Low GPA - What can I do?

[solarix1991]

Hi everyone,

Just found this board and after some time going through the wealth of information available already, decided to ask for some advice for my situation. I've recently decided that I want to pursue medical school without any reservations and am willing to do whatever is necessary to get to that point.

I attended a top 20 ranked university in the United States and graduated in 2012 with a degree in Molecular Cell Biology with a specialization in Neuroscience (cGPA 2.69, sGPA 2.52). Understandably, my GPA is a huge deterrent to getting into medical school, but I do think that there are a number of factors that can help. I took the GRE (168M, 165V), have high SAT scores (2310), and am currently working at a top 4 bank in a business strategy role.

At this point, I know that it will be necessary for me to go through more school before applying for medical school, but I would appreciate any advice on a specific route that I can take to be able to do so. I've been extensively researching several Academic Grade Enhancing Post Baccalaureate programs, but am not sure if that is the correct route to go.

Thanks in advance.

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[Deekle]

I attended a top 20 ranked university in the United States and graduated in 2012 with a degree in Molecular Cell Biology with a specialization in Neuroscience (cGPA 2.69, sGPA 2.52). Understandably, my GPA is a huge deterrent to getting into medical school, but I do think that there are a number of factors that can help. I took the GRE (168M, 165V), have high SAT scores (2310), and am currently working at a top 4 bank in a business strategy role.
Thanks in advance.

All of this gets you exactly zilch.

At this point you can't even bring your cGPA into the 3.0 range without years of GPA repair. Take some time, get your head screwed on straight and go back for grade replacement and try to get into DO school.

Being that you just graduated and that your GPA was so low, I am very confident in my assessment that you are just plain not ready for medical school. You need to figure out why your GPA was so low and fix the issues that led to your poor performance before you even consider applying.

 

[Abider]

All of this gets you exactly zilch.

At this point you can't even bring your cGPA into the 3.0 range without years of GPA repair. Take some time, get your head screwed on straight and go back for grade replacement and try to get into DO school.

Being that you just graduated and that your GPA was so low, I am very confident in my assessment that you are just plain not ready for medical school. You need to figure out why your GPA was so low and fix the issues that led to your poor performance before you even consider applying.

Agree with the freakle deekle.

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=-fCbzAA_GAI&desktop_uri=/watch?v=-fCbzAA_GAI

....Sorry hate it when that happens.

Massive gpa reconctruction. Possibly an smp. Apply widely to both md/do, of course.

 

[SeetaRaj]

It seems like you're a good standardized test-taker..why don't you take the MCAT (after studying like crazy), see what you get, and then try and get into a post-bacc or SMP program?

 

[solarix1991]

Thanks for the frank answer. I completely understand your assessment of the situation. I know that I can't prove right now that I am completely committed to this route and am confident in my ability to handle the rigors of medical school - what I am looking for is guidance in being able to demonstrate this.

You mentioned that I would require massive GPA reconstruction, can you provide any more clarity to this? For example, I received a D in organic chemistry - do I retake this class at a nearby community college? How will this help in my application? What is the range that I need to repair my GPA to before I can even be considered for a post bacc program or a SMP program?

Thanks.

 

[Abider]

Thanks for the frank answer. I completely understand your assessment of the situation. I know that I can't prove right now that I am completely committed to this route and am confident in my ability to handle the rigors of medical school - what I am looking for is guidance in being able to demonstrate this.

You mentioned that I would require massive GPA reconstruction, can you provide any more clarity to this? For example, I received a D in organic chemistry - do I retake this class at a nearby community college? How will this help in my application? What is the range that I need to repair my GPA to before I can even be considered for a post bacc program or a SMP program?

Thanks.

Well...my take is an individual approach. Nasrudin's thread in the sticky seems designd for this explicit purpose. Making a variety of strategic templates available to premeds in widely varied situations, the most recent stimulating example by the Alaskan carpenter/international volunteer/ortho guy. Chipnsawbones or something. The point being is....do you want to spend years abroad rouhnecking it to make a strong impression....probably not.

So I'm not in the advice game, more the pointing to possibilities game.

Going downhill from a top school to a CC and getting A's is less advantageous. But if it's a matter of necessity then say that in your application and do it. Much of the adcomm dogma is directed at crowd control of the 20 something straight from college crowd. That doesn't mean we can ignore the criteria. It just means that if your working and supporting children or something and the only place offering classes is your CC then that's what you do and f@ckem if they don't get it. Given the success of many of us with low gpa's it is quite possible to get though to them. If....you work your butt off at giving them what they need to choose you out of many.

For you that is many hours of science a's. DO schools will give the added benefit of replacement so many have used this as a strategy for turning the corner faster on their reconstruction projects. For me this wasn't an option, because my old crappy gpa was in liberal arts with strange courses.

I went back to a CC first and got my math up to speed while taking general physics 1 and 2 and taking the nursing introductory chemistries. At the time I was not confident enough to go for med school. Until I got a's.

No matter how you slice it you need A's. Lot's of them. You need a solid mcat. You need all the other aspects of your application tight as well--clinical experience, volunteer work, and research if your interested.

Do some searches. All the answers to all the questions ever asked are in the sdn backlogs. Nothing about your situation is unique, except your life around the endeavor and the solution that you will need to flip the script.

 

[Abider]

Some further thoughts on this: a hurricane day off has me feeling chatty.

Search the post bacc forum. Learn to fish this site. Go to advanced search window and put in key words and specify the forum. Find poster's with similar situationals and search their post history. Etc.

Second this is high stakes poker. We can tell you what the costs are to sit at the table. Mainly as they pertain to ourselves, the people we know, or the data in the MSAR--the published applicant stats from the last admission cycle and profiles of each school.

What we can't tell you is how to play and how to bet. Anyone that does is throwing around ego at other's expense. You'd have to be an @sshole to confidently tell other people how to bet incredible resources and effort on marginal odds in a competitive field.

So you make that call yourself.

I will warn you. The post back/smp industry is taking advantage of a down and future sliding economy for upper middle class existence. The ticket they sell you is not uniform. Search DrMidlife's posts for unworldly thoroughness on the details of such a venture.

You could spend a couple of hours each day researching here for a week or so and you will have a much better sense of where you sit. And how to refine your future queries.

"I have a crappy gpa. How do I get into medical school?" Is like asking how to escape from a Chinese prison from your couch in Toledo, from those of us who by very unique individual circumstances have.

I simply can't explain to you in one sitting. You have to be intimately familiar with the process first. At which point you likely won't need advice anyway. Only your own grit, determination, and backbone.

 

[Skeeks]

The advice about retaking classes would be most beneficial if you attended the same university that you received you degree from. If you retake classes this way then when you apply to DO schools those old lower grades will be completely replaced and removed from your calculated GPA (unfortunately this is not the case with MD schools).
The other advice I would give shortly is to research carribean med schools. They are more forgiving than US schools. BE VERY CAREFUL which ones you apply too! A few have contracted spots for residency in the US, but some do not. Some are much better than others, and if you pick a bad one you may not be able to transfer to the USA. If you pick a good one then you can practice in the US just the same as any other doctor. My brother in law did this. He had a 3.2 gpa and a 24 on the MCAT. He attended the Saba carribean school got a US residency spot and now practices medicine with a take home of $300,000. So it can be done! Dont lose faith! I admire your ambition and wish you the best!

 

[Deekle]

Thanks for the frank answer. I completely understand your assessment of the situation. I know that I can't prove right now that I am completely committed to this route and am confident in my ability to handle the rigors of medical school - what I am looking for is guidance in being able to demonstrate this.

You mentioned that I would require massive GPA reconstruction, can you provide any more clarity to this? For example, I received a D in organic chemistry - do I retake this class at a nearby community college? How will this help in my application? What is the range that I need to repair my GPA to before I can even be considered for a post bacc program or a SMP program?

Thanks.

I try to tell it like it is, and it's been a process of learning how the system works. It's something you should put some time into, because if you don't understand the game you're playing, you're not going to win.

To quote one of the authors I frequently read: "Words are wind" You can say all day long that you're committed, but you're right, you need to be able to demonstrate it. If you are completely confident in your ability to handle the rigors of medical school, you're being foolish. I'm in medical school and on a daily basis I question my ability to do well in some aspects. Your track record is BAD. You need to realize that the path ahead is not in being confident, it is in correcting the deficiencies in yourself. Until you start being honest with yourself that there is a problem, you're never going to convince an admissions committee to take a chance on you.

That's why I suggested you take some time off and assess what's gotten you into this mess in the first place. You've either got deficits in your knowledge base or in your study habits. I'm sure you have wonderful, great excuses. In this forum we've heard them all, and in the end, they are not important. What is important is carefully crafting your success step by step. That's what it takes to get into medical school. You have to plan and follow the plan.

So, specifics. GPA reconstruction. Ideally, you want to end up at at least a 3.0. With your current GPA, that's .4 points that you need to make up. However, it's a cumulative effort. All the grades count. These classes inflate your credits taken, so each 4.0 you get is spread across all of the stuff that's less than a 4.0. A typical undergrad average is 120 credit hours. So, assuming you only have 120 credit hours, it would take 36 credit hours of 4.0 grade to get you to a 2.99 cGPA. If you can get 12 credit hours a semester, that means you've got 3 semesters of work to do to get to that 3.0.

Each grade you get that isn't an A, and each credit hour less than 12 per semester you can fit into the schedule makes it take longer.

The nice thing about the DO road is that some will let you do grade replacement on an equivalent course. So any science courses you took that were below a 3.0, you can retake and they will replace the grade (ostensibly without the inflation effect, although I'm not sure if this is the case or not. I know they do look at your cGPA, so the ultimate effect may only be to raise your sGPA.)

Taking classes at a CC is a poor idea for you because you've already completed your undergrad at a university. It looks like you couldn't hack it at a 4 year, so you went to CC, and that's how the adcoms are going to see it. You need to be looking at the hard roads. The harder the road, the better because that's how you prove you're ready for medical school.

Take abider's advice. Go spend some time on the postbacc boards and talk to some folks that have been in your shoes. Don't look for the easy way, you already blew that. The easy way is to get a 4.0 in college on the first go round. Welcome to the big leagues. The good news is, you're in good company. Most of us here blew it too, me included. Understand though, that however hard your undergrad seemed, it's going to be harder than that to get into medical school, and medical school is going to be harder still. Make darn sure it's what you really want.

 

[ChE04]

Top 4 banks are hiring molecular biologists with 2.6 GPAs as business strategists? No wonder we had to bail them out in '08.

(sorry, couldn't resist)