If I score a 528 on the MCAT but my GPA is 3.1...

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At this point, pretty sure OP is a troll.

You're not going to get a 528.

You need to do a post bac to show you at least care about your grades.

Yes, 45% of folks in a high MCAT/low gpa category get accepted. But frankly, it's arrogant to think you'll be one of those without a post bac, and/or the excellent ecs to make up for a subpar gpa. An upward trend is unlikely to be sufficient.

DO is not an option just because you do poorly in school. DO schools are not hard up for excellent candidates. This misconception is obnoxious.
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sammiesings said:
At this point, pretty sure OP is a troll.

You're not going to get a 528.

You need to do a post bac to show you at least care about your grades.

Yes, 45% of folks in a high MCAT/low gpa category get accepted. But frankly, it's arrogant to think you'll be one of those without a post bac, and/or the excellent ecs to make up for a subpar gpa. An upward trend is unlikely to be sufficient.

DO is not an option just because you do poorly in school. DO schools are not hard up for excellent candidates. This misconception is obnoxious.
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Yeah. Can mods close this thread please already? @WedgeDawg
 
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OP it's better to think of percentile ranges. For example aim at getting a score in the 85th+ percentile range. Purchase a MSAR and apply to a mix of DO and MD programs.
 
What about mitigating factors such as working fulltime during undergrad due to financial reasons. Would adcoms look more favorably on applicants like that? I am asking for friend. 3.5~ 518~.
 
libertyyne said:
What about mitigating factors such as working fulltime during undergrad due to financial reasons. Would adcoms look more favorably on applicants like that? I am asking for friend. 3.5~ 518~.
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3.5 is a different world from 3.1 - its about 30th percentile for non-URM admits. A 99th percentile MCAT does help there mate.

It makes little difference with a 3.1 - there are either major (fatal) lapses in conscientiousness or in mental health at 3.1 with a 99th percentile MCAT.
 
Miami_Postbac said:
3.5 is a different world from 3.1 - its about 30th percentile for non-URM admits. A 99th percentile MCAT does help there mate.

It makes little difference with a 3.1 - there are either major (fatal) lapses in conscientiousness or in mental health at 3.1 with a 99th percentile MCAT.
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Noice, Libertyyne and I are in the same boat.
Sorry to annoy you @piii
 
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sammiesings said:
At this point, pretty sure OP is a troll.

You're not going to get a 528.

You need to do a post bac to show you at least care about your grades.

Yes, 45% of folks in a high MCAT/low gpa category get accepted. But frankly, it's arrogant to think you'll be one of those without a post bac, and/or the excellent ecs to make up for a subpar gpa. An upward trend is unlikely to be sufficient.

DO is not an option just because you do poorly in school. DO schools are not hard up for excellent candidates. This misconception is obnoxious.
Click to expand...

Miami_Postbac said:
3.5 is a different world from 3.1 - its about 30th percentile for non-URM admits. A 99th percentile MCAT does help there mate.

It makes little difference with a 3.1 - there are either major (fatal) lapses in conscientiousness or in mental health at 3.1 with a 99th percentile MCAT.
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I'm not disagreeing wholly with these assessments but I want to present a viewpoint that I expressed in a recent thread:

"My UG curved the median to 2.6-2.8 in many premed prereqs and required doing 2 standard deviations above the mean to guarantee a 4.0 or be in the 95th-100th percentiles in the event that 2 standard deviations was unobtainable. Throw in a bunch of top-performing students into an exam and somebody still have to get the best and worst score. Plus 50% of those people are guaranteed to get scores which med schools would deem lethal."

@LizzyM (please don't hate me if you feel this was taken out of context, I can edit to include the whole post) even commented about the policies :

"What can I say, it sucks to be a student or alumnus of your UG if your plans include medical school."

These curves were not just for "weeder" courses like gen chem; they continued well into upper-level coursework, provided that the class had >30 people.

I'm not saying that my (public not private) UG institution experience is normal or that the assessments in this thread are not valid for most cases. What I am saying is that we need to be responsible with how we judge future (or current) applicants. Getting a 3.4 in a bio class at my school mean that you were the top ~20% of the most intelligent (and most gunnerish) people in the state. Getting a 3.0 in a 300 or 400 level course meant that you were pretty solid in the course since you did better than over half of the cream of the crop that made it that far.

I would ask that we keep judgements about people's personal habits or mental health solely based on GPA and no other information to a minimum when evaluating someone's chances.

**This is the end of the devil's advocate portion of this post**

OP, I am like you and had a trash (<3.2) GPA at the end of UG. I managed to get 515+ on the test and I was extremely proud of it, but that score was only because the quality of education that I received and the work that I did to learn the material was better than what other UG institutions offered or required. However, like many posters above me have already said, 528 is darn near impossible. Statistically, it pretty much is impossible.. You have to be the best of the best of the best of the best to get a score like that. Keep in mind, it's a distribution-based scoring system; you LITERALLY have to do better than the best people taking the test to be in the 100th percentile. Again as people have said before it's not even solely a test of knowledge, it's a test of reasoning capability and to some degree luck.

Keep your expectations realistic and do the best that you are able. If you don't succeed at getting a MD or DO acceptance, there are plenty of fields out there that let you care for patients in other ways than a doctor would.
 
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freak7 said:
I'm not disagreeing wholly with these assessments but I want to present a viewpoint that I expressed in a recent thread:

"My UG curved the median to 2.6-2.8 in many premed prereqs and required doing 2 standard deviations above the mean to guarantee a 4.0 or be in the 95th-100th percentiles in the event that 2 standard deviations was unobtainable. Throw in a bunch of top-performing students into an exam and somebody still have to get the best and worst score. Plus 50% of those people are guaranteed to get scores which med schools would deem lethal."

@LizzyM (please don't hate me if you feel this was taken out of context, I can edit to include the whole post) even commented about the policies :

"What can I say, it sucks to be a student or alumnus of your UG if your plans include medical school."

These curves were not just for "weeder" courses like gen chem; they continued well into upper-level coursework, provided that the class had >30 people.

I'm not saying that my (public not private) UG institution experience is normal or that the assessments in this thread are not valid for most cases. What I am saying is that we need to be responsible with how we judge future (or current) applicants. Getting a 3.4 in a bio class at my school mean that you were the top ~20% of the most intelligent (and most gunnerish) people in the state. Getting a 3.0 in a 300 or 400 level course meant that you were pretty solid in the course since you did better than over half of the cream of the crop that made it that far.

I would ask that we keep judgements about people's personal habits or mental health solely based on GPA and no other information to a minimum when evaluating someone's chances.

**This is the end of the devil's advocate portion of this post**

OP, I am like you and had a trash (<3.2) GPA at the end of UG. I managed to get 515+ on the test and I was extremely proud of it, but that score was only because the quality of education that I received and the work that I did to learn the material was better than what other UG institutions offered or required. However, like many posters above me have already said, 528 is darn near impossible. Statistically, it pretty much is impossible.. You have to be the best of the best of the best of the best to get a score like that. Keep in mind, it's a distribution-based scoring system; you LITERALLY have to do better than the best people taking the test to be in the 100th percentile. Again as people have said before it's not even solely a test of knowledge, it's a test of reasoning capability and to some degree luck.

Keep your expectations realistic and do the best that you are able. If you don't succeed at getting a MD or DO acceptance, there are plenty of fields out there that let you care for patients in other ways than a doctor would.
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Full disclosure I didn't read most of this, but I went to a UC with insane grade deflation. However, I did grade repair and upper division courses to raise my gpa because I know I didn't perform to the best of my ability. Whether grade deflation occurs or not, there are 4.0s at even the worst offending UC. To me, standing by that was an excuse. I stand by my statement that a post bac is necessary to demonstrate your commitment. There are so many excellent candidates to medical school that if you really want it, you have to prove you can hang. And that comes with a great MCAT, but you also need a streak of great grades and excellent ecs. Sure, those who don't might eek by and get an acceptance or two, but why risk it if this is what you really want?

I'm happy at least with my decision to really beef up my application to make it worthy of MD admission. And DO as well. Because like I said, DO adcoms are not suckers who will take those who slacked off in college and thought "oh I'll just apply DO." DO adcoms are looking for stellar applicants too. Because, guess what? They get them.

Eta: obviously all 100% my opinion and applies specifically to my situation. Not trying to pass judgement on how others completed their med journey
 
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Grade deflating schools do hurt their students, no question, but if you can score 99th percentile on the MCAT - against a group of generally extremely intelligent, hardworking individuals - you can eek out a 3.5 at a state school. I promise.
 
Just do your best on your MCAT. Your undergraduate GPA is in the past, don't let it haunt you.

Apply to medical school and make sure to explain your circumstances during college, how you overcame it, what you've learned, and how it'll make you a better doctor.

After your application is in, then you can start thinking what's the best use of your time in your gap year. Do whatever you think you'll learn the most from (and hopefully that'll also be something you enjoy) be able to explain why your spending your time doing that and not something else. If its a post-bac, that's cool. If its retaking course work, cool too. It can be the peace corp/teach for america.

Showing sustained love/desire to learn doesn't have to be done at a college (it often is though) it can be done equally well in a research lab.
 
medicalschoolislife said:
This is a serious question. I suffered from bipolar disorder (it was diagnosed about a year after I finished college) during college and could not get the GPA I wanted. I took the proper medication and now my psychiatrist has said I no longer need any medication.

With the ability to think straight, I think I might be able to score a 528 (or close to it) on the MCAT.

My concern is that an admissions committee might question why there is such a disparity between my GPA and MCAT score, and bipolar disorder may not be enough to justify my situation.

Can anyone offer any insight on this?
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First, it is possible to know you can score highly if you've done practice tests and scored highly as the people above mentioned. However, I suspect if you'd done that you'd have mentioned it in your post.

Absent any support, your assertion seems a bit odd. I know a fellow with severe mental illness who has a gambling problem and frequently says "if I can think straight, I can beat them" in poker...which he hasn't managed to do over 15 years of trying. But of course no one can disprove him so he keeps trying and failing and getting depressed because of it.

Doing the best you can on the MCAT is different from pinning your hopes and dreams on getting a perfect score--which is setting yourself up for a major comedown/depressive event when it doesn't happen like it doesn't for 99.999% of the people shooting for the best MCAT they can.

Just an FYI the highest MCAT for all MIT med school applicants is 42 out of 45 for all of the years they've published, which should give you an idea how unrealistic shooting for a perfect score is.
 
medicalschoolislife said:
I don't want to have to do more undergraduate schooling. Is showing a sustained period of academic excellence necessary?
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If you aren't willing to put the effort into showing academic excellence to get into med school, why would any school want to take you?
 
Lawper said:
Given the quality of threads made by both, the confusion is understandable.
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Ouch. But my threads are never this bad. Also I do have an MCAT score that lends me some credibility.
 
Nommonnom said:
Just an FYI the highest MCAT for all MIT med school applicants is 42 out of 45 for all of the years they've published, which should give you an idea how unrealistic shooting for a perfect score is.
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Where is this stuff published?

Fun fact, a 42 can be a 528 by percentile equivalence (14/13/15 is 132/132/132). We're going to be seeing perfect scores much more frequently on the new test (and especially perfect subsection scores)!
 
efle said:
Where is this stuff published?

Fun fact, a 42 can be a 528 by percentile equivalence (14/13/15 is 132/132/132). We're going to be seeing perfect scores much more frequently on the new test (and especially perfect subsection scores)!
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You're ignoring the 4th section. Even if there are more people getting 132/132/132, the probability of those people getting a 132 on the fourth section is not 100%. This is why the new and old composite MCAT percentiles look so similar though the subsection percentiles do not.

https://gecd.mit.edu/resources/survey-data
 
You had to pick 528 as your target score? Not 520+, 515, 516, 513 (90th percentile)? How do you know you still aren't in the midst of a hypomanic episode...
 
Nommonnom said:
You're ignoring the 4th section. Even if there are more people getting 132/132/132, the probability of those people getting a 132 on the fourth section is not 100%. This is why the new and old composite MCAT percentiles look so similar though the subsection percentiles do not.

https://gecd.mit.edu/resources/survey-data
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But I'd counter that the top bins are much more forgiving now to get into (eg 13 V -> 132 CARS, 14 PS -> 132), so even with a 4th section the rarity of a perfect score is only going to be about the same rarity as an old 42-43! In other words yeah there is now a 4th section to knock some people out, but far, far more will still be in the running at that point. Thanks for the link!


MareNostrummm said:
You had to pick 528 as your target score? Not 520+, 515, 516, 513 (90th percentile)?
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It's not that rare to see people say "I'm willing to study very hard and do whatever it takes, so I expect a score in the top few percent..." but yeah 528 is a bit much to target
 
efle said:
But I'd counter that the top bins are much more forgiving now to get into (eg 13 V -> 132 CARS, 14 PS -> 132), so even with a 4th section the rarity of a perfect score is only going to be about the same rarity as an old 42-43! In other words yeah there is now a 4th section to knock some people out, but far, far more will still be in the running at that point. Thanks for the link!



It's not that rare to see people say "I'm willing to study very hard and do whatever it takes, so I expect a score in the top few percent..." but yeah 528 is a bit much to target
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I've known many people say they were going to get a 4.0 and double major with 2 minors etc... they always fall short. It's a delusion.
 
FutureHopeful? said:
No dude you can be inconsistent between good and bad grades .....

With your intelligence you shouldn't bank on getting anything near 528.
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It is unintelligent to base someone`s intelligence on a few forum posts.

By the way, I`ve started studying (no practice passages yet) and I still feel a 528 is doable.
 
sammiesings said:
How often you feel the need to talk about it suggests otherwise.
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It clearly shows the exact opposite
Someone who was confident that their score would get them in would feel no need to be neurotic
Anyway, you're pretty belligerent bud
 
baratheonfire said:
It's pretty much the only thing keeping me sane at this point
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sammiesings said:
Why? A 520 alone won't get you in.
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baratheonfire said:
Thanks for adding to the insanity
And I already knew that
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sammiesings said:
How often you feel the need to talk about it suggests otherwise.
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baratheonfire said:
It clearly shows the exact opposite
Someone who was confident that their score would get them in would feel no need to be neurotic
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:hijacked:
 
If I had $1 for every delusional SDNer who thinks they can get a 528 I wouldn't have to take out loans for med school. There's a reason it's the 100th percentile.
 
Had a ~3.2cuGPA (2.8s from junior to beginning of senior), with high 30s MCAT.
Partially attribute uGPA with family obligations and working full time, along with that UC deflation mentioned above, but the majority of the reason was lack of commitment to academics, sourced largely from (what I would now described as) a sense of entitlement of a lax schedule due to aforementioned circumstance [i.e self-pity].
Did Georgetown SMP to 80th percentile of class and scored a 528 last June.
Still early in the cycle, but have gotten some interviews, and many rejections.
I would encourage the sentiment of academic remediation elsewhere on this thread. The MCAT score doesn't and shouldn't replace a lackluster undergraduate performance; they are measuring different things. You are responsible for demonstrating qualities inherent to GPA, outside the scope of MCAT. This necessitates further academic work.
YMWV
 
TheBigB said:
Had a ~3.2cuGPA (2.8s from junior to beginning of senior), with high 30s MCAT.
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TheBigB said:
Did Georgetown SMP to 80th percentile of class and scored a 528 last June.
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How'd you drop from 3.6/42 to 3.2/high 30s? And you didn't get in during the 2013 cycle you applied with that 78 LizzyM??

TheBigB said:
cGPA: 3.62
sGPA: 3.64
MCAT: 42

Realize that my GPA is on the lower side for anything to be for certain, but hoping you guys could give me a preview of what I might look forward to.
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TheBigB said:
Guess I'm just just anxious to hear back like everyone else
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