Harvard/Yale/Juilliard post-bacc consideration

[wedger0105]

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Hi all:

Here are my facts:
1. I graduated from Harvard College with B.A. in Economics (2002-2006)
2. My combined GPA for major and overall is about 3.4 (not stellar at all)
3. I haven't taken any of the science requirements for MCATs
4. I have another activity that took up about 90% of my time while I was at Harvard (concert pianist, competing in competitions, playing concerts, traveling, etc.)
5. I've also attended Juilliard in the past for a year (before leaving for Harvard), and my GPA that year was 3.9-4.0 (straight As) (2001-2002)
6. I'm currently now at the Yale School of Music with GPA around 3.89 (2006-Present) taking classes from foreign languages and musicology to financial theory (which I got an A- in).

I was wondering: If I were to begin a post-bacc program at a university, and if I were to pretty much ace all of my requirements (A- and up in Bio, Phys, Chem, Math, Writing, etc.), and come time to apply for med schools:


A. how would the med schools treat my undergraduate GPA and/or post-bacc GPA? (i.e. would they group these two together to find an overall GPA, or look at each separately?) <--- (this is the most important question)
B. what are my chances with such a poor GPA in getting into a decent med school in the US?

Any feedback, suggestion, opinion is very welcome. Thank you all for your help in advance.

 

[flip26]

Your Juilliard GPA definitely factors into any AMCAS GPA, so that will help you boost GPA a smidge.

Yale School of Music - you are in grad school? That will not help - won't hurt, either, but it won't help.

Any post bacc you do will also apply towards your UG GPA.

 

[quiltlady]

All US allo med schools are decent. There are places other than Yale and Harvard which produce doctors. There are even states other than Connecticut and Massachusetts.

 

[DrMidlife]

SDN rule #1: just ignore rude people, shake it off, don't respond.

A. how would the med schools treat my undergraduate GPA and/or post-bacc GPA? (i.e. would they group these two together to find an overall GPA, or look at each separately?) <--- (this is the most important question)

All your undergrad work goes in a bucket, and gets averaged into your cumulative overall and science GPAs. They then delineate fresh/soph/jr/sr/postbac/grad years and do averages for those. You're expected to list every class you ever took and put it in a category. Then AMCAS (or AACOMAS or TMDSAS) spends weeks going line-by-line through your transcripts, verifying your claims.

Your cumulative numbers are very important, because with 5000+ apps per school they have to auto-screen. But an "upward trend" where you improve over time is a very good thing.

B. what are my chances with such a poor GPA in getting into a decent med school in the US?

Dude, you want a poor GPA you gotta work less hard. There are plenty of us here with 3.0 or lower trying to scrape by.

You have at least a 3.4 and more likely a 3.6 by the time you finish prereqs. With a 30+ MCAT score that's plenty. With a 35+ MCAT score you can probably get into any school you want.

Make sure to complete your package with stellar letters of recommendation, interesting and long-lasting volunteer experiences in clinical settings and elsewhere, and ideally, research.

Best of luck to you.

 

[student1799]

I would just offer this advice, based on my own experience: DON'T do your postbacc classes at an Ivy League school. Not that there's anything wrong with it per se, but you're likely to find that the courses are tougher and grading more stringent than they might be elsewhere. Med school admissions is all about grades, and there seems to be remarkably little (if any) adjustment made to account for the rigor of the institution, so you want to go where you can get the highest possible GPA.

I went to an Ivy league postbacc program (on top of Ivy undergrad), and I'm regretting it now. I worked my *ss off in postbacc (studying up to 90 hours a week) and ended up with a 3.6, which is seen as quite good in the progam I attended. But if I'd gone with the public school across town, I probably could have gotten a 4.0, and I really wish I'd done that instead.

 

[LoveSupreme]

I would just offer this advice, based on my own experience: DON'T do your postbacc classes at an Ivy League school. Not that there's anything wrong with it per se, but you're likely to find that the courses are tougher and grading more stringent than they might be elsewhere. Med school admissions is all about grades, and there seems to be remarkably little (if any) adjustment made to account for the rigor of the institution, so you want to go where you can get the highest possible GPA.

I went to an Ivy league postbacc program (on top of Ivy undergrad), and I'm regretting it now. I worked my *ss off in postbacc (studying up to 90 hours a week) and ended up with a 3.6, which is seen as quite good in the progam I attended. But if I'd gone with the public school across town, I probably could have gotten a 4.0, and I really wish I'd done that instead.

You didn't happen to attend Harvard Extension's HCP? Because I am about to enroll and am definitely in a situation where a 4.0 post-bacc is almost essential. Have you had any success in applying to med school?

 

[Orthodoc40]

You didn't happen to attend Harvard Extension's HCP? Because I am about to enroll and am definitely in a situation where a 4.0 post-bacc is almost essential. Have you had any success in applying to med school?

HES is not considered an ivy league school because it isn't technically Harvard U. But anyway, it isn't that hard to get great grades in the HES program if you put the time & effort into it, (which is true anywhere), so don't worry too much about that.

To the OP, where you are going to have more trouble in your application is proving that you know what you are getting into in medicine, and that means you need to spend time getting experiences by volunteering and getting work in some kind of patient care setting, maybe even research (preferably clinical research). Having a strong and successful background in any area shows that you have had a lot of dedication to (in your case) music as your career. How can you convince yourself first, and an admissions committee second, that you're really interested in a totally new path in life?