Help me

[athletetodoc]

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I am a recent college graduate, and I am trying to get into medical school.

My undergraduate GPA is a 3.44
My undergraduate BCPM GPA is 2.97
I have a ton of undergraduate extracurriculars as I was a collegiate football player.
I have 300+ clinical hours and ~150 research hours.

I took the MCAT three times: 491 - 494 - 494. I do not understand what I am doing wrong and could use advice on how to improve my score, if it is recommended I retake the MCAT.

I have overcome a lot of hardships that are not seen in my application, such as recovering from a severe injury that took a couple years to recover. I understand I am not the best applicant, but I know I want to go to medical school, and I am willing to do anything to make it happen.

Currently, I am taking a class to get my EMT certification, working as a scribe at the local hospital, and volunteering at the local free clinic. Please help me.

 

[notsobabydoc]

I am a recent college graduate, and I am trying to get into medical school.

My undergraduate GPA is a 3.44
My undergraduate BCPM GPA is 2.97
I have a ton of undergraduate extracurriculars as I was a collegiate football player.
I have 300+ clinical hours and ~150 research hours.

I took the MCAT three times: 491 - 494 - 494. I do not understand what I am doing wrong and could use advice on how to improve my score, if it is recommended I retake the MCAT.

I have overcome a lot of hardships that are not seen in my application, such as recovering from a severe injury that took a couple years to recover. I understand I am not the best applicant, but I know I want to go to medical school, and I am willing to do anything to make it happen.

Currently, I am taking a class to get my EMT certification, working as a scribe at the local hospital, and volunteering at the local free clinic. Please help me.

I think first and foremost you need to find out why you couldn't improve on your MCAT. I think once you score above 500, you can seriously think about medical school.

 

[gopher1997]

definitely not an expert on admissions, but the one thing I notice right away is the MCAT score/sGPA. ECs can always be beefed up with some extra time (and it sounds like you have a solid plan for ECs), but schools will need to know that you can handle and academic portion of medicine. If you are set on MD, it will be an uphill battle, but DO is not far out of reach (in my non-expert opinion).

See what some ADCOMs say about your GPA, they will most likely suggest a DIY post-bacc or SMP to help prove to schools that you can handle the rigor of medicine. But as the above post says as well, you need to do better on your MCAT. See if you can sit down with someone you know who has done well, and they can help you form a plan of attack.

It sounds like you have a compelling story and that is great, but you need to prove to schools that you have the tools that are necessary to do well in medical school from an academic standpoint.

 

[gyngyn]

You will need a sustained period of academic excellence in undergraduate level sciences and a much better MCAT. The AAMC tells us to average scores but even if we don't, that string of scores would give any member qualms.

MCAT - Medical College Admissions Test

The MCAT test prep support community. Search and learn from the 1000s of students who have excelled on the MCAT.

forums.studentdoctor.net

 

[LizzyM]

IIRC, there is now a maximum number of times one can take the MCAT. @athletetodoc you are now close to that limit.

How did you prepare for the MCAT and how much time did you take between exams? How many practice tests did you take and how did you do on those tests?

Having less than a B average in your science courses and less than 500 in all three attempts at the MCAT tells me that you have deficits in your fund of knowledge of the sciences. That is essential for success in medical school and must be remediated before you retake the MCAT or go further along this path.

A special masters program is essentially a five figure bet that you can out-perform the average first year medical student and garner admission to the the first year class the following year. I do not believe that you are ready to make that bet.

Your first step may be to re-take the courses in which you earned a C or less. This won't improve your GPA as much as it would have back in the day when osteopathic med schools would "grade replace". Do some remedial work in math if that is a weak spot. Get a tutor. Joing a study group.

If science is not where you excell there are many other careers that involve helping people but that don't rely on as much knowledge of the natural sciences. You can find a place in the world for your gifts.

 

[Dr panda]

May be you want to consider another career? You are fine for any podiatry school

 

[gyngyn]

IIRC, there is now a maximum number of times one can take the MCAT. @athletetodoc you are now close to that limit.

The MCAT lifetime maximum is 7.

 

[Goro]

I am a recent college graduate, and I am trying to get into medical school.

My undergraduate GPA is a 3.44
My undergraduate BCPM GPA is 2.97
I have a ton of undergraduate extracurriculars as I was a collegiate football player.
I have 300+ clinical hours and ~150 research hours.

I took the MCAT three times: 491 - 494 - 494. I do not understand what I am doing wrong and could use advice on how to improve my score, if it is recommended I retake the MCAT.

I have overcome a lot of hardships that are not seen in my application, such as recovering from a severe injury that took a couple years to recover. I understand I am not the best applicant, but I know I want to go to medical school, and I am willing to do anything to make it happen.

Currently, I am taking a class to get my EMT certification, working as a scribe at the local hospital, and volunteering at the local free clinic. Please help me.

Do you have test taking anxiety issues? If so, those are fixable.

See the MCAT form for other help with that exam.

Read this:

• Goro's advice for pre-meds who need reinvention

 

[athletetodoc]

May be you want to consider another career? You are fine for any podiatry school

IIRC, there is now a maximum number of times one can take the MCAT. @athletetodoc you are now close to that limit.

How did you prepare for the MCAT and how much time did you take between exams? How many practice tests did you take and how did you do on those tests?

Having less than a B average in your science courses and less than 500 in all three attempts at the MCAT tells me that you have deficits in your fund of knowledge of the sciences. That is essential for success in medical school and must be remediated before you retake the MCAT or go further along this path.

A special masters program is essentially a five figure bet that you can out-perform the average first year medical student and garner admission to the the first year class the following year. I do not believe that you are ready to make that bet.

Your first step may be to re-take the courses in which you earned a C or less. This won't improve your GPA as much as it would have back in the day when osteopathic med schools would "grade replace". Do some remedial work in math if that is a weak spot. Get a tutor. Joing a study group.

If science is not where you excell there are many other careers that involve helping people but that don't rely on as much knowledge of the natural sciences. You can find a place in the world for your gifts.

I understand that I am able to take the MCAT only 7 times, and since I have taken it three times already, I am starting to get close to that limit.

I prepared for the MCAT first by taking the KAPLAN course. After that, I prepared by reading the KAPLAN testing book, making flashcards, and then testing myself by practice tests. I took about 3 practice tests before I would take the real exam. I would start by getting around 494 and by the time I would take the exam, I would score around 504.

My issue with my science GPA is that the majority of my classes had the wrong abbreviation which made it not count towards my BCPM. For instance, I took a class called Human Diseases. My athletic academic advisor enrolled me in PUBH abbreviation instead of the BIO abbreviation, so my A did not count towards my science GPA.

 

[Dr panda]

I understand that I am able to take the MCAT only 7 times, and since I have taken it three times already, I am starting to get close to that limit.

I prepared for the MCAT first by taking the KAPLAN course. After that, I prepared by reading the KAPLAN testing book, making flashcards, and then testing myself by practice tests. I took about 3 practice tests before I would take the real exam. I would start by getting around 494 and by the time I would take the exam, I would score around 504.

My issue with my science GPA is that the majority of my classes had the wrong abbreviation which made it not count towards my BCPM. For instance, I took a class called Human Diseases. My athletic academic advisor enrolled me in PUBH abbreviation instead of the BIO abbreviation, so my A did not count towards my science GPA.

Your 2.97 is definitely not because you didn’t get that A. What did you get for your prerequisite courses? What is your GPA by year?
With 3 bad MCATs there is really no major hope for you. Remember, MCAT tests you judgment as well not merely your science foundation. You can do an SMP, but given your situation this is very risky, if you are not risk taker by nature, maybe you should not do this. And even with an SMP you still have to ace the MCAT, which seems to be a problem for you. You decide.

 

[Kardio]

I don't agree with this:

DO is not far out of reach (in my non-expert opinion).

For reference:

My undergraduate BCPM GPA is 2.97

I took the MCAT three times: 491 - 494 - 494.

OP is <20th percentile sGPA and <2nd percentile MCAT for DO matriculants.

You have to consider that a large amount of the sub-20%ile crow probably did a lot of work after college (via SMP or post-bac), and I doubt many took the MCAT so many times.

OP - anything is possible. You can become a physician if you want to, but I believe you are several years of remediation away from being competitive at any domestic medical school.

 

[athletetodoc]

Your 2.97 is definitely not because you didn’t get that A. What did you get for your prerequisite courses? What is your GPA by year?
With 3 bad MCATs there is really no major hope for you. Remember, MCAT tests you judgment as well not merely your science foundation. You can do an SMP, but given your situation this is very risky, if you are not risk taker by nature, maybe you should not do this. And even with an SMP you still have to ace the MCAT, which seems to be a problem for you. You decide.

I did not mean it that my science GPA would be a lot of better, I was just mentioning it because it slightly impacted my BCPM. At the end of the day, I should of done better in my other classes that did count towards my GPA.

Thank you for your advice.

 

[candbgirl]

So what are you doing now that you have graduated?
What were your grades in your prereqs? Have you taken upper level science courses? How did you do in the upper level courses?
You are currently uncompetitive for any med school. Your best bet would be DO schools after you get your sGPA up to at least a 3.2. This will take awhile. You need to somehow string together several semesters(3-4) of full time course work in upper division science courses. You must get at least 3.7 in your post bacc GPA. Then there is the MCAT. AMCAS rec. that schools average multiple scores. Some do and some don’t. And we don’t know what a particular school does. But all of your scores are seen by the reviewers of your file. You are a long way from applying. Perhaps you should go visit the learning resource center at your former school and see if they can help you learn to study more effectively. They might also be able to help you find out why you are such a bad test taker.
But understand that nothing is guaranteed and there are thousands of better applicants rejected each cycle.

 

[DNAJB6]