I have 3.3 and a 34 MCAT. I'm hopeful for a DO school or maybe a state MD school.
Just how much does the MCAT make up for a lower GPA??? I know it is the great equalizer, but how does it figure into who gets an interview? Is there a formula the schools use?
I've heard that some schools look at (10*GPA + MCAT) as a rough numerical combination of the two statistics. Mayo allegedly preliminarily screens out applicants with such a score below 60 - such applicants don't even get the secondary (which actually consists solely of a check, but that's neither here nor there).
For what it's worth, I have a lower GPA (I think the final AMCAS calculation was 3.23) and a higher MCAT (42), and I've gotten some interviews to very selective schools.
With a lowish GPA, a high MCAT is definitely a big help. But I think in the end no formula is going to capture what the adcom makes of you. They'll use their judgement. It'll help if the low GPA was from a prestigious and tough school. It'll help if your more recent grades are much better than your average grades.
It'll help if you have a good story to tell - yes, in the past you drank and partied too much, hadn't figured out how to study with your dyslexia, were busy nursing your ailing mother, or whatever, and your grades suffered. Now, though, things are different. You've reformed. You've seen the light, pulled yourself together, and are prepared to commit to performing very well in med school (and ideally you'll have a few semesters of better recent grades to back this up). You want to convince them that, while you may not have been a stand-out student in the past, when you get to their med school it'll be nothing but kicking ass and taking names.
A good MCAT score helps this story line, insofar as it shows that you successfully put your mind to doing well on an exam. Your 34 is good. You're smart and can do well academically. You probably could have done better than your 3.3. First you need to figure out why you didn't do better in school. Were you busy? Lazy? Drunk? Disinterested in the classes you took? Just not applying yourself? Why not? Take a long hard look at yourself. Now, figure out why it's going to be different in the future. You'll need to step up your game to do well in med school. What's different about the student you are now (or at least will be in the future) and the student you were then? What will be different in the future that will make it different than the past? You need to be able to satisfactorily answer this for yourself. Then you'll need to figure out how to satisfactorily answer it to the adcom.
Adcoms have plenty of students with better GPAs to pick from. You need to convince them that you are going to be better.
