Hey! So I am finallizing my app and submitting today, but I am having trouble figuring out a school list.
The root of the issue comes from my first semester of college when I was 18. I went to college on a soccer scholarship. I had always just been a soccer player and it was a big part of my identity. During my first semester I suffered an ankle injury that effectively ended my career. Shocked and confused I left school without even dropping classes and subsiquently received 4 Fs and a B (how on earth that B happened no one knows lol). Over the next several years I would from time to time enroll at the local community college just to end up dropping (W) based on combination of job pressure and indecision over career path.
Fastforward to my 30s after working fulltime for over a decade and getting married I am (finally) mature enough to go school and actually stick with it. Since returning I have just under a 3.8 (I believe 3.78 as of right this minute) GPA and a 3.82 sGPA. However with that one single semester my GPA drops to right around 3.4.
My ECs are as follows:
Research 1500ish hours- First author on a research publication that I did at the Texas A&M college of medicine, second author on another publication that was done in conjunction with CHI St. Joseph and involved using patient data and charts.
980 hours nonclinical community service
including a charity that I run in conjunction with the local governments from the neighboring 5 counties that gets Christmas gifts to senior citizens without families in nursing homes as well as mission trips and the like
450 hours clinical community service (as long as hospice counts)
57 hours of shadowing, would have been in the 70s if not for COVID but im sure thats true for everyone right now.
Good letters of rec from various areas
Currently a month out from taking the MCAT (but scoring 517-520 on practice currently)
My question is how badly will the overall GPA hurt me? I am a texas resident and have done the academic fresh start but several of my top choice schools are out of state or are in texas but do not recognize fresh start (looking at you Baylor!). Should I aim low because of the 3.4 gpa? or should I ignore that because of how long ago the grades are from?
Currently torn between school lists including top 20 schools with some top 100 and lists with NO top 20 some top 100 and mostly above 100
Thank you so much for the help! I am sure I left out some info that would help but I will answer any questions anyone has and am grateful for any help anyone can provide!
The root of the issue comes from my first semester of college when I was 18. I went to college on a soccer scholarship. I had always just been a soccer player and it was a big part of my identity. During my first semester I suffered an ankle injury that effectively ended my career. Shocked and confused I left school without even dropping classes and subsiquently received 4 Fs and a B (how on earth that B happened no one knows lol). Over the next several years I would from time to time enroll at the local community college just to end up dropping (W) based on combination of job pressure and indecision over career path.
Fastforward to my 30s after working fulltime for over a decade and getting married I am (finally) mature enough to go school and actually stick with it. Since returning I have just under a 3.8 (I believe 3.78 as of right this minute) GPA and a 3.82 sGPA. However with that one single semester my GPA drops to right around 3.4.
My ECs are as follows:
Research 1500ish hours- First author on a research publication that I did at the Texas A&M college of medicine, second author on another publication that was done in conjunction with CHI St. Joseph and involved using patient data and charts.
980 hours nonclinical community service
including a charity that I run in conjunction with the local governments from the neighboring 5 counties that gets Christmas gifts to senior citizens without families in nursing homes as well as mission trips and the like
450 hours clinical community service (as long as hospice counts)
57 hours of shadowing, would have been in the 70s if not for COVID but im sure thats true for everyone right now.
Good letters of rec from various areas
Currently a month out from taking the MCAT (but scoring 517-520 on practice currently)
My question is how badly will the overall GPA hurt me? I am a texas resident and have done the academic fresh start but several of my top choice schools are out of state or are in texas but do not recognize fresh start (looking at you Baylor!). Should I aim low because of the 3.4 gpa? or should I ignore that because of how long ago the grades are from?
Currently torn between school lists including top 20 schools with some top 100 and lists with NO top 20 some top 100 and mostly above 100
Thank you so much for the help! I am sure I left out some info that would help but I will answer any questions anyone has and am grateful for any help anyone can provide!
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