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I am making this thread to share my experience on my application cycle this year, which proved to be A LOT better than I expected. Hopefully this gives all those with low GPAs that are planning to apply for future cycles hope. It's a long post, but read it all and hopefully it will motivate you a little:
Here were my stats:
cGPA: 3.27
sGPA: 3.24
MCAT: 37Q (12PS,11VR,14BS)
Undergraduate: Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Johns Hopkins.
Personal: Non-URM hispanic (from Trinidad), 23 years old, male, Maryland resident.
ECs: Various shadowing in health care fields (anesthesiology, radiology, and physical therapy), volunteer at a medical clinic for 6 months, NCAA varsity wrestler, 2nd degree black belt in Tang Soo Do and Jiujitsu and martial arts instructor, musician/composer. Currently working as a personal trainer. NO RESEARCH WHATSOEVER.
Here were my thoughts upon entering this years cycle:
-My GPA is horrendous, as it's well below the bottom 10th percentile of almost every MD school. I did not want too, nor did I end up, applying DO or carribean.
-No research will hurt me.
-I will probably not get a couple interviews, and not accepted anywhere this cycle, leading me to pursue a post-bac to raise my grades.
Here is where I applied. Honestly, with my GPA I believed every school was a reach school, and I almost didn't apply to any top schools (for the sake of this thread I'll call the top schools any school ranked in the top 25 by USnews), but I applied very broadly anyways (I ended up applying to 25 schools initially). I did not expect any interviews or acceptances from any of the top schools, and I truly only believe UMD was my only shot (as I'm a MD resident):
Top schools: Harvard, JHU, UPenn, WU, Yale, Cornell, Columbia, Pitt, Northwestern, UVA.
Other schools: UMD, Georgetown, Howard, GW, Uniformed services, VCU, Vtech, EVMS, Temple, Drexel, Jeffereson, Penn State, UNJRW, Dartmouth, West Virginia,
AND THE RESULTS (Get ready to be very pleasantly surprised):
-25 initial applications.
-8 interview invitations.
-4 interviews I turned down, and 8 applications I withdrew pre interview. I did this all VERY early in the application cycle, in October, after getting my UVA acceptance.
-13 applications left active the whole cycle. 9 rejected me pre-interview.
-Out of the 4 interviews that I completed, I had 1 acceptance (UVA), 2 waitlists (UPenn and Dartmouth), and 1 rejection (Yale).
Now this is misleading, because although I got only one acceptance, keep in mind as soon as I got into UVA, in early October, I withdrew from 8 schools, and decided not to go to 4 of the interviews (they were Temple, Uniformed Servives, VCU, and Vtech), as UVA was DEFINITELY a top choice for me and rendered those other school obsolete. The only schools I kept active at that point were 13 schools that I would seriously consider over UVA, which were the Ivies, JHU, WU, Northwestern, Pitt, Gtown and UMD. Notice that the only schools I kept active were top schools (with the exception of Gtown, Darmouth and UMD), so if I had left the others active (and pursued the other 4 interviews), I'm 100 percent sure I would have had multiple acceptances and even more interviews.
Anyways, this cycle blew me away. I went from thinking I would get a couple interviews max with no acceptances, to getting 8 interviews, 3 of which I considered top schools, and an acceptance at a top school that I almost didn't apply to because people told me "UVA is too much of a reach". After seeing their stats (35 MCAT plus 3.8 GPA) I almost didn't apply there. Same with Penn and Yale, who had much higher stats than mine, but offered me interviews anyways.
In any case, this is just to show those with a low GPA that there is hope. I think what really pulled it through for me was my unique ECs (the sports and martial arts) and nailing the MCAT to "balance" the GPA. Being a non-URM hispanic probably helped to. DON'T LOSE HOPE! I almost didn't apply this cycle at all, and most definitely almost didn't apply to any top schools, and wow, that would have been a HUGE mistake!
I will most likely (99 percent sure) be matriculating to UVA in the fall. I prefer UPenn, so if I can get in off the waitlist I'll go there, but the outlook looks doubtful.
Here were my stats:
cGPA: 3.27
sGPA: 3.24
MCAT: 37Q (12PS,11VR,14BS)
Undergraduate: Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Johns Hopkins.
Personal: Non-URM hispanic (from Trinidad), 23 years old, male, Maryland resident.
ECs: Various shadowing in health care fields (anesthesiology, radiology, and physical therapy), volunteer at a medical clinic for 6 months, NCAA varsity wrestler, 2nd degree black belt in Tang Soo Do and Jiujitsu and martial arts instructor, musician/composer. Currently working as a personal trainer. NO RESEARCH WHATSOEVER.
Here were my thoughts upon entering this years cycle:
-My GPA is horrendous, as it's well below the bottom 10th percentile of almost every MD school. I did not want too, nor did I end up, applying DO or carribean.
-No research will hurt me.
-I will probably not get a couple interviews, and not accepted anywhere this cycle, leading me to pursue a post-bac to raise my grades.
Here is where I applied. Honestly, with my GPA I believed every school was a reach school, and I almost didn't apply to any top schools (for the sake of this thread I'll call the top schools any school ranked in the top 25 by USnews), but I applied very broadly anyways (I ended up applying to 25 schools initially). I did not expect any interviews or acceptances from any of the top schools, and I truly only believe UMD was my only shot (as I'm a MD resident):
Top schools: Harvard, JHU, UPenn, WU, Yale, Cornell, Columbia, Pitt, Northwestern, UVA.
Other schools: UMD, Georgetown, Howard, GW, Uniformed services, VCU, Vtech, EVMS, Temple, Drexel, Jeffereson, Penn State, UNJRW, Dartmouth, West Virginia,
AND THE RESULTS (Get ready to be very pleasantly surprised):
-25 initial applications.
-8 interview invitations.
-4 interviews I turned down, and 8 applications I withdrew pre interview. I did this all VERY early in the application cycle, in October, after getting my UVA acceptance.
-13 applications left active the whole cycle. 9 rejected me pre-interview.
-Out of the 4 interviews that I completed, I had 1 acceptance (UVA), 2 waitlists (UPenn and Dartmouth), and 1 rejection (Yale).
Now this is misleading, because although I got only one acceptance, keep in mind as soon as I got into UVA, in early October, I withdrew from 8 schools, and decided not to go to 4 of the interviews (they were Temple, Uniformed Servives, VCU, and Vtech), as UVA was DEFINITELY a top choice for me and rendered those other school obsolete. The only schools I kept active at that point were 13 schools that I would seriously consider over UVA, which were the Ivies, JHU, WU, Northwestern, Pitt, Gtown and UMD. Notice that the only schools I kept active were top schools (with the exception of Gtown, Darmouth and UMD), so if I had left the others active (and pursued the other 4 interviews), I'm 100 percent sure I would have had multiple acceptances and even more interviews.
Anyways, this cycle blew me away. I went from thinking I would get a couple interviews max with no acceptances, to getting 8 interviews, 3 of which I considered top schools, and an acceptance at a top school that I almost didn't apply to because people told me "UVA is too much of a reach". After seeing their stats (35 MCAT plus 3.8 GPA) I almost didn't apply there. Same with Penn and Yale, who had much higher stats than mine, but offered me interviews anyways.
In any case, this is just to show those with a low GPA that there is hope. I think what really pulled it through for me was my unique ECs (the sports and martial arts) and nailing the MCAT to "balance" the GPA. Being a non-URM hispanic probably helped to. DON'T LOSE HOPE! I almost didn't apply this cycle at all, and most definitely almost didn't apply to any top schools, and wow, that would have been a HUGE mistake!
I will most likely (99 percent sure) be matriculating to UVA in the fall. I prefer UPenn, so if I can get in off the waitlist I'll go there, but the outlook looks doubtful.
