Medical How to improve chances at Medical School after a bad undergrad?

[AlteredScale]

Hi! I am about to graduate from undergrad in May with a BS in Microbiology. I had a very rough start to my college years and was only about to bring my grades during my third and fourth years (that too to a 3.5 ish). My overall GPA is 3.2 and sgpa is 3.1. I have applied to an SMP at a state DO school and I am currently also studying for my MCAT. I had a few questions:

1) Can I apply to Allopathic medical schools with a DO-SMP? I don't know if it makes any difference but I have not found an answer to it anywhere.
2) My goal is to not only get into medical school but is also to excel at it and eventually become a good physician. If I have yet to learn good study methods- is going the SMP route correct for me? Should I choose to do a post bacc instead?

1) Yes you can apply to any medical school.

2) Yes, the SMP will either make or break you (if you don't have good study habits, you will not excel with an SMP). I only suggest a post-bac if it pertains to someone who was not a science major and has not completed the majority of their prereq courses or is simple looking to retake a few failed prereq courses. SMP has a lot more going for it usually but increasing the workload to a similar degree to medical school and having letter writers that are a part of a med school committee usually.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[TheBoneDoctah]

Yes, you can apply to medical schools while in SMP.

SMP is high risk, high reward. If your study habits are still not up to par, I would be nervous going into an SMP. If you don’t do extremely well in the SMP, your medical school career is basically over. If you did a post-bac, it would be cheaper, and allow you to take medical school-like courses. If you do stellar (3.8+) in a post-bac for a year, this would put you in a much better position. If you DO end up not doing well in the post-bac, you could THEN still have the option to do the SMP.

 

[Goro]

Yes to both questions.

Read my guide to reinvention for pre-meds.