Bad GPA, feeling lost and with no direction

[longhorn97]

Hello, during the first 2 years of undergrad, I didn't do as well as I should've due to family circumstances and me just not being well-adjusted to college.
I'm trying to improve for my last 2 years in undergrad but have resigned to doing a post-bacc (Harvard?) or a SMP (Boston U).
PLEASE, any advice as to what I need to do now in my undergrad years to help me in the future would be greatly appreciated (need more volunteering, shadowing, etc.)
If you have any suggestions for SMP or post-bacc, please let me know.

1. Cumulative GPA 3.35
   AMCAS sGPA 3.26
   AACOMAS sGPA 3.26
2. Planning to take my first MCAT in May 2018.
3. TX resident
4. Asian female, first generation college student
5. Large TX public university
6. Clinical experience: Over 250 hours with direct patient volunteer experience in a hospital over the last 4 summers.
7. Research experience and productivity: Computational bio research for over 1 year, no awards/recognition
8. Shadowing experience and specialties represented: 40 hours in freshman year shadowing a fam med M.D.; sat in 3-4 general surgeries (bariatric and podiatry)
9. Non-clinical volunteering: Volunteering with the diversity office at my university and working with different minority and underrepresented groups
10. Other extracurricular activities: Rising Star award through the Diversity Office at my school, member of future doctors of America and inactive member of a large service co-ed fraternity
11. Work: Spent Summer '17 scribing at a large public hospital and scribed at urgent care, trauma, and observation units. Was a business analyst intern for a telemedicine healthcare startup and worked under a MD (but licensed overseas and didn't practice med in the US)
12. Special circumstances: During my freshman year, my father lost his job due to layoffs at his company and this really affected me mentally and emotionally because my family financially supports me. During my sophomore year, my grandmother who I was close with and lived with us for 8+ years died of cancer and really caused me to have a big mess up in sophomore year (changed a class to pass/fail in fall semester and dropped a bio class in spring semester).

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[Mr. Babe]

This is a typical case of someone who worries too much. Applying to med school can be a crap shoot many times, but you never know what schools might be interested in you until you apply. Don't resign to a post-bacc or SMP because that should only happen if your grades are below 3.0 or if you've applied and didn't get in. Your grades aren't amazing, but they are fine especially taking into account the fact that you have 2 more years to go to raise them. Seriously, just don't worry too much because your stats and experiences look good. Keep doing everything that you're already doing and get some more shadowing hours, especially DO if that's what you want to do. Also, start thinking about Letters of Rec and who you'll get those from. You have lots of time to get this stuff done so you're in a good spot. My GPA is a 3.45 and I got accepted and with 2 years you can probably surpass that with straight A's. I know how you feel because I had the same situation and I got straight A's my last year to raise my GPA. Study like hell for the MCAT and start looking at schools you want to apply for. If you do really well on the MCAT, you should look at MD schools too. Don't put so much weight on your GPA, work hard to raise it, but kill it with everything else on your application.

 

[longhorn97]

This is a typical case of someone who worries too much. Applying to med school can be a crap shoot many times, but you never know what schools might be interested in you until you apply. Don't resign to a post-bacc or SMP because that should only happen if your grades are below 3.0 or if you've applied and didn't get in. Your grades aren't amazing, but they are fine especially taking into account the fact that you have 2 more years to go to raise them. Seriously, just don't worry too much because your stats and experiences look good. Keep doing everything that you're already doing and get some more shadowing hours, especially DO if that's what you want to do. Also, start thinking about Letters of Rec and who you'll get those from. You have lots of time to get this stuff done so you're in a good spot. My GPA is a 3.45 and I got accepted and with 2 years you can probably surpass that with straight A's. I know how you feel because I had the same situation and I got straight A's my last year to raise my GPA. Study like hell for the MCAT and start looking at schools you want to apply for. If you do really well on the MCAT, you should look at MD schools too. Don't put so much weight on your GPA, work hard to raise it, but kill it with everything else on your application.

thanks for the words of wisdom!!

 

[Cardboard101]

You're fine. Just make sure you take the MCAT only when you're ready, get a year or two of decent grades and you'll get in somewhere. You need more non-clinical service ECs.

 

[workaholic181]

You don’t need an SMP. You have two years to show an upward trend and improve a very saveable GPA. Being a TX resident will be beneficial too. Don’t have this plan of banking on an SMP because it can kind of give you an excuse to not perform really well these last two years. If you handle business now you’re gonna be fine OP. Good luck

 

[Goro]

Hello, during the first 2 years of undergrad, I didn't do as well as I should've due to family circumstances and me just not being well-adjusted to college.
I'm trying to improve for my last 2 years in undergrad but have resigned to doing a post-bacc (Harvard?) or a SMP (Boston U).
PLEASE, any advice as to what I need to do now in my undergrad years to help me in the future would be greatly appreciated (need more volunteering, shadowing, etc.)
If you have any suggestions for SMP or post-bacc, please let me know.

1. Cumulative GPA 3.35
   AMCAS sGPA 3.26
   AACOMAS sGPA 3.26
2. Planning to take my first MCAT in May 2018.
3. TX resident
4. Asian female, first generation college student
5. Large TX public university
6. Clinical experience: Over 250 hours with direct patient volunteer experience in a hospital over the last 4 summers.
7. Research experience and productivity: Computational bio research for over 1 year, no awards/recognition
8. Shadowing experience and specialties represented: 40 hours in freshman year shadowing a fam med M.D.; sat in 3-4 general surgeries (bariatric and podiatry)
9. Non-clinical volunteering: Volunteering with the diversity office at my university and working with different minority and underrepresented groups
10. Other extracurricular activities: Rising Star award through the Diversity Office at my school, member of future doctors of America and inactive member of a large service co-ed fraternity
11. Work: Spent Summer '17 scribing at a large public hospital and scribed at urgent care, trauma, and observation units. Was a business analyst intern for a telemedicine healthcare startup and worked under a MD (but licensed overseas and didn't practice med in the US)
12. Special circumstances: During my freshman year, my father lost his job due to layoffs at his company and this really affected me mentally and emotionally because my family financially supports me. During my sophomore year, my grandmother who I was close with and lived with us for 8+ years died of cancer and really caused me to have a big mess up in sophomore year (changed a class to pass/fail in fall semester and dropped a bio class in spring semester).

Your GPAs are fine for tons of DO school, except AZCOM, CCOM and the Coastal Touros. Do well on MCAT and apply broadly.

For your TX MD schools, read this:
Goro's advice for pre-meds who need reinvention

 

[DrDoogieHowser]

As stated earlier, with a solid MCAT, you should have no problem getting in as long as you apply broadly. (However, if you do end up going down the SMP/Post-Bacc route I would highly recommend pursuing a program with automatic acceptance because the linking for most SMP programs decreases every year (from what I have read))