Lol, I have exactly a 3.94 GPA (no kidding) and the cycle starting next month will be my third time applying.
I think it's a mistake to think this way. Obviously the answer is no. Certainly someone with a 3.9+ and an MCAT over 40 will have a very strong advantage...but if that same person is without a single meaningful EC and has NO exposure to medicine I would bet against it (unless perhaps they were specifically shooting for academic medicine/research). There is no guarantee in this process, and to assume otherwise will only give you a false sense of hope or despair.axp107 said:
That's definitely how I started out. I was inititally contemplating applying ED to one of my (unranked) state schools, but I ultimately decided that I wasn't willing to put all of my eggs in one basket. So I applied to 22 schools, several of which were not ranked. Once I had been accepted to a few schools, I was obviously in more of a position to be critical. But yeah, until you have some acceptance somewhere, anywhere, don't be a cocky SOB (or DOB). At the beginning, the holds and rejections were coming in so fast that I was seriously looking into applying for post docs.
Maybe. I think age and experience has a lot to do with it too. I mean, I was applying with a PhD; you don't get more research-intensive than that. And I can tell you that if what you're looking for is research opportunities, you can find them everywhere. Even state schools have some excellent PIs. They just may not have people who are doing stellar research in every field like the top research institutions do. Also, it's the PI who writes you the LOR, not the institution. So if you want to do research, worry about the PI's rep, not the school's.
