GPA Enhancement Advice

[bne1218]

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I'll try to keep this short, but I am in desperate need of advising and feel as though I have already ruined my chance.

I graduated with my BS in biology in 2023, I did poorly with a 2.8-2.9 overall GPA... I had no idea about grade forgiveness until now. I repeated two courses during undergrad thinking it would automatically replace my first grade but now they're both on my transcript. I have been working as an OTJ trained emergency/ICU vet tech for the past almost 6 years but I don't have any large animal, research, or exotic experience.

Where should I go from here? Do I repeat old classes knowing it won't replace my first grade? Should I take extra random science courses to boost my GPA? Should I complete a non-thesis masters? I've seen some online programs that are designed to be stepping stones to vet school. The masters route seems to be the most appealing to me but I would like to know what would enhance my academic background the most. How do I go about gaining more experience? I already work 40-60hrs a week and with going back to school, how do you guys find time to volunteer or do internships?

Any advice is greatly appreciated. The university I attended does not offer pre-health advising to alumni and we also don't have a pre-vet track anyway. Ive looked into the third part pre-vet advising programs but those seem to cost hundreds to thousands of dollars which is unrealistic for me to spend on just advising.

 

[pp9]

I'll try to keep this short, but I am in desperate need of advising and feel as though I have already ruined my chance.

I graduated with my BS in biology in 2023, I did poorly with a 2.8-2.9 overall GPA... I had no idea about grade forgiveness until now. I repeated two courses during undergrad thinking it would automatically replace my first grade but now they're both on my transcript. I have been working as an OTJ trained emergency/ICU vet tech for the past almost 6 years but I don't have any large animal, research, or exotic experience.

Where should I go from here? Do I repeat old classes knowing it won't replace my first grade? Should I take extra random science courses to boost my GPA? Should I complete a non-thesis masters? I've seen some online programs that are designed to be stepping stones to vet school. The masters route seems to be the most appealing to me but I would like to know what would enhance my academic background the most. How do I go about gaining more experience? I already work 40-60hrs a week and with going back to school, how do you guys find time to volunteer or do internships?

Any advice is greatly appreciated. The university I attended does not offer pre-health advising to alumni and we also don't have a pre-vet track anyway. Ive looked into the third part pre-vet advising programs but those seem to cost hundreds to thousands of dollars which is unrealistic for me to spend on just advising.

certain vet schools will take the most recent course attempt regardless of how your transcripts are written/undergrad gpas are calculated, you just have to study up on the schools to know which. Most seem to average attempts but there are a few that don’t. This is where you’d have to hand-calculate what your gpas would be for each school, as each school approaches repeated courses differently, each school has different prereqs, etc.

At least one school off the top of my head allows you to petition to delete an entire years’ worth of courses so that might be helpful for you, you’d just need to repeat any prereqs that got deleted in that year. As a side note, you should be mindful of any schools that have a 6 year expiration in place for prereqs given your timeline because you’d have to repeat those at well. Other schools have a 10 year expiration, and others don’t specify on their websites and might need to be contacted to verify.

repeating just two courses would not be enough to bring up that cgpa, even if you aced them and applied to grade-replacing schools only, so you should continue to either repeat prereqs or take additional courses. IMO repeating prereqs is the most bang for your buck because it would help all three gpas (cumulative, science/prereq, and last 45) especially at grade replacing schools. If you do really well in your repeated courses, my next suggestion is to only apply to schools that look at science/prereq and your last 45. Boosting a low cgpa after four years’ worth of credits can be challenging and expensive depending on which/how many classes you did poorly in, but a in 3-4 aced repeated prereqs might get you in the mid 3.0 range for your prereq/science gpa and a 4.0 for your last 45.

I’ll be brief here because tbh I’m burned out on the masters discussion…but only do a masters if you think it would be important for any backup career you’d be interested in. A masters is NOT a veterinary admissions hack and many people spend money on it and end up disappointed. At best, it will be a very expensive way to barely boost your cgpa, and maybe help your last 45 and science if you do well. Some schools barely consider a masters, some don’t look at it at all. Far better to repeat and ace prereqs imo because that will help you at all schools and might be cheaper/faster. We have discussed the masters thing in great depth on SDN so poke around for those threads.

As for experience, I personally would worry about that less since it sounds like you’re coming with potentially a ton of in depth hours already. Your academics will keep you out of the running first and foremost. Focus on upping those gpas. If you happen to get some large animal or other experience along the way, that’s a bonus for sure.

And yeah…don’t pay for an advisor. They don’t have any magic answers for you.

 

[biomajor2024]

As someone who chose to pursue a master's I agree with everything @pp9 said. Has it boosted my GPAs, yes, but I also retook several courses and I think that is the primary reason those GPAs have improved. I chose a master's because I had no nutrition or welfare classes in undergrad and wanted to improve my knowledge in those areas. I was also fortunate enough to be able to pay out of pocket with some family help so I'm not taking on any debt from it, and it will help with potential backup careers. I am also getting additional large animal and research experience from it. All of that being said, I would HIGHLY caution against a master's if your only reason is a slight GPA bump. This is especially true if you would have to take out loans for it with the OBBB. Take this with a grain of salt as I haven't gotten into vet school yet, but as a fellow low-GPA applicant I wish you the best of luck and if you have any more questions about things I did, my DMs are open!