(Canadian) Low GPA, decent projected MCAT, wondering what to do

[shouldatriedharder123]

Hi everyone.

I'm starting to lose faith in my application (would be for 2020 cycle) and am wondering if someone can point me into the right direction. Really worried about my GPA especially which was never stellar. I never really thought about medicine until recently so this likely affected my scores as well. Here is my application (note our school does GPA calculation on a 10 point scale. This rounds differently on the OMSAS scale but I couldn't find an exact converter):

GPA (broken down by year and semester 1/ semester 2):

7.7/5.4

7.4/7.4

4.2/ 5.8 (this year is the real killer here, long story short something happened at home and school was not my top priority during this time)

4th year TBD starting fall. cGPA comes to 6.2 right now, and if I really try hard next year I could bring it to 7.0 (as unrealistic as it sounds, I know I'm capable of living in the library)

MCAT (projected as per last FL from AAMC, testing in August): 515 but I can boost this since I have time

EC: 700 hours Pharmacy assistant, 80 hours hospital volunteer, can get a volunteer position helping a local charity since I know the committee personally. Probably need more research and clinical experience here I'm guessing

Plan was originally to go ahead and stay for a 5th year of undergraduate studies since GPA is king in Canada. I know mine is terrible so I would not get in (ON resident, making things even worse) and one class really brought me down this last semester (third year in general just did not go well and the rest weren't exceptional). Masters is an option but I'm not sure how well it would work here in Canada. I've found mixed results for it online.

An important thing to note is that I am able to afford admission into international schools thankfully. I have been looking into the Atlantic Bridge program over in Ireland, and the US as well (however given the recent MSAR, not looking too good). DO is something I do not mind either. I just want to get into somewhere basically. Can anyone help me or guide me into what I should do? Or is it too late (very likely)?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[seren1051]

Those GPA sounds stunningly odd. Can you translate them into AMCAS GPA? If your courses give your letter grade, you can probably use this:

I've improved the AMCAS/AACOMAS GPA Calculator Spreadsheet

Pushing GPA aside, your MCAT is decent for Canadians. You'll probably have to beef up EC considerably, including both clinical volunteering and nonclinical volunteering. Assuming you can bring your GPA up via 5th year (or US post-bacc/2nd Bachelor), you might have a shot at USDO.

 

[shouldatriedharder123]

Those GPA sounds stunningly odd. Can you translate them into AMCAS GPA? If your courses give your letter grade, you can probably use this:

I've improved the AMCAS/AACOMAS GPA Calculator Spreadsheet

Pushing GPA aside, your MCAT is decent for Canadians. You'll probably have to beef up EC considerably, including both clinical volunteering and nonclinical volunteering. Assuming you can bring your GPA up via 5th year (or US post-bacc/2nd Bachelor), you might have a shot at USDO.

Thank you for this. I used the letter grades my school gives out (A+ = 10, A = 9, A- = 8, B+ = 7, B = 6, C+ = 5 etc.) and tried converting using the calculator (I think I might have made an error but the output for cGPA translated on the 4.0 scale was 3.25).

In terms of a 5th year, would it be better to do a post-bacc in the US? And can I assume that MD is out of the question at this point (at least in terms of canadian applications)?

 

[seren1051]

Thank you for this. I used the letter grades my school gives out (A+ = 10, A = 9, A- = 8, B+ = 7, B = 6, C+ = 5 etc.) and tried converting using the calculator (I think I might have made an error but the output for cGPA translated on the 4.0 scale was 3.25).

In terms of a 5th year, would it be better to do a post-bacc in the US? And can I assume that MD is out of the question at this point (at least in terms of canadian applications)?

MD's going to be difficult, and with that GPA, post-bacc might not bring it up enough - unless you had only few science classes to begin with, and especially with our Canadian status. You can try looking into SMP to show to med schools that you are capable of hard academic load, though then you'll have to really, really excel in these. I don't think coming down to US solely for the post-bacc is worth it.