First, Boston College and Boston University are 2 different schools.
Second, please don't post the same question in multiple places.
Hi, my name is David and I'm trying to make a decision. My current GPA, as it stands, is a mere 3.2 and is not enough for medical school and my MCAT is only a 35 which isn't enough to compensate for it.
Below it seems like you're saying you've already done an MD app cycle. How did it go?
What state are you in? Those stats should get you some consideration at your state MD school(s). How's the rest of your package?
I recently applied for graduate school special masters program and got into the Boston University Special Masters of Medical Science and I've applied for a few more (Georgetown, Temple University, Rosalind Franklin, U. Penn, U. Cincinnati, Mount Sinai, Drexel, Loyola, Dartmouth and New York Medical College).
Congrats on Boston.
When did you apply to these others? I'm hoping you paid attention to deadlines. I'm also hoping you paid attention to minimum GPAs - Temple's minimum is 3.3.
My question now is are these programs actually beneficial to me?
If by "beneficial" you mean "will improve your chances of getting into med school," the answer is yes. That's the whole point of most of these programs, and some have a solid reputation and statistics.
Other than SMPs, there's not much
else that's beneficial, really. You can go do multiple additional years of undergrad, maybe get a 2nd bachelors, but the GPA improvement won't be dramatic - maybe you can get up to 3.5.
Some of these programs are Post-Bacc style programs while others offer me the opportunity to take the first year of medical school classes. Of the two, which one should I take and if I do demonstrate that I can academically perform (3.5 GPA or above) and I do reapply, would medical schools hold this against me?
I have a strong personal preference for traditional SMPs where you do most of the first year of med school to prove you can do med school. If you don't do such a program, you'd want to have as much info as you can get about how well their grads do. Loyola, for example, has a great rep of getting its grads into med school, without having its students in med school classes.
Which part of this would be held against you? Do you mean reapplicant stigma? I think that once you're on the SMP path, multiple app cycles are assumed.
Secondly, since I already got into Boston University, should I reapply for medical school now and indicate that I was already accepted?
You need more impressive improvement in your app than acceptance into an SMP before you'll be seen differently by MD schools. Some SMPs will aggressively support a same-year app (Georgetown, Cincinnati, EVMS). Generally a same-year-as-SMP MD app is necessarily a late app, and you'll be waiting on first term SMP grades and letters to update MD schools. So there's negligible benefit in racing to get an early-June MD app done: you'll be fighting for consideration in January.
I suggest that you do a great deal of reading in this forum, in the threads that support the SMPs you're pursuing, to see how to play the game.
Best of luck to you.
