feeling incredibly despondent

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bc2a3

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Hi everyone, this is my first time on sdn, and, to be honest, I'm feeling desperately hopeless right now. I'm nowhere near as confident as I want to be. I took the mcats 3 times already 19 (V:4, P:7, B:8) 26 (V:8, P:9, B:9) and 28 (V:8, P:11, B:9). I graduated last year with a math degree and a minor in biology with a 3.42 gpa and a 3.26 bcpm. I've been volunteering in a hospital for over 2 years now and am currently volunteering in a biochemistry lab doing research in lung cancer diagnosis. I've participated in a few clubs in college and worked at my mother's business. It was rough and plagued with family problems as well. I've since been working (non-medically related job) to pay off some loans and was hoping to apply this upcoming cycle. I live in Illinois so I want to apply to pretty much all the schools here but, again, desperately hopeless. What do you think?

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Hi everyone, this is my first time on sdn, and, to be honest, I'm feeling desperately hopeless right now. I'm nowhere near as confident as I want to be. I took the mcats 3 times already 19 (V:4, P:7, B:8) 26 (V:8, P:9, B:9) and 28 (V:8, P:11, B:9). I graduated last year with a math degree and a minor in biology with a 3.42 gpa and a 3.26 bcpm. I've been volunteering in a hospital for over 2 years now and am currently volunteering in a biochemistry lab doing research in lung cancer diagnosis. I've participated in a few clubs in college and worked at my mother's business. It was rough and plagued with family problems as well. I've since been working (non-medically related job) to pay off some loans and was hoping to apply this upcoming cycle. I live in Illinois so I want to apply to pretty much all the schools here but, again, desperately hopeless. What do you think?

Another Illinois resident here, I applied this past year with similar stats (3.38 cGPA, 3.19 sGPA, 32 MCAT) and did not have any luck. Definitely look into DO schools, also depending on where you are located you may have a better shot at SIU than I did. If you are dead set on applying this year, get your application in as early as possible and hope for the best, but be prepared to reapply and spend the year working to improve your application.

GPA is a little low, would/could you take some extra science courses to bring up your sGPA?

Your ECs seem good, but there might be some holes. Did you have any leadership positions in the clubs during college? Any non-medical volunteering?

Someone else will probably chime in with more, but I made similar threads in the past which might be helpful.

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=883445
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=836289

Good Luck!
 
Thank you for your reply. I am going to try to apply this cycle and to DO schools as well. I know that my GPA is low, but I was hoping that schools would show very slight leniency since I had quite a difficult major. If I don't get accepted I was planning on trying for an SMP. As for leadership positions, for one of the clubs, it was a volunteering organizations and I was assigned to help educate any new volunteers who joined. I also had a similar job at the hospital where I volunteered but it wasn't anything official. On that note, I was also an unofficial calculus tutor for many of my friends and some of their friends. Again, I don't know if that counts as an extracurricular or I was just helping friends out.
 
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focus more of your money on DO schools. unfortunately, med schools will not be impressed because of your major. They are going to focus on the gpa. your chances are very slim for MD schools but you look like you are definitely within acceptance range for DO. If I were you I would apply to as many DO schools as you can afford (that are realistic for you) and apply MD with what you have left over.
 
Thank you for your reply. I am going to try to apply this cycle and to DO schools as well. I know that my GPA is low, but I was hoping that schools would show very slight leniency since I had quite a difficult major. If I don't get accepted I was planning on trying for an SMP. As for leadership positions, for one of the clubs, it was a volunteering organizations and I was assigned to help educate any new volunteers who joined. I also had a similar job at the hospital where I volunteered but it wasn't anything official. On that note, I was also an unofficial calculus tutor for many of my friends and some of their friends. Again, I don't know if that counts as an extracurricular or I was just helping friends out.

I was a bioengineering major and thought the exact same thing, turns out schools don't really weigh major difficulty that strongly. How many credits went into calculating your sGPA? If the number is low enough that another year of upper level sciences would bring your sGPA above a 3.5 or so, consider just taking more undergrad classes. Similar result as an SMP but at a fraction of the cost.
 
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