Can you recover from a low UG gpa?

[stat3113]

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It seems pretty clear, anecdotally at least, that a low (<3.5) UG gpa will make it very difficult to get into any MD school. I used to think this referred to getting into med school right after college graduation. But it seems more and more that this is an immutable reality. Even after spending 1-3 years doing any of the myriad things people do to improve their chances (i.e. post-bacc/SMP/grad school/ research/ clinical experience, etc), they are still weighed down by subpar UG performance.

I see stories here on SDN about people who have been out of college for 5 years and when they post their stats, it is always the low UG gpa that is singled out as the cause of their rejection. It seems incredibly narrow-minded of the whole admissions process for SO much weight to be given to this one factor. Is it accurate that with a <3.5 GPA, there is absolutely no shot whatsoever at the top-tier, and even with the lowest-tier schools, it is a very minute chance?

Are there still kids who get 4.0s in tough SMPs and still get rejected b/c of "low" UG gpa?

People who got in with "low" GPAs, how did you do it? And what advice do you have for those of us in this position? What is the BEST thing one can do to improve their odds?

 

[joshinjosh]

A high MCATs is probably the only "easy" and "simple" way make up for the low gpa.

 

[Auraraptor]

The MCAT can buffer it a bit. Stronger the better.

 

[LifetimeDoc]

Are there still kids who get 4.0s in tough SMPs and still get rejected b/c of "low" UG gpa?

People who got in with "low" GPAs, how did you do it? And what advice do you have for those of us in this position? What is the BEST thing one can do to improve their odds?

Sure, people get rejected all the time whether it's a 4.0 in undergrad the traditional way or a 4.0 on post bacc/SMP. Remember that your application is a "package", and is generally evaluated as such once you get past certain minimums. Your goal is to get above those minimums, and then to improve your total package. Does improving your GPA as an upward trend mean that you are going to receive a lot of rejections? Absolutely Yes! Schools get so many applications, they can be choosey if they wish or they may have other criteria that fits your particular application and personality. Remember that the goal is to get that one acceptance at a school that you are willing to goto, not to get accepted everywhere.

It's all rather formulaic and straightforward...

• If your GPA is low, the best thing you can do is to take additional upper-division, undergraduate science undergraduate as an undergraduate post baccalaureate student. A minimum overall GPA is generally thought to be a 3.0.
• If your MCAT is low, the best thing you can do is to take it again. Figure out what went wrong, study hard, and take it again when you are ready. A minimum overall MCAT score is thought to be a 24.
• If your clinical experiences are lacking, the best thing you can do is to get off your butt and volunteer/shadow/"smell some patients" (as our resident SDN ADCOM LizzyM would put it)

Focus on putting together the best total application package and then don't give up until you reach your goal. With things like a low GPA, you have a tall hill to climb, but you can do it if you want.

 

[koennen]

A high MCATs is probably the only "easy" and "simple" way make up for the low gpa.

First of all, it's MCAT - Medical College Admission Test - not MCATs.

Secondly, your statement is not universally true. If your GPA is 2.67, even an MCAT score of 42 is not going to get you into medical school. I know several people with MCAT scores of 32-33 who could only get into DO schools because of 2.9/3.0 undergraduate GPAs.

 

[geneticclone]

First of all, it's MCAT - Medical College Admission Test - not MCATs.

Secondly, your statement is not universally true. If your GPA is 2.67, even an MCAT score of 42 is not going to get you into medical school. I know several people with MCAT scores of 32-33 who could only get into DO schools because of 2.9/3.0 undergraduate GPAs.

Well man if your gpa is a 2.67, the reality of it is that your just not fit to go to med school. Med school is for people who are able to consistently get good grade and retain information for 4 years. If you cant even get anything higher than a 3.0 in college or university than how are you expected to even PASS med school?

 

[armybound]

Well man if your gpa is a 2.67, the reality of it is that your just not fit to go to med school. Med school is for people who are able to consistently get good grade and retain information for 4 years. If you cant even get anything higher than a 3.0 in college or university than how are you expected to even PASS med school?

low numbers don't always mean a lack of intelligence or ability. some people just don't care enough to try to make good grades, like if they weren't planning on pursuing a graduate or professional degree and just wanted to pass.

 

[littlealex]

I guess the question is how low are we talking about.

Can you recover from a 2.5? Probably not. You averaged a C+/B-, while your competitors had probably only gotten 1 C+ in their entire undergrad. While a lot of PostBac work might help, many schools will find it hard to justify accepting someone with such a low GPA over someone else who had consistently worked hard.

Can you recover from a 3.0? Possibly. Of course, lots of PostBac and SMPs will be expeced from such an applicant, but if you make yourself unique enough, you might have a chance.

 

[geneticclone]

low numbers don't always mean a lack of intelligence or ability. some people just don't care enough to try to make good grades, like if they weren't planning on pursuing a graduate or professional degree and just wanted to pass.

True. However, if they didnt care enough to make good grades why were htey in college?

 

[littlealex]

Sometimes people forget that you have to get a job after college. So they goto college and "enjoy themselves," or they drink a lot.

I did. I regret it, but making mistakes is part of life.

 

[TheRealMD]

True. However, if they didnt care enough to make good grades why were htey in college?

Lots of college girls to party with? I don't think they want to go party with a 23-year old who has some ****ty ass job. College hides that for 4 years. 😀

 

[Kriyaban]

It seems pretty clear, anecdotally at least, that a low (<3.5) UG gpa will make it very difficult to get into any MD school. I used to think this referred to getting into med school right after college graduation. But it seems more and more that this is an immutable reality. Even after spending 1-3 years doing any of the myriad things people do to improve their chances (i.e. post-bacc/SMP/grad school/ research/ clinical experience, etc), they are still weighed down by subpar UG performance.

I see stories here on SDN about people who have been out of college for 5 years and when they post their stats, it is always the low UG gpa that is singled out as the cause of their rejection. It seems incredibly narrow-minded of the whole admissions process for SO much weight to be given to this one factor. Is it accurate that with a <3.5 GPA, there is absolutely no shot whatsoever at the top-tier, and even with the lowest-tier schools, it is a very minute chance?

Are there still kids who get 4.0s in tough SMPs and still get rejected b/c of "low" UG gpa?

People who got in with "low" GPAs, how did you do it? And what advice do you have for those of us in this position? What is the BEST thing one can do to improve their odds?

If you spend 1-3 years doing a postbac, that WILL raise your ugrad gpa. Getting your gpa up to an acceptable level should trump getting any type of master's.

 

[geneticclone]

Lots of college girls to party with? I don't think they want to go party with a 23-year old who has some ****ty ass job. College hides that for 4 years. 😀

LOL. 😀

 

[littlealex]

The days of making out with strangers in the basement is over... it is so incredibly sad I don't know what to say.
Now I'll have to learn to work the bar scene.

 

[armybound]

True. However, if they didnt care enough to make good grades why were htey in college?

your future employer wants to see that you have a degree, not that you made As in all of your classes.

 

[Nasem]

Grades imply nothing to intellegence.
All grades mean is the ability for a youngster to take responsibility of thier education and do better than thier peers Period

Thats why medical related fields look for people with high GPAs, not because they are "smart" (Im sure theyr smart, but defenetly nothing above the average intellegence), but because they like "serious" students....

Medical schools are VERY demanding (so I hear) and they want people who get serious and not try it out for 2-3 years and say "man f*** this, this is too hard"...... They want "successful" individuals

Now as far as low UG GPA is going, sure, it hurts like hell, Im one of those "unlucky" people who fudged around my undergrad GPA....

My undergrad GPA is not only messed up with a 3.02 , but its a 3.02 with 136 CREDITS !!!! I was a double major (computer science & math) and while most folks only need approx 96 credits to get a degree, I needed 136, meaning raising a 3.02 to something like a 3.3 will take me 3 years doing post-bacc, taking about 15-18 credits each semester and getting 3.8 on EVERY class (By the way, thats my current plan right now hehe... only problem is, I am going parttime to school becuase I work fulltime as a software engineer)

But I have a different way of looking at it... Yes its hard for me to get it, and yes raising my UG gpa is going to be a tough challenge, but think about how cool it would be if I actually pull it off and get into an MD school.... now that would be huge 🙂

 

[geneticclone]

The days of making out with strangers in the basement is over... it is so incredibly sad I don't know what to say.
Now I'll have to learn to work the bar scene.

Once you go to med school youll be thinking about how lucky you were not to catch any stds (that is if you dont have any stds)😛

 

[infinitejest]

It's possible to recover from a low GPA, but difficult. I'm an example of such a low-GPA guy, and I got rejected my first time around. But there are steps you can take to mitigate the stigma of low grades: do a post-bac, score high on the MCAT, but I think also applying early and widely as well as bulking up on your EC's. Scroll through MDApps and you'll find a number of kids who got in, maybe not on the first try, but eventually were accepted with a 3.3 or 3.4. I think you'll probably have to get a >30 MCAT to do it and you'll have to have some lab/hospital job to demonstrate your commitment.

If the OP does have a low GPA and is looking for ways to get around it, I'd suggest taking a year off and work at a hospital or at a lab. If the MCAT is lacking (sub-30), try retaking it after putting in a lot of studying. And, of course, apply widely and early.

It's tough, but it can be done.

 

[stat3113]

If you spend 1-3 years doing a postbac, that WILL raise your ugrad gpa. Getting your gpa up to an acceptable level should trump getting any type of master's.

This is the problem. If you assume a student with a 3.2 and 140 credits, if he takes another 30 credits and gets a 3.8, his cumulative gpa is now 3.3. big deal. The question is: do adcoms see him as someone with UG gpa of 3.3, or do they see him as someone with a 3.2 UG gpa, and a 3.8 postbacc.

The former means he's screwed, whereas I would hope the latter would give him a chance. If you consider instead of 1-yr postbacc, he does 2 years (w/3.8.) Now his cum is 3.38. Let's take it to the extreme, and make it 3 years. He now has a 3.43. Which is still a hell of a subpar gpa for MD schools.

Regardless of how many advanced level UG courses he takes and aces, someone with a low UG gpa upon college graduation will be stuck with a GPA in that range and will not be able to raise it significantly, speaking purely mathematically.

The hope is that a student with a 3.2 cumulative, and a 3.8 postbacc (1yr) will be respected by adcoms, and treated differently than just another 3.2 cum.

 

[UMP]

This is the problem. If you assume a student with a 3.2 and 140 credits, if he takes another 30 credits and gets a 3.8, his cumulative gpa is now 3.3. big deal. The question is: do adcoms see him as someone with UG gpa of 3.3, or do they see him as someone with a 3.2 UG gpa, and a 3.8 postbacc.

The former means he's screwed, whereas I would hope the latter would give him a chance. If you consider instead of 1-yr postbacc, he does 2 years (w/3.8.) Now his cum is 3.38. Let's take it to the extreme, and make it 3 years. He now has a 3.43. Which is still a hell of a subpar gpa for MD schools.

Regardless of how many advanced level UG courses he takes and aces, someone with a low UG gpa upon college graduation will be stuck with a GPA in that range and will not be able to raise it significantly, speaking purely mathematically.

The hope is that a student with a 3.2 cumulative, and a 3.8 postbacc (1yr) will be respected by adcoms, and treated differently than just another 3.2 cum.

That's what generally happens...
I pulled my undergrad GPA from a 2.77 to a 3.0 after one year of post-bacc. The adcomms liked what they saw, I got interviews and an acceptance at my state school 👍
A good MCAT and solid work in a post-bacc will do wonders

 

[Law2Doc]

That's what generally happens...
I pulled my undergrad GPA from a 2.77 to a 3.0 after one year of post-bacc. The adcomms liked what they saw, I got interviews and an acceptance at my state school 👍
A good MCAT and solid work in a post-bacc will do wonders

I agree. While there are probably holes people have dug themselves into that are too deep to get out of, if you are willing and able to spend YEARS getting great grades in a science oriented informal/open enrollment postbac (sometimes even capped off with an SMP afterwards), that tends to go a long way towards convincing adcomms that you have changed and are no longer too much of a liability for med school. I know of quite a few folks who have dug themselves out of the sub-3.0 ug basement and made it into med school, notwithstanding that their cumulative GPA never got back to the competitive range.

People peak at different ages, people learn how to study, and how to tackle science classes at different times of their life. It is hard to say that someone who got a steady 3.5 throughout 4 years of college is more ready for med school than someone who tanked, say, the first few years of college to the point that the GPA is irrecoverable but now has a several year track record of straight A's in the sciences in a postbac and SMP, so med schools are often willing to take a hard look at that latter applicant as well. There are such things as late bloomers who become successful doctors.

 

[Dave_D]

Well man if your gpa is a 2.67, the reality of it is that your just not fit to go to med school. Med school is for people who are able to consistently get good grade and retain information for 4 years. If you cant even get anything higher than a 3.0 in college or university than how are you expected to even PASS med school?

Of course as others have mentioned this doesn't take in to account when the person's development peaks. I mean in my case those low grades are over a decade old so they are no longer an indicator of what kind of student I am. (The weird part of this is that on some level med schools admit this but on another level think it's not true. I mean alot of schools won't accept grades over say 7 years old.)

What I'm trying to say is that people change and they change alot even in adulthood.(Especially when college was 15+ years ago for me.)

Oh well, I'm reapplying since I'm still in a huge hole.

 

[SeventhSon]

low numbers don't always mean a lack of intelligence or ability. some people just don't care enough to try to make good grades, like if they weren't planning on pursuing a graduate or professional degree and just wanted to pass.

yeah but maybe an admissions committees hold the view that people who didn't care enough at one point are more likely to not care as much in medical school... or when practicing... not necessarily a fair assessment, but at least justifiable in some way

 

[foreverLaur]

If you have a high upward trend with a good "reason" why it was so low in the beginning, a high science GPA, and a strong MCAT score...

 

[eppendork]

True. However, if they didnt care enough to make good grades why were htey in college?

Unfortunately, what is being overlooked is the high occurence of students who don't just go to college on the wings of scholarship money or who have to earn their way through. As a result, people with jobs and obligations that they had no control over affected their school work. I knew a girl who was close to dropping out because her mother quickly and very suddenly died of cancer. Try and tell her that since her GPA plummeted that meant she didn't care about getting good grades.

 

[mterp45]

The days of making out with strangers in the basement is over... it is so incredibly sad I don't know what to say.
Now I'll have to learn to work the bar scene.

lol well said

 

[geneticclone]

Unfortunately, what is being overlooked is the high occurence of students who don't just go to college on the wings of scholarship money or who have to earn their way through. As a result, people with jobs and obligations that they had no control over affected their school work. I knew a girl who was close to dropping out because her mother quickly and very suddenly died of cancer. Try and tell her that since her GPA plummeted that meant she didn't care about getting good grades.

Honestly i didnt think too much about that.However, most of the students with bad gpa just partied too much.

 

[entranced]

so im just curious, when schools are posting up their avg UG GPAs, are they talking about overall GPA? my overall GPA is really strong, but my BCPM is about 0.22 lower than the overall (and not that great). also, about the lizzy score formula, do we use the overall or the BCPM to get the ultimate score? thanks!

 

[foreverLaur]

Honestly i didnt think too much about that.However, most of the students with bad gpa just partied too much.

Not really. My low undergrad GPA is unrelated to partying as I never really was big into going out. My friends that I stayed in with to chill, watch movies, and study generally had lower grades than my friends who were big partiers. Maybe I should start partying...

 

[postbacker]

so im just curious, when schools are posting up their avg UG GPAs, are they talking about overall GPA? my overall GPA is really strong, but my BCPM is about 0.22 lower than the overall (and not that great). also, about the lizzy score formula, do we use the overall or the BCPM to get the ultimate score? thanks!

Yes, overall...I am curious: you say your overall is "really strong" but your BCPM is .22 lower and "not that great" which is curious - what is your overall? Because "really strong" overall GPA to me would be 3.7+, indicating a BCPM in at least the 3.5 range which is better than "not that great"...curious your definition of "really strong."

Use overall in the LizzyM formula...

 

[littlealex]

LizzieM's formula implies that a man with a 3.6 and a 30 would receive the same consideration as someone with a 3.0 and a 36. I just don't know if that is true.

 

[postbacker]

LizzieM's formula implies that a man with a 3.6 and a 30 would receive the same consideration as someone with a 3.0 and a 36. I just don't know if that is true.

I agree...but consider that a LizzyM score of 66 is really "not so hot" even with the 3.6 and would only probably be of value at schools considered "lower tiered" anyway...to be competitive at a broad range of schools I think you need to break 69 to 70 with at least a 3.6 GPA to break away from the pack...anecdotally, average or median MCAT scores and GPAs appear to be inching upward these days, so that recent standard of a 3.6/30 being "average" for matriculants may be more like 3.7/31 in the coming cycles...

 

[TheRealMD]

LizzieM's formula implies that a man with a 3.6 and a 30 would receive the same consideration as someone with a 3.0 and a 36. I just don't know if that is true.

The sliding scale gives way too much importance to the MCAT. That's why you really shouldn't think too much of it. Schools will just set internal cutoffs that you have to pass and that's really it. Lopsidedness between GPA and MCAT brings false hope most of the time.

 

[crumbelievable]

Well man if your gpa is a 2.67, the reality of it is that your just not fit to go to med school. Med school is for people who are able to consistently get good grade and retain information for 4 years. If you cant even get anything higher than a 3.0 in college or university than how are you expected to even PASS med school?

not everyone who has a poor ug gpa, ended up in that situation because they were not serious enough when it came to school/studying. sometimes life gets in the way and things happen that can be very distracting. so, in the end, no matter how much a person studied/paid attention/etc., he/she isn't able to achieve a high ug gpa.

 

[crumbelievable]

ps. and sometimes, like two interviewers told me, the admissions committee will look at someone in that sort situation and say, although he/she had some genuine and serious distractions, they did their best given their situation at the time.

 

[Hershi]

what happens when you say a low science gpa but a competitive regular gpa with 30+ mcat score?

 

[gujuDoc]

low numbers don't always mean a lack of intelligence or ability. some people just don't care enough to try to make good grades, like if they weren't planning on pursuing a graduate or professional degree and just wanted to pass.

Yes, and then there are the cases where things may have gone wrong due to going through health or emotional trauma that you may have since dealt with and so forth. A lot of people do change and if they really want it they do bring up their grades to where it needs to be.

No you can't erase your previous record. However, that doesn't mean that you are not going to get in despite your low GPA if you've done things to improve on your weak areas through graduate school, postbac programs, and/or SMP programs. SMP programs show the highest results of people getting in who do well in the programs. But that's only if you do extremely well and some adcoms like Mr. Larkin of UCF med and formerly of USF med has advised against SMPs because of their intensity but if you do one and do well keep in mind you have a higher chance in most cases.

The number of people with low GPAs may be statistically lower then someone with a high GPA. However, it does not mean that there aren't people getting in with lower GPAs. Usually the big thing is to nail the MCAT and show an upward trend through postbac, SMPs, or other such programs.

 

[gujuDoc]

Honestly i didnt think too much about that.However, most of the students with bad gpa just partied too much.

Actually, a lot of the partiers at my school new when to get serious and studied their butts off and had good GPAs. But the problem came to it when they faced the MCAT because many of them didn't retain their knowledge well enough to apply it.

Still many of them made it into DO schools or dental school or just ended up going to the islands and are doing well over there now.

Then there are the other partiers who went to parties but still did what they had to do and made it into med school.

I don't think saying someone is part of frat/sorority or parties a lot means they are idiots and naturally bound to fail.

 

[LifetimeDoc]

Yes, and then there are the cases where things may have gone wrong due to going through health or emotional trauma that you may have since dealt with and so forth. A lot of people do change and if they really want it they do bring up their grades to where it needs to be.

No you can't erase your previous record. However, that doesn't mean that you are not going to get in despite your low GPA if you've done things to improve on your weak areas through graduate school, postbac programs, and/or SMP programs. SMP programs show the highest results of people getting in who do well in the programs. But that's only if you do extremely well and some adcoms like Mr. Larkin of UCF med and formerly of USF med has advised against SMPs because of their intensity but if you do one and do well keep in mind you have a higher chance in most cases.

The number of people with low GPAs may be statistically lower then someone with a high GPA. However, it does not mean that there aren't people getting in with lower GPAs. Usually the big thing is to nail the MCAT and show an upward trend through postbac, SMPs, or other such programs.

Good advice! 👍

As an anecdotal example, I was a GPA=3.1, BCMP GPA=3.0 student before post bacc with a MCAT score of 26 and 27 (took it twice before). I did a post bacc of 2.0 years and 1.5 summers of full-time, upper-division science work and got a 3.9 (Got a B in Biochemistry II dangit! Bringing overall GPA up to 3.4) along with getting a 33 on the MCAT. I did get into a US allopathic medical school, so it can be done, but you are at a disadvantage because the competition is so intense these days.

 

[gujuDoc]

I agree. While there are probably holes people have dug themselves into that are too deep to get out of, if you are willing and able to spend YEARS getting great grades in a science oriented informal/open enrollment postbac (sometimes even capped off with an SMP afterwards), that tends to go a long way towards convincing adcomms that you have changed and are no longer too much of a liability for med school. I know of quite a few folks who have dug themselves out of the sub-3.0 ug basement and made it into med school, notwithstanding that their cumulative GPA never got back to the competitive range.

People peak at different ages, people learn how to study, and how to tackle science classes at different times of their life. It is hard to say that someone who got a steady 3.5 throughout 4 years of college is more ready for med school than someone who tanked, say, the first few years of college to the point that the GPA is irrecoverable but now has a several year track record of straight A's in the sciences in a postbac and SMP, so med schools are often willing to take a hard look at that latter applicant as well. There are such things as late bloomers who become successful doctors.

This is soooooo true. Someone who got into Wayne state this year along with UMP also had a bad GPA. his name was junebugUF on here. Anyhow, he had a 2.88 GPA but did postbac and got a 3.67 and did a year of SMP at BU MAMS program and got a 4.0. He also earned a 34 MCAT in their somewhere and now is starting med school in the fall.

Similarly, I know a current 3rd year who had a 2.5 undergrad GPA from the same university JunebugUF went to for undergrad. She ended up coming back 10 years later to study at USF for a Biomedical Sciences degree and got a 4.0 over 2 years and 60 credits. Also got a 34 MCAT score and made it into med school.

Another guy who got in the same year as her had a similar story with 1 pt higher on his MCAT and made it in. There were others like them too who I have met.

Hell, there was one guy who's now starting 4th year that had 8 F's on his transcript and failed gchm 3 times in his youth before getting it right.

Anyhow, he went into the navy and learned many lessons in discipline over a period of 2 years, came back to USF and studied hard for 3 years to get his BMS degree and earned close to a 4.0 and a 37N MCAT score and had 4 interviews and 2 waitlists of which one turned into an acceptance. He actually didn't attend his two OOS interviews otherwise he may or may not have had more acceptances as well.

 

[gujuDoc]

If you spend 1-3 years doing a postbac, that WILL raise your ugrad gpa. Getting your gpa up to an acceptable level should trump getting any type of master's.

From my talking with people at different Fl. schools, this is all relevant to particular schools. At my school, the adcom people I talked to said that a Masters or postbac showing a strong trend would work in your favor if everything else is good.

 

[pursuit4success]

Do Med Schools care about the undergraduate school attended? Seems like everyone is talking on simply a number basis, but does the quality of school attended matter at all?

I personally think that it would be pretty big since a 3.3 from a state school is very different than a 3.3 from say, an ivy league.

what do you guys think?

 

[arsenewenger]

Do Med Schools care about the undergraduate school attended? Seems like everyone is talking on simply a number basis, but does the quality of school attended matter at all?

I personally think that it would be pretty big since a 3.3 from a state school is very different than a 3.3 from say, an ivy league.

what do you guys think?

All schools are good.period.

 

[chudog15]

i would big to differ that gpa at one school is comparable to gpa at another school. im sure a 3.3 at any top ten school is viewed more favorably at any lower ranking school. unfortunately, i dont think the discrepancy is big enough that one could compare a 3.6 at a lower ranked school to a 3.3 at a top ten school. thats why the mcat is so important. its the only measurement that is indepedent of collegiate performance.

 

[thoffen]

Don't think that top schools are safe from grade inflation. Some of them are among the worst at it. You can never be sure how an ADCOM will look at your specific application. There are many examples of people with apparent deficiencies getting accepted into allopathic medical schools. That's why you apply broadly.

Regarding relative GPAs, your major has a bit of influence as well.

 

[pursuit4success]

Hopefully it does...because an engineering major is much tougher to keep up. Unfortunately, I hear that med schools don't really take pity on that unless you do well.

 

[geneticclone]

Actually, a lot of the partiers at my school new when to get serious and studied their butts off and had good GPAs. But the problem came to it when they faced the MCAT because many of them didn't retain their knowledge well enough to apply it.

Still many of them made it into DO schools or dental school or just ended up going to the islands and are doing well over there now.

Then there are the other partiers who went to parties but still did what they had to do and made it into med school.

I don't think saying someone is part of frat/sorority or parties a lot means they are idiots and naturally bound to fail.

I said too much. Partied TOO MUCH.

 

[gujuDoc]

I said too much. Partied TOO MUCH.

hahaha actually you didn't say enough. In other words you weren't clear. yeah I agree with you when put that way.

But then again those people who are like that are usually the ones who don't give a damn about getting into med school. At my school most of those people were the ones who changed their majors anyhow or were not premeds to begin with at any rate.

 

[gujuDoc]

arsenewenger

First off, good post and I agree. Secondly, did you realize you are the second person who has quoted something QofQuimica has stated in your signature. The first was the person who quoted her sentiment that a large part of this process is being able to not give up.

I agree with both of those quotes and wanted to give you a 👍👍 for putting that quote you mentioned in your signature.

 

[drizzt3117]

Don't think that top schools are safe from grade inflation. Some of them are among the worst at it. You can never be sure how an ADCOM will look at your specific application. There are many examples of people with apparent deficiencies getting accepted into allopathic medical schools. That's why you apply broadly.

Regarding relative GPAs, your major has a bit of influence as well.

I heard from some adcoms that they assign a "difficulty" factor to rate undergraduate schools on levels of grade inflation/difficulty, with certain ones having a higher difficulty level. My vague recollection is that Cal, MIT, Caltech, Mudd, Hopkins, and U Penn were in the highest category of difficulty, with UCLA, Stanford, Cornell, and others being in the second highest. Harvard was not in highest two categories. I don't know how much difference the factor makes in considering your app though.