Hello fellow readers,
My grades are sub-par. I have
meh extracurriculars, et cetera. Basically not a very good applicant. At the moment, a junior at univ. of california, irvine.
You can try joining some clubs and participating in things to fill your application. Do some volunteer work.
I am trying to figure out whether it's possible to put med/dental schools as a goal.
It probably is, but it depends on how bad your stats really are. Below a 3.0 is not very promising even if you're applying to the worst DO school. MD would be nearly impossible. Dental schools may actually be tougher to get into because there are less and it's therefore more of a crapshoot unless you really stand out.
So here is my question: what are things I can do (aside from the obvious: improve GPA, do well on mcat) to bolster my application and really make myself a competent applicant?
Again, join some clubs, shadow some doctors, volunteer in the clinic, volunteer outside the clinic, etc. If you have extremely strong volunteering and extra curricular activities you'll look much better.
Supposing I graduate next year, I will probably have to take a year off before applying again, i'm sure, to even consider this.
By 'taking off' I hope you mean getting a job or joining Americorps (or some other organization) and volunteering for a year. If you do close to nothing for a year you will not get in anywhere (and no one will hire you either). Keep very busy for your "year off".
...Also does being a minority really help you? And does being arab count as a minority?
It's a minority (if you're not white you're considered a minority in the US), but I doubt it is considered for medical school. If you're underrepresented in medicine that's an advantage. If you're disadvantage (like you grew up in the slums of Detroit) that's an advantage. I doubt "arab" is underrepresented in medicine* and I don't know if you grew up in an impoverished neighborhood. Even if you do fulfill one of those, it's not as much as an advantage as you might think. I knew a black guy from the Bronx with stats similar to mine who found it impossible to get into medical school. To put that in perspective I got more interviews and I was accepted this year and I'm white. But that's anecdotal evidence, so I wouldn't trust it much. Just saying it's not necessarily your ticket into medical school.
*My reasoning for thinking Arab is not underrepresented in medicine is because I think it's probably overrepresented. Lets say the US population is 1% Arab and their population in the profession of physician is 5%. It's actually a disadvantage for you to apply and say you're Arab. A real disadvantaged status would be African American, where something like 12% of the US population belongs to that group but it's probably less than 5% of doctors.
