Hey,
I'm an incoming 4th year UC Berkeley student applying to MD/PhDs right now (my primary has been ready for review since 7/18). I have a 36 MCAT (12 physical, 11 verbal, 13 bio) worked in one research lab for one year and the other i'm currently at for a year and a half will be 2 years in january (will submit 2nd author paper possibly nature or cell within 3 months and got awarded two undergraduate research fellowships for summer, 2 poster presentations and one oral talk at graduate student and undergrad symposiums). Unique extracurriculars (theater minor acted in a lot of shows, president of large student org w/ 14k budget,) and have shadowed an md phd pediatric oncologist for the past 8 months. What I'm worried about is my GPA - I have a 3.603 right now - my lower div science prereqs are all complete and I have a 3.56 in those.
I'm really worried about my GPA - it's kind of low for MD/PhD. I feel like I have amazing rec letters and pretty solid to good everything else, but I'm worried my gpa will get me screened out of a lot of schools for interview.
Im applying to the following schools:
albert einstein,boston u, columbia, ucla, drexel, georgetown, harvard, thomas jefferson, usc, mt sinai, nyu, northwestern, ohsu, upenn, rosalind franklin, stanford, suny downstate, temple, tufts, ucsd, ucsf, uchicago, u of illinois at chicago, u michigan, u of washington, wustl, cornell, yale
I know my list is a bit top heavy - but a lot of the low tier schools are in areas I'm just not willing to live for 8 years
I'm wondering if I should look into applying to a post bacc program if I don't get in this application cycle, but do they even accept people with my kind of gpa and would this look good or like a waste of time to mstps? I'm pretty sure I could get much better grades in the prereqs (to be honest I was lazy in some of them early on and now am kicking myself for it). or would it just be better o do research for a couple years and then reapply? (though I feel like my research experience is pretty solid so not sure how much benefit that would be). I also could try and get higher on the mcat - I studied an hour a day for a month before hand and feel like I could get a better score if I studied harder - but seems kind of silly and not sure how much it would help either plus it's really risky. I'm just really looking for how people think my gpa will affect things and what would be the best path to take if I don't get in this cycle.
I'm an incoming 4th year UC Berkeley student applying to MD/PhDs right now (my primary has been ready for review since 7/18). I have a 36 MCAT (12 physical, 11 verbal, 13 bio) worked in one research lab for one year and the other i'm currently at for a year and a half will be 2 years in january (will submit 2nd author paper possibly nature or cell within 3 months and got awarded two undergraduate research fellowships for summer, 2 poster presentations and one oral talk at graduate student and undergrad symposiums). Unique extracurriculars (theater minor acted in a lot of shows, president of large student org w/ 14k budget,) and have shadowed an md phd pediatric oncologist for the past 8 months. What I'm worried about is my GPA - I have a 3.603 right now - my lower div science prereqs are all complete and I have a 3.56 in those.
I'm really worried about my GPA - it's kind of low for MD/PhD. I feel like I have amazing rec letters and pretty solid to good everything else, but I'm worried my gpa will get me screened out of a lot of schools for interview.
Im applying to the following schools:
albert einstein,boston u, columbia, ucla, drexel, georgetown, harvard, thomas jefferson, usc, mt sinai, nyu, northwestern, ohsu, upenn, rosalind franklin, stanford, suny downstate, temple, tufts, ucsd, ucsf, uchicago, u of illinois at chicago, u michigan, u of washington, wustl, cornell, yale
I know my list is a bit top heavy - but a lot of the low tier schools are in areas I'm just not willing to live for 8 years
I'm wondering if I should look into applying to a post bacc program if I don't get in this application cycle, but do they even accept people with my kind of gpa and would this look good or like a waste of time to mstps? I'm pretty sure I could get much better grades in the prereqs (to be honest I was lazy in some of them early on and now am kicking myself for it). or would it just be better o do research for a couple years and then reapply? (though I feel like my research experience is pretty solid so not sure how much benefit that would be). I also could try and get higher on the mcat - I studied an hour a day for a month before hand and feel like I could get a better score if I studied harder - but seems kind of silly and not sure how much it would help either plus it's really risky. I'm just really looking for how people think my gpa will affect things and what would be the best path to take if I don't get in this cycle.
