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All other stats and extracurriculars set aside, I have managed to attain a 3.72 cumulative and science GPA during my 4-year undergrad. I started off with a 3.1 for the first year for some understandable reasons, and have maintained straight A's with an 18+ credit hour workload per semester since with a challenging curriculum and many responsibilities.
Experiences aside, my 32 MCAT is in around the 10th-20th percentile for many of the research heavy stop tier schools. I also know a 3.72 is mostly below average for these schools. With the cycle coming up, I want to apply to a few of these "reach" schools (e.g., ones with a 34+ avg. MCAT and 3.8+ avg. GPA), but I wanted some solid advice here first.
I have been told by my respectable pre-health committee adviser/composite letter writer (e.g., he is very knowledgeable about this process and doesn't at all fit the notion that all advisers are misinformed) that my application is very well-rounded and that I have an outstanding candidacy for this cycle. This is why I want to know if a below-average GPA coupled with a below-average MCAT will be near-fatal, or if the upward trend will redeem me in any way at the mid/high tier schools. I do not want to apply to 5-10 reach schools unless I know I am academically competitive relative to those who are given interview invites at said institutions. I have 20 schools I am applying to where I am above, at, or very close to the academic medians for MCAT and GPA. I am going to add a few more reach schools, but that number depends on how many YOU all suggest I apply to based on your knowledge and experiences.
If you need more context to answer my question, imagine 250 volunteer hours in three different positions, 80+ hours for primary physician shadowing, MANY customer service/tech employment hours (4 year commitment), diverse long-term research experiences, will have a gap year positioning beginning next week and will accumulate 2200 clinical hours by matriculation, and definite co-authorship on at least four papers by matriculation. I do not plan on leaving this info here very long, so if you plan on quoting me, please leave this information out for my own sake of confidentiality during the application cycle 🙂
Thank you anyone who replies, you have all been extremely insightful!
Experiences aside, my 32 MCAT is in around the 10th-20th percentile for many of the research heavy stop tier schools. I also know a 3.72 is mostly below average for these schools. With the cycle coming up, I want to apply to a few of these "reach" schools (e.g., ones with a 34+ avg. MCAT and 3.8+ avg. GPA), but I wanted some solid advice here first.
I have been told by my respectable pre-health committee adviser/composite letter writer (e.g., he is very knowledgeable about this process and doesn't at all fit the notion that all advisers are misinformed) that my application is very well-rounded and that I have an outstanding candidacy for this cycle. This is why I want to know if a below-average GPA coupled with a below-average MCAT will be near-fatal, or if the upward trend will redeem me in any way at the mid/high tier schools. I do not want to apply to 5-10 reach schools unless I know I am academically competitive relative to those who are given interview invites at said institutions. I have 20 schools I am applying to where I am above, at, or very close to the academic medians for MCAT and GPA. I am going to add a few more reach schools, but that number depends on how many YOU all suggest I apply to based on your knowledge and experiences.
If you need more context to answer my question, imagine 250 volunteer hours in three different positions, 80+ hours for primary physician shadowing, MANY customer service/tech employment hours (4 year commitment), diverse long-term research experiences, will have a gap year positioning beginning next week and will accumulate 2200 clinical hours by matriculation, and definite co-authorship on at least four papers by matriculation. I do not plan on leaving this info here very long, so if you plan on quoting me, please leave this information out for my own sake of confidentiality during the application cycle 🙂
Thank you anyone who replies, you have all been extremely insightful!
