Hey guys, I was wondering if you could help me in an academic dilemma. I just had a really bad semester because I caught the flu on an convient time and bombed my finals. My GPA is currently 2.9, with my science gpa 2.5 , I have a senior year left and I'm currently Double majoring in Cell Bio/Neuroscience and Psychology. Should I continue to work on my Psych major and boost my overall Gpa or take a year worth of science classes to boost my science GPA. I'm planning to try extremely hard for MCATS to make myself at least presentable to the adcoms. Any advice guys( and ladies)??
Bottom of the Food Chain.
- Thread starter lhereIaml
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Yes and yes... shoot for a 3.0+ and you will need a 30+ MCAT to be competitive for medical schools. Apply to both DO and MD schools if you want to be a doc because with a GPA of < 3.2 or so you may find it really hard to get into allo schools. You really have to ace your MCAT
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I would hold off on the MCAT for now -- your GPA is not yet competitive to apply and you don't really want to risk it expiring before you are ready. There is no MCAT score that is going to make med schools overlook a below 3.0 GPA/BCPM (The SDN notion of someone with a bad GPA "rocking the MCAT" is more myth than helpful). You are going to need to both bring up your GPA and have a string of A's in science classes. One bad set of finals doesn't bring someone's BCPM to a 2.5 -- sounds like you were struggling for a while. I'm thinking either you need to postpone graduating a year or plan on taking informal postbac classes once you're done. Once your GPA is closer to application worthy, then start thinking about the MCAT. Might be a bit of a longer road for you -- fortunately this is not a race. Good luck.
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do you go to RU-New Brunswick by any chance, because I'm a CBN major too...
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I wouldn't reccommend post bacc program. I asked my advisor if I should do a postbacc program bc I have a C in a couple of premed courses, but he said there was no point, it was better to do a masters program and that was if I didn't get into med school the first time I applied. So all you can do is try and kick arse doing it. If not get your masters kick arse in doing that and then reapply... If you want further insight talk to your health professions office.
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If we listened to everything our pre-med advisors said we'd all be biology majors, take undergrad too seriously, and hate life. Take everything your pre-med advisors say with a grain of salt.
Post-bacc is a good idea for some people. With a GPA below 3.0, he might not be able to get into a masters program--at least not one he likes. Some post-bacc programs can help you get pre-reqs and a few other classes done in a year. And getting a masters isn't going to supplement bad grades in pre-med pre-reqs. Sounds like he'll need to redo those courses or take--and ace--higher-level science courses (not necessarily masters courses).
Good luck!
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Agree. Until your undergrad level GPA is above a 3.0, many med schools are going to screen you out based on undergrad grades, notwithstanding a masters. For this reason, many SMP's won't even admit people with below a 3.0.
I suspect that prior poster's advisor was discussing someone in a different GPA position -- there is no single best fix for everyone. There are people who benefit from postbac courses, some who benefit from graduate courses, and even some who actually need to do both.
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