I’m in the ARMY as an Airborne medic. I’m going to go to medical school. I’ve got a 3.0 GPA and 500 MCAT. Masters?

[jiperoo]

Alright so I have a hell of a story. I dropped out in 10th grade and worked as a welder for a few years and made it to community college. Real cowboy or country-boy stuff. Had to pay for community college so I picked up a second job in Orthopedic Surgery, fell in love. Ortho Trauma is my jam. I take 2 semesters and two summers here, Terrible community college GPA, I literally learned to read again and write again. I transferred up to university and pursued my bachelors in Biochemistry, trending upwards incredibly well in my sophomore year.

Spring of sophomore the Covid Lockdown happened and now I’m some kid in a whole new place without any family entirely online and I’m in my junior and senior year solely online upper division classes. I say the school failed me and adapted poorly to online, some say I failed to adapt. GPA goes off the deep end, I pass my classes, and pick up work on a ranch mucking horse stalls since it’s all that’s open. Some real cowboy stuff.

Anyways I graduate in Spring 2021 with my bachelors in Biochem and a 3.0 GPA (very similar cumulative and science as all my classes were pretty much science classes). I get back to Arizona and work as a science teacher to really give back to the pipeline for a year, I take my MCAT in spring of 2022. About a week or two before the MCAT all this stuff starts popping off in Ukraine, and while we may not be in there for whatever reason, I realized we were in a 10 year ordeal helping the world. I answer my call to serve being a high speed medic, I’m a paratrooper. I literally jump out of planes and save lives.

Now I’m headed towards a little bit of stability in my first duty station and I want to get a masters degree as it’ll put me into field goal range to apply to USUHS or to their E2MDP pipeline if I can’t get in. Plus, we’ve got killer tuition assistance in the ARMY. Some have recommended a post-bacc program but statistically it'd just be a small change in GPA since I have about 130 college credits already, even if I got a theoretical 4.0 GPA. I joined to practice medicine not plagued by insurance problems, just pure medicine, and that's my mission.

Can I get some wisdom from some people wiser than my 24-year-old self? How do I get myself into USUHS? I’d settle for HPSP, but USUHS counts towards retirement to my knowledge, and I want to be a lifer with this organization. Cheers.

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[HuckleberryEven]

You have such an interesting life story bro, really hope everything works out. As far as post-baccs goes, yeah you may not be able to raise the GPA up by much but having a killer trend for those classes can make up for a lower GPA. I'd recommend doing a formal post-bacc or informal post-bacc program at a university nearby. No need to do a masters program but I don't know how tuition assistance factors in because I'm just a civ.

 

[AvsPearTree]

Here is some back ground: current active duty with plenty to discuss like yourself. Graduated with a 2.75 gpa, did a 50 credit hour postbacc to raise it to a 3.0. 505 MCAT. Applied to USU this year (late unfortunately) and was rejected. I'm near USU and had the privilege to talk some of the ADCOM there and since you have similar stats to me this should be applicable to your situation.

I'm going to say it exactly like they told me; Your academics is the weak part of your application, As a result, I think the best thing you can do to make yourself more competitive for next year is to study for the MCAT with the intent of getting a higher score closer to or above the average of 511.

So the age old saying about USUHS not caring too much about MCATs above 500 is no longer true, and In your situation you need to 25-30 credit hours of a DIY postbacc to do some GPA repair, which is in line with that USU recommends on their website.

If you do that, and meet all of the other requirements on their site, you should have a good chance.

Medschool, Admissions, Application Requirements

medschool.usuhs.edu

 

[jiperoo]

Here is some back ground: current active duty with plenty to discuss like yourself. Graduated with a 2.75 gpa, did a 50 credit hour postbacc to raise it to a 3.0. 505 MCAT. Applied to USU this year (late unfortunately) and was rejected. I'm near USU and had the privilege to talk some of the ADCOM there and since you have similar stats to me this should be applicable to your situation.

I'm going to say it exactly like they told me; Your academics is the weak part of your application, As a result, I think the best thing you can do to make yourself more competitive for next year is to study for the MCAT with the intent of getting a higher score closer to or above the average of 511.

So the age old saying about USUHS not caring too much about MCATs above 500 is no longer true, and In your situation you need to 25-30 credit hours of a DIY postbacc to do some GPA repair, which is in line with that USU recommends on their website.

If you do that, and meet all of the other requirements on their site, you should have a good chance.

Medschool, Admissions, Application Requirements

medschool.usuhs.edu

Roger that. So as far as I am understanding, it would be kind of useless for me to do a master's degree in something that would be easy/neat like 'healthcare entrepreneurship' like I was previously toying with. Well heck, I guess I've got some reading to do on DIY Post-Bacc programs. My gut instinct is to game the system and do easy classes that I got C's in like english 1 and 2 from like 5 years ago, but the tradeoff is that they don't show much rigor ... but they do show a higher GPA number if they don't look at the classes.

Thank you for your insight, it was, well, insightful.

 

[Faha]

A MS degree will not help you with MD schools. A DIY post bacc at a local college will increase your chances for admission. Take enough undergraduate level science courses in order to increase your sGPA to 3.1 or 3.2 . With a 500 MCAT and and a 3.1 GPA your best chances are at DO schools. You will need to apply broadly and include all the newer schools. I suggest these DO schools with your stats:
ACOM
ARCOM
NYIT-AR
UIWSOM
LMU-DCOM
WVSOM
UP-KYCOM
LECOM (all schools)
PCOM (all schools)
BCOM
TUNCOM
Noorda-COM
KHSC-COM
Orlando (when it opens)
Touro-Montana
RVU-Montana
ICOM
MU-COM

 

[AvsPearTree]

Roger that. So as far as I am understanding, it would be kind of useless for me to do a master's degree in something that would be easy/neat like 'healthcare entrepreneurship' like I was previously toying with. Well heck, I guess I've got some reading to do on DIY Post-Bacc programs. My gut instinct is to game the system and do easy classes that I got C's in like english 1 and 2 from like 5 years ago, but the tradeoff is that they don't show much rigor ... but they do show a higher GPA number if they don't look at the classes.

Thank you for your insight, it was, well, insightful.

I would be careful about trying to game the system as there is a good possibility they will look at the classes taken in your post bacc (USU looked at mine). So advice on here is to focus on retaking any pre-reqs that you received a D or F in, as well as taking upper level science courses (think 300+ level courses, or medical school specific). I took a few pre-req classes at a local community college, and took a majority of my classes with UMGC, which is immensely supportive of military and gave some much needed flexibility in course work.

Master GPA would not impact your AMCAS GPA, it would boost your AACOMAS GPA if you consider the DO route.

 

[candbgirl]

Roger that. So as far as I am understanding, it would be kind of useless for me to do a master's degree in something that would be easy/neat like 'healthcare entrepreneurship' like I was previously toying with. Well heck, I guess I've got some reading to do on DIY Post-Bacc programs. My gut instinct is to game the system and do easy classes that I got C's in like english 1 and 2 from like 5 years ago, but the tradeoff is that they don't show much rigor ... but they do show a higher GPA number if they don't look at the classes.

Thank you for your insight, it was, well, insightful.

You are missing the whole point of the post bacc. It will be almost impossible for you to move your GPAS much , if at all. What you are trying to do is prove to ADCOMS you are up to the rigors of medical school. You will do this by taking 2-3 semesters of full time classes of upper division science courses and achieving As.. Retaking English 1 and 2 will prove nothing and ADCOMS aren’t dumb. They will know what you are trying to do. If you want to be a doctor you have to build the best application possible. There are no shortcuts and no”gaming the system”. Med school is hard. You have to prove you are ready.