Community College F's

[tgd11]

Hello all,

Longtime lurker, brand new to this forum. Glad to join the community.

Anyway, I searched around for this topic, but would be curious to hear some of your inputs to my specific case. Thanks in advance for any feedback.

I was a languages major who, at the time, had no plans of attending med school. I took some degree requirements at a community college over the summers. Ended up with a ~3.09 GPA from my university, and a horrible record at the community college (I have an F and a D--online courses I should've just dropped--very low GPA there).

Now I am nearly finished with my post-bac certificate at another university in the same city. I will take Ochem I&II, biochem and calculus over the next two semesters, so this is subject to change, but I have a 4.0GPA in the postbac coursework.

SO, my real question: assuming I do well on the MCAT (goal is 90th percentile or higher) do I have any chance at an MD school? My cumulative GPA, including the community college, will be 3.3 or so at best. Even if I have a 4.0 in post-bac, will I be screened out instantly? My dream schools are OSU and Cincy, and I would be thrilled to get into any of the other Ohio MD programs as well.

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[bears1992]

You'll probably need to post some more information for anyone to give advice.

What is your GPA for freshman, sophomore, junior and senior year?
How many clinical experience hours do you have?
How many volunteer hours do you have?
Are you a URM?
Are you considered disadvantaged?
What is your BCPM GPA?
What is your state of residency?
How many credit hours will your postbac be once finished?

 

[tgd11]

You'll probably need to post some more information for anyone to give advice.

What is your GPA for freshman, sophomore, junior and senior year?
How many clinical experience hours do you have?
How many volunteer hours do you have?
Are you a URM?
Are you considered disadvantaged?
What is your BCPM GPA?
What is your state of residency?
How many credit hours will your postbac be once finished?

Thank you for your response.

My GPA for my languages degree was pretty much flat around 3.1 all the way through.

I just got hired as a scribe, so hoping that will give me a lot of shadowing hours in the next year. Looking into volunteering once a week in the next year as well, as I am lacking there.

Not URM and don't think I could be called disadvantaged. Unfortunately the D was in geology, the F in astronomy at the community college. Two lib arts bio courses there with Bs, and a mycology course at my university for my language degree with an A round out my science coursework prior to postbac.

However, my postbac program is 60 credit hours of nearly all science, and I am an ohio resident. I will certainly apply to OU's DO program, and that would be great for me as well if I could get in. Still hoping for OSU or cincy though. Just worried I am merely dreaming.

 

[bears1992]

A 3.1 GPA with 60 credits of 4.0 postbac would make you competitive for almost all DO, assuming you can get a 500+ MCAT. You are probably going to be hit or miss with MD. I imagine your GPA would be ok for schools that place heavy emphasis on recent course work. Your two problems are going to be:

1) Finding out which schools will put more weight on your postbac rather than your overall GPA. Schools don't exactly release their admission methods so you'll just have to use the MSAR to craft a list of possible schools based on bottom 10th percentile GPA. I would look for schools that have a big gap between 10th percentile GPA and average GPA WITHOUT a large URM bias. You're going to have to cast a wide net to find those schools.

2) Getting past the screens. A 3.1 is going to get your app auto rejected at many MD schools.

With an above average MCAT and a 4.0 postbac with 60 credits, you'll at least get into DO and maybe MD with a high enough MCAT and a well crafted school list.

 

[tgd11]

A 3.1 GPA with 60 credits of 4.0 postbac would make you competitive for almost all DO, assuming you can get a 500+ MCAT. You are probably going to be hit or miss with MD. I imagine your GPA would be ok for schools that place heavy emphasis on recent course work. Your two problems are going to be:

1) Finding out which schools will put more weight on your postbac rather than your overall GPA. Schools don't exactly release their admission methods so you'll just have to use the MSAR to craft a list of possible schools based on bottom 10th percentile GPA. I would look for schools that have a big gap between 10th percentile GPA and average GPA WITHOUT a large URM bias. You're going to have to cast a wide net to find those schools.

2) Getting past the screens. A 3.1 is going to get your app auto rejected at many MD schools.

With an above average MCAT and a 4.0 postbac with 60 credits, you'll at least get into DO and maybe MD with a high enough MCAT and a well crafted school list.

I see. It would seem the likes of Ohio state are pretty far out of reach for me then. Trying to be realistic, so it's good to know these things now.

I will be purchasing MSAR access shortly. Thanks for suggesting it, I think it will be vital in my case.

Is retaking the community college courses a viable option? Or would it be wasted effort..

 

[bears1992]

You will need to retake any medical school prereqs that you got less than a C in. The adcoms on this site mostly agree that retaking a C or better should not be considered and instead, take a new bio course.

 

[futureoncdoc06]

Random but should I retake a C in intro psych? @bears1992

 

[bears1992]

No. If you want to take more classes to boost your GPA, take upper level bio courses. Retakeing a C and getting an A is going to raise your GPA the same as if your took a new class and got an A. Medical schools take ALL grades into account. If you took calc II 6 times, they count all 6 times.

 

[Goro]

Hello all,

Longtime lurker, brand new to this forum. Glad to join the community.

Anyway, I searched around for this topic, but would be curious to hear some of your inputs to my specific case. Thanks in advance for any feedback.

I was a languages major who, at the time, had no plans of attending med school. I took some degree requirements at a community college over the summers. Ended up with a ~3.09 GPA from my university, and a horrible record at the community college (I have an F and a D--online courses I should've just dropped--very low GPA there).

Now I am nearly finished with my post-bac certificate at another university in the same city. I will take Ochem I&II, biochem and calculus over the next two semesters, so this is subject to change, but I have a 4.0GPA in the postbac coursework.

SO, my real question: assuming I do well on the MCAT (goal is 90th percentile or higher) do I have any chance at an MD school? My cumulative GPA, including the community college, will be 3.3 or so at best. Even if I have a 4.0 in post-bac, will I be screened out instantly? My dream schools are OSU and Cincy, and I would be thrilled to get into any of the other Ohio MD programs as well.

YES!!! The bolded is what counts now. You will need to have DO schools on your list as well. But there are MD schools that reward reinvention...your state schools will be your best bets.

 

[tgd11]

YES!!! The bolded is what counts now. You will need to have DO schools on your list as well. But there are MD schools that reward reinvention...your state schools will be your best bets.

Thats reassuring. Thanks. Hoping to meet with someone at the med school of the university where I am doing my post-bac to get a better sense of their processes. I am confident I can do well on the MCAT and interview well, but we will see. My main concern is just being boxed out from the get-go, without a chance for anyone to even see that there is a radical shift from my community college days to post bac.