I know there are a lot of these threads

[apresutt]

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I have a few concerns, mostly brought up by my health professions office at my undergraduate school. They basically told me I did not have a chance at Optometry school due to my GPA. It was too low for them to even grant me a committee interview. I did not think that a 3.28 was even that bad.

What are my chances with a 3.28 GPA? It was not higher, i believe, because I am pursuing a Biomedical Engineering degree. My OAT score was: AA: 360 and TS: 380.

It seems the hpo at my school is much better at discouraging than helping the students. Any input would be appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[Ellada25]

I'm not sure what is wrong with the committee at your school, but it seems like you will be a great candidate (and possibly competitive). I would try to just get the letter of recommendations from your professors and just bypass the committee entirely. Good luck!

 

[apresutt]

That is what I ended up doing. I managed to get 4 of my professors to rewrite the letters for OptomCAS, and then had my hpo send the remaining two directly to my schools.

They are just so grumpy in that office whenever I enter. Thanks for the positive support. I have to try to get them to write me a letter stating why I didnt get an interview with them, since SUNY wants that. That is going to make me look great: "his gpa was too low!" Fan-tastic 😛

 

[mshea413]

I feel like some schools don't want to let people apply to medical schools (or optometry or dentistry or whatever) unless they have a 100% chance of getting in just so that they can tell high school students looking at the school that they have a really high rate of people getting into these medical school after they graduate. Just as an example, when I was looking around for a college to go to, one school told me that they had a 100% acceptance rate into medical schools, this sounded too good to be true. I choose not to go to this school, but later I meet someone who went there they they told me that the committee hardly writes anyone recommendations and the teachers wont write recommendations without the committees approval. This person may have not been telling to complete truth but it does seem like this could happen.

 

[Arctic]

Unfortunately, that all seems to make sense. Remember, statistics is the art of 'truthful' deception! The fact that your college won't help you, just to help protect their stats, is extremely disappointing. A 3.28 gpa, as long as it was with a relatively even distribution of grades (i.e. similar sci. gpa) should definitely give you a chance at optometry school, particularly when coupled with those OAT scores.

 

[IDOD]

you definitely have a chance!! don't listen to your committee! i actually had slightly lower stats that you and got into the 2 schools (including my top choice) that i interviewed with. it's not all about grades! if you can explain why you got those grades & have others things that make up for it eg. your reason why you want to be an optometrist.extracurriculars.. ref letters.. you'll do fine. i mean why not try right?

 

[blysssful]

OP: That is RIDICULOUS. You have a fantastic chance. Don't let them get the best of you, and when you get into an optometry school, send that committee an email saying "thanks for all your help and encouragement, *****holes!"

Your GPA isn't HIGH, but it's also definitely not so low that you don't have a chance, ESPECIALLY coupled with your fantastic OAT scores and difficult major, you shouldn't have a problem assuming everything else is squared away.

 

[Arctic]

Actually blyssful, as opposed to e-mailing them bragging about an acceptance, the best thing you might be able to do OP, to get back at your college (if you would be interested in that) would be to tell them that you DIDN'T get accepted somewhere just to mess with their statistics. Say, for example, you applied to a few schools, got a couple acceptances and maybe one you were rejected or maybe even just declined the interview; you could say you weren't accepted to that school and not tell them you were accepted anywhere else. That's what I'd do if my college went out of it's way to screw me over, but that's just me.
If you think about it, if they hardly ever allow applicants through their pre-health committee, just one "rejected" applicant could completely ruin their artificially stellar statistics.

 

[apresutt]

I took care of it another way. I went to my dean, who is completely unrelated since she is the dean of engineering. She contacted them, and im sure told them that they are doing something stupid. I got an email the next day asking me to come in to schedule an interview. I love when people with common sense and decency have authority over those who don't.

In addition, I have gotten granted interviews to all my schools, but one. So that shows that they were in the wrong.

 

[Arctic]

That's so great to hear apresutt! I still can't believe that your pre-health committee would try and go so far out of it's way to ruin your career chances (although you still, in all likelihood, would have been granted an acceptance anyway). Good luck with your interviews 👍