DIY-Post bacc or SMP

[Zach123!]

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Hello everyone,

So I am beginning my senior year come fall and need some advice on my plans post-undergrad. I'm a health sciences major at UCF, so I've done all the medical school pre-reqs, but I haven't done well in most of them. My gpa is a flat 3.1. I'm not a bad student, I just had some very serious health problems (including a heart attack at 20 years old..). I am pretty confident I will do well on the MCAT, and am hoping for a 515. My dream is to live in Texas, my dad's whole family lives there and I've been to every corner of that state and love it all, including Children's Medical Center at UT Southwestern. To boost my application in order to increase my chances of getting into a Texas med school.. would it be smarter to enroll in an SMP program at a Texas university or take some of the pre-req undergrad classes (like O-chem) at a Texas university? Would I even be allowed to enroll in organic chem and physics, among some others, at a Texas university if I've already completed them at UCF? I just want a chance to prove to med schools that I can handle the curriculum, while also being able to do it at a Texas university and live the dream. Any advice helps

 

[JSReed]

I'm not a texan, so no clue on the intricacies there. But below is an ordinal list of the thoughts that popped in to my head while reading:

1. Health should be your number 1 priority. You only get one heart, so treat it as well as you can. I'm assuming you've got this reasonably under control.
2. Don't take the MCAT now. Again, I don't know Texas. But outside of Texas, taking it now would be useless as it would take you 2-3 years to repair that 3.1, by which your mcat would have expired (been there, it effing sucks). Glad you think you can drop a 515 (not sure what' that's based on), but channel that towards taking classes (continued below).
3. You have a flat 3.1 (assuming by flat, you mean that there is no upward/downward trend). That tells me that over time, you're not refining your study strategies. Med schools aren't impressed by a 3.1, so you need to take active steps to fix that. You need to be going over every exam (seriously, go do this with your last exam) and figuring out what you got wrong, why you got it wrong, why you didn't get it right (yes, thats a different thing), and how you're going to change your study strategies to get it right next time. Having spoke to adcoms, I'm told you need at least 3 years at a 3.5 to be considered "not an academic liability"-- get cracking.
4. Again, not a texan...but isn't Texas super averse to non-texans?? Like so averse that they have their own app system?? I know you have tons of links to texas, but I think most of what they care about is where you paid taxes last year. So make sure you actually qualify as a legal texan before you set your heart on it.