Hope for someone with <3.0?

[Spartan_2017_]

Hey guys,

So I'm finishing up my senior year of undergrad and I will graduate with between a 2.8 and a 3.0 in genetics. My junior year I ended up messing around coupled with some family problems that just brought me to an all time low of failing multiple classes and failing the retakes just due to lack of motivation and happiness, however I want to do all that I can do bring myself back up.

I am still considering med school (DO), and have been looking into several post-bacc problems to retake some classes and strengthen my GPA.

I wanted to hear some thoughts about getting an MPH instead? There are a lot of areas I am interested in public health wise and have always performed well in and had a great interest in the PH and epidemiology classes I've taken before.

If I wanted to apply, would it be beneficial to retake Orgo 1/2 at a CC after graduation? Not that this would directly help in a career in public health but these grades are incredibly low after multiple retakes (junior year) and I would like to show that I am able to achieve good grades in these courses and that it does not reflect upon my academic abilities.

I volunteer with the pathologists at the hospital in my college town and have worked as an office aide at the university's Environmental Science/Policy phD program (this integrates environmental studies, public health, economics, and engineering) for 2 years now and helped plan and run research events throughout the year.

Any help or thoughts on programs to look into would be much appreciated!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[texanrani]

So I applied to some MPH programs while currently in my last semester of undergrad (my SOPHAS calculated GPA was 3.05 but I know my graduating GPA will be much lower due to Orgo this semester). I did get acceptances (granted I was looking for spring admission, which may be less competitive than fall admissions? idk) to MPH programs - I think if you write a short paragraph or so in your personal statement about the external issues and circumstances which occurred and impacted your junior year performance it would help. You seem to have some decent volunteer and office aid work experience (I had almost zero applicable work experience upon applying), which I think will really help balance out your GPA in your applications, but until you take the GRE and get your score I think it's very hard to determine how competitive of a MPH candidate you are.

IF medical school is actually your ultimate goal - I might recommend a postbacc type of program to really strengthen your GPA, unless public health medicine (like a DO/MPH) is something you're really interested in. Many of the dual degree MPH/medicine programs that I've researched seem to recommend applying to the med school first (and getting admission) before applying to the public health program. I don't think retaking Orgo 1/2 after graduating to get into an MPH program is necessarily worth the trouble; but Orgo's a major pre-req for med school programs typically.

(Also: there are MPH programs in Epidemiology and there are also MS programs in Epidemiology - the latter is more deep research oriented I think? but something to consider.)