would take two years of getting all A's and that's a lot of pressure to put on oneself. Definitely would still take some more work, but maybe another year of recovery instead of 2 if there was a solid MCAT in there
 
Oh and I might as well throw my MCAT score out there. I got a 499.
 
Oh and I might as well throw my MCAT score out there. I got a 499.
A 499 with a sustained period of academic excellence may work at the HBCU's and perhaps your state school. By the time those scores are included in the application the MCAT may have expired at many places, though.
 
You can get into medical school, but to be honest you need about enough post bacc credits to raise you to a 2.8+, preferably a 3.0. Also, the grades should consistently be a 3.7+, a 3.5 will not cut it. You also need to score above 80th percentile on the MCAT.

none of this is easy, and it WILL require complete dedication. To be honest, im not sure how effective taking 1-2 classes online per semester will be. Course load, institution, and course level all factor into the equation
 
A 499 with a sustained period of academic excellence may work at the HBCU's and perhaps your state school. By the time those scores are included in the application the MCAT may have expired at many places, though.

Yeah, I received that score last year (Sept 16). I was thinking of retaking once my practice scores are consistently hitting 505+. Honestly I was just lazy in undergrad. Point blank period. There’s no excuse for it but I’m paying for it now unfortunately. I’m willing to put in the work to fix my application.
 
Thank you. Are online courses frowned upon? I was thinking of taking classes through UNE.
They are not considered rigorous at many places. The MSAR indicates which schools do not consider them for pre-reqs. School websites will sometimes indicate a preference for in-person classes. That needs to be evaluated on a school by school basis.
 
They are not considered rigorous at many places. The MSAR indicates which schools do not consider them for pre-reqs. School websites will sometimes indicate a preference for in-person classes. That needs to be evaluated on a school by school basis.

If I’m simply taking classes to raise my GPA through UNE and to prove academic ability, will that be frowned upon? I had no intention of taking prerequisites through UNE as I have fulfilled all of those at my home institution already.
 
If I’m simply taking classes to raise my GPA through UNE and to prove academic ability, will that be frowned upon? I had no intention of taking prerequisites through UNE as I have fulfilled all of those at my home institution already.
This will vary a lot by institution. Start by looking at your state public schools and the HBCU's.
 
Thank you so much!! I totally made it sound like OP could apply as is, but I was thinking if they could retake the MCAT and get a 505 and work up to a 2.8, that might start put them in the range. I didn't mean to imply that they could just apply right now and be good. I was just meaning that the upward trend mixed with a good MCAT would still probably lead to a shorter and more reasonable path. Guess currently it would take two years of getting all A's and that's a lot of pressure to put on oneself. Definitely would still take some more work, but maybe another year of recovery instead of 2 if there was a solid MCAT in there
I agree. 2.8 with upward trend and competitive MCAT may be sufficient.
 
If I’m simply taking classes to raise my GPA through UNE and to prove academic ability, will that be frowned upon? I had no intention of taking prerequisites through UNE as I have fulfilled all of those at my home institution already.
There are plenty of CC colleges that have online courses too for half the cost. In your case, of you have completed prerequisites, I think CC might work. DO schools are.more forgiving on CC courses than most MD schools. You might even go to your local CC colleges or some state university if it's not too expensive.

You need at least 30 credits, preferably 50, to repair your GPA and prove that "you of now is not you of then". UNE is expensive I heard. If any of your prereqs at C- or below, you might need to retake it.

Make sure you have C or above in following courses:

1 year of Bio with Lab
1 year of Gen Chem with Lab
1 year of Orgo Chem with Lab
1 year of Physics with Lab
1 year of English
Biochemistry at least 1 semester


Recommended courses:
Psychology courses, Sociology, Cell Bio Molecular, Immunology, Pthology/Pathophysiology, Microbio, Virology, Histology, Genetics, Anatomy, Physiology, Zoology.


I would suggest taking only science course from this point forward because it will raise both GPAs at the same time.
 
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