i'm a junior right now and hope to go to med school, although i need to raise my science gpa. Teaching is a back up plan for me just in case, but i don't know whether going to teacher's college would be a pro or con when applying to med school. Does anyone know whether med school looks down on people who take summer classes to raise their science GPA? Has anyone gone to grad school and taken science classes for med schoool reqirements over the summer?
Lily...take summer courses....take easy courses...take whatever you need to take to get that gpa up. If you have to do a postbac or get a masters then do it. Med schools only look at numbers.
wow, ucla2000, you should know better. while some schools use numbers as a cut off to send 2nds or interview invites many -do not- just look at numbers. Anything to up that gpa might help but I don't think that a masters with a 4.0 in underwater basket weaving would impress them very much do you?
yes, but at the same time, someone with high numbers but no interesting life experiences will fare much, much better in the med school application process than someone who's accomplished a lot outside the classroom but has low stats. unfortunately that's just how it is--it's still a very numbers-driven process, although i wouldn't go so far as to say that 'med schools *only* look at numbers'. however, many schools do indeed use GPA/MCATs for initial screenings and no one will ever get to see what else you may have accomplished unless you have the stats to make the first cuts. it's only later that the app really gets scrutinized. lily, having a competitive science GPA is very important, so definitely work on bringing that up. take a few years beyond college to work on that if you have to. and no one will care if you take the classes over the summer, as long as they are science courses and you do well--that's the bottom line. being a teacher definitely won't hurt you in the app process--provided that your numbers are competitive--and may even give you something interesting to talk about in interviews. good luck to you!
I agree whole heartedly with Sandflea's post. Numbers are necessary to make it past the initial screening. Only then do extras come in to play. A high gpa and a high MCAT score are like Cake...and the extras are like icing. Every once in a while it's ok to have cake without icing...but it's almost unheard of to have icing without cake.
