How to improve my chances

[TheWeeIceMan]

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Well, I've been browsing this site for awhile now and have realized I'm not in good shape. For one, I am a junior and just realized that I wanted to pursue medical school, so at the very least I will have one year off after graduating. That way I will have at least three years to get my EC's in order. I will be graduating with an engineering degree and between a 3.4-3.43 science and cumulative gpa. I realize that this is a very low gpa for medical school admissions which brings me to my question:

What is the best course of action after graduating to increase my chances at an acceptance SOMEWHERE? SMP, Post-bacc work, sitting around studying for the MCAT?

For the record, I have taken very few science courses outside the scope of engineering so I will hopefully be able to raise my science gpa quickly upon graduation. Also I am a resident of wisconsin, if that helps. Any advice is appreciated!

 

[possible09]

a 3.4 is not a bad GPA in my personal opinion , you need some shadowing , volunteering , stuff to beef up your application i would apply to certain schools and see what happens , there are people who get in medical school with 3.2-3.3s and you havent taken your MCAT yet , a lot of stuff determines your eligibility not just your GPA alone , be optimistic
DO schools , few MD schools or Carribbean route if you dont mind it

 

[Stratego]

With your projected GPA, you might be fine if you get an MCAT score of 33+. To boost your chances, you could do 1.5-2 years of unofficial post-bac work (assuming straight As), taking more undergrad classes to boost your GPA. This is the least expensive route to fixing a low GPA. If your post-bac grades are lower than expected, consider an SMP, but that's expensive and I doubt you'd need to go that route if you can raise the GPA and prove to adcomms that you can perform consistently well in some upper-level science classes.

 

[TheWeeIceMan]

Thank you both for the input. I'm def leaning towards doing post-bac work at this point, unless I can pull straight A's senior year and get the gpa above 3.5. I've started shadowing, clinical volunteering, and various other EC's now so hopefully I'll be able to stand out to admissions in other ways. However, it looks like the MCAT score will be the real deciding factor for me..... at least I have a lot of time to study.

 

[longhorn09]

take you mcat first. If you get a 33+ you're in a good shape...

 

[TheWeeIceMan]

take you mcat first. If you get a 33+ you're in a good shape...

I would like to take the MCAT first, but at my school and with my major I don't get to take biochem and o-chem 2 until second semester senior year... and from what I've heard, these are major portions of the MCAT. So I don't want to take the MCAT until my first gap year and I figure If I have to sit around I might as well try to raise the gpa in the process.