How to improve my chances?

[vn1983]

Hello,
I don't know if I should be posting this here or not.
About me:-
1) Graduate last year from a state university
GPA: - 3.15
Sci/Math GPA: 3.0 (with 2 repeats & grades all over the place, no trend)

2) 4 Years of research in a lab
2 publications, 1 poster, 1 conference

3) 2 Research Internships over the summer (Big Pharma)

4) Volunteer work:
6 months ER, 6 months food bank, 1 year at a local physical therapy
clinic. Currently at a local mentor program.

5) At present am working as a Medical Tech at a hospital

6) LOR: My research lab professor, 2 bosses, 1 MD (all of them should be good if not great)

I am taking the MCAT next month, and if i don't get a good score i'll take it again in Jan.
What should i do to improve my chances of getting into medical school (MD or DO)?
1. Should i take science classes at a community college and try to get good grades?
2. More community work?
Any suggestions are welcomed? Thank you so much and good luck to you all.

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[hj7korp]

Hello,
I don't know if I should be posting this here or not.
About me:-
1) Graduate last year from a state university
GPA: - 3.15
Sci/Math GPA: 3.0 (with 2 repeats & grades all over the place, no trend)

2) 4 Years of research in a lab
2 publications, 1 poster, 1 conference

3) 2 Research Internships over the summer (Big Pharma)

4) Volunteer work:
6 months ER, 6 months food bank, 1 year at a local physical therapy
clinic. Currently at a local mentor program.

5) At present am working as a Medical Tech at a hospital

6) LOR: My research lab professor, 2 bosses, 1 MD (all of them should be good if not great)

I am taking the MCAT next month, and if i don't get a good score i'll take it again in Jan.
What should i do to improve my chances of getting into medical school (MD or DO)?
1. Should i take science classes at a community college and try to get good grades?
2. More community work?
Any suggestions are welcomed? Thank you so much and good luck to you all.

I would make an appointment with the director of admissions of your state school (or one that you're interested) and talk to him/her about it. They are usually the best people to talk about how to improve an application. Looks like you have a strong interest in research. That could bring an attention and it may balance your low gpa if you have a great mcat IMO.

 

[berlog]

Much depends on how you do on the MCAT. Your GPA is low. Your research experience is excellent w/2 publications. Your clinical experience is good. Depending on how you did on your premed classes you have to decide whether retaking them would make a difference.

 

[FlowLimited]

I think your first step is definitely to improve your GPA. You'd need quite the MCAT score to balance out the grades you have, and your best bet is to do whatever you can to raise that GPA.

 

[MassTransport]

You have strong extracurriculars, but no amount of them can overcome a low GPA, and that is the weak point of your app. I wouldn't recommend you go the community college route, because as I understand it schools frown on that.

Does your school have a pre-health office? Maybe you can still talk to an advisor as an alum. Take the MCAT and see how well you do, you may still be a competitive applicant.

 

[LifetimeDoc]

Unfortunately, many people post "What are my chances?" threads before they have obtained the two most important pieces of information...

GPA
MCAT

...unfortunately, those are the screening values used by most schools to par down the thousands of applications they receive to a manageable size. Until you have taken the MCAT, you really have no idea where you might be able to apply or how you will do in the application process (at least the first-pass part).

Having said that, you seem to have a lot of experiences that would make your application unique enough to stand out to somebody reviewing your application. It looks like you are heavily into research rather than clinical medicine, so you should determine if that is your goal in medicine and apply to those schools that favor research over clinical medicine. If your goal is clinical medicine, you need more clinical exposure. Your GPA is really, really low for research-type schools. You will need to take post-baccalaureate courses to bring that GPA up to get into an USA Allopathic school; shoot for a 4.0 GPA full-time over a year or two.

Good luck!

 

[WiscDoc]

Hello,
I don't know if I should be posting this here or not.
About me:-
1) Graduate last year from a state university
GPA: - 3.15
Sci/Math GPA: 3.0 (with 2 repeats & grades all over the place, no trend)

2) 4 Years of research in a lab
2 publications, 1 poster, 1 conference

3) 2 Research Internships over the summer (Big Pharma)

4) Volunteer work:
6 months ER, 6 months food bank, 1 year at a local physical therapy
clinic. Currently at a local mentor program.

5) At present am working as a Medical Tech at a hospital

6) LOR: My research lab professor, 2 bosses, 1 MD (all of them should be good if not great)

I am taking the MCAT next month, and if i don't get a good score i'll take it again in Jan.
What should i do to improve my chances of getting into medical school (MD or DO)?
1. Should i take science classes at a community college and try to get good grades?
2. More community work?
Any suggestions are welcomed? Thank you so much and good luck to you all.

Your app looks great if it wasn't for your GPA. Somethings that might help:

1- a 35+ on the MCAT (your GPA is well below average so your MCAT should be well above it)

2- Do a postbacc and do better

3- Apply broadly including DO and carribein schools.

Good luck.

 

[NjD00]

Yes your ECs and research is fantastic, but you have entered the world where numbers count. The "rounded person" that allopathic schools say they are looking for is hogwash. Having great ECs and research will definitely get you in over another person with good numbers, but if you don't have good numbers, you are in for a tough time.

I say these are your possible scenarios:

1) If you get 35+ on the MCAT: Apply to whatever schools you want and hope for good luck.

2) If you score 27-34: Apply to a mixture of DO/MD schools even though DO is your best shot here.

3) Under 27: I don't think any allopathic program would accept you with a 3.0 GPA and sub-27 MCAT; apply DO only, or caribbean, even though I would say any American medical school is a better career move than a caribbean, which should be last option.

OR...you could do a post-bacc program and hope to get your GPA up to at least 3.3-3.4.

Good luck!

 

[inaminute]

I'd strongly suggest a boob job.

 

[vn1983]

i want to apply next year (for 2009) what post-bac degree could i go for?
thank you for the great replies...Should have studied in undergrad!!! In high school i had a 3.8 gpa could i use that?

 

[LifetimeDoc]

i want to apply next year (for 2009) what post-bac degree could i go for?
thank you for the great replies...Should have studied in undergrad!!! In high school i had a 3.8 gpa could i use that?

The degree doesn't matter, just that it be something different than you already got (and most schools won't make you finish the second one). You'll need to get a near perfect 4.0 GPA to make up for a GPA like that one. Trust me I know, I went through the same thing. And I'm still wondering how in the heck I got in!

P.S. High School means zero in this process.

 

[SketchLazy]

Hello,
I don't know if I should be posting this here or not.
About me:-
1) Graduate last year from a state university
GPA: - 3.15
Sci/Math GPA: 3.0 (with 2 repeats & grades all over the place, no trend)

2) 4 Years of research in a lab
2 publications, 1 poster, 1 conference

3) 2 Research Internships over the summer (Big Pharma)

4) Volunteer work:
6 months ER, 6 months food bank, 1 year at a local physical therapy
clinic. Currently at a local mentor program.

5) At present am working as a Medical Tech at a hospital

6) LOR: My research lab professor, 2 bosses, 1 MD (all of them should be good if not great)

I am taking the MCAT next month, and if i don't get a good score i'll take it again in Jan.
What should i do to improve my chances of getting into medical school (MD or DO)?
1. Should i take science classes at a community college and try to get good grades?
2. More community work?
Any suggestions are welcomed? Thank you so much and good luck to you all.

Your ecs look excellent but your grades might be a problem. You will have to score well on the MCAT to prove you'll be able to handle the difficulty of the curriculum. One caveat I noticed about your application is your LORs. Most allo schools will require at least two letters from science professors who taught you in your courses and will not count your LOR from your research professor. Work on getting a couple of LORs from science professors because at least one science LOR is absolutely required. Occasionally if you are a non-trad applicant who did not take a lot of science classes, they will accomodate your letters. But, they will be less accommodating though if you were a biology major. For example, UCSD requires two science and one non-science from professors who had you in a class but I only have the two science ones. I informed them of the letters I had and they said it would be alright to include a letter from somewhere else. Anyway, good luck next year when you apply.

 

[Law2Doc]

I am taking the MCAT next month, and if i don't get a good score i'll take it again in Jan.

Bad approach. You want to take this thing once, and do well. If you aren't scoring where you want to be on multiple full lengths leading up to the upcoming test, don't sit for it, and just sit in Jan. You never want to wing it on this test just to see, because schools will see every test sitting you ever have. So no, don't assume you get a practice shot. Make it a one shot one kill kind of thing.

With respect to the others who are suggesting this poster "balance out" his low GPA with an exceptionally high MCAT, it doesn't really work that way -- I would suggest that the number of people who are 3.0 science students who somehow "rock the MCAT" is exceptionally small. Odds are much better for this dude/dudette to take more courses for A's, perhaps in a postbac (a much better way to prove to med schools that you are ready to handle med school level sciences) and sit for the MCAT only when s/he is ready.