Low med school chances? Former artist, current post-bacc.

[boogiechilling]

I've gotten mixed advice on my chances for getting into medical school and was hoping someone could give me an honest answer about whether or not I'm burning money on a pipe dream.

5 years ago I graduated with a BA in photography and a laughable 2.17 GPA (110 credits.). Somewhat remarkably, I've done really well as an artist...but I've always had more of an interest in medicine. I started my post-bacc this past fall, and with the help of my grades last semester and a few community college courses I've brought my cumulative GPA up slightly to a 2.26. My post-bacc GPA is currently hovering at a 3.4, and my science GPA is a 3.63.

I have some long term volunteer work under my belt as an HIV services volunteer as well as another non medical related volunteer program i've been working with for 10 years. No clinical shadowing yet but there's still time. I'd like to work in low income/rural health care.

I've only done a semesters worth of classes and have a long way to go, but I'm concerned my complete disaster of a cumulative GPA is going to ruin my chances of being accepted into a medical school. Advisors have told me I'm not unique, and as long as I score well on the MCAT and have a stellar science GPA I should be okay, but reading forums where applicants are panicking over their 3.0 cumulative GPA's has made me nervous.

Any advice? Should I give up now before I blow thousands trying to prove myself to admissions committees that will never see past my bachelors degree? Thanks in advance.

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[Cornfed101]

The problem with your cGPA being that low is that your application won’t even be looked at by a person. You will be filtered by a computer... I don’t know of any medical school with a cutoff below 2.5. @Goro @gonnif lost cause?

 

[Moko]

A successful application is unlikely in your situation. Typically I would recommend getting your GPA up to 3.0 and then doing a SMP, but with so many credits and your current postbac performance, that is not a realistic goal. There are times when SMPs will accept those with sub-3.0 GPAs, but these cases are the exception rather than the rule (and in these situations it's better to talk to SMP programs first before doing the legwork). If you remain committed to working with patients, then I would recommend exploring non-physician careers such as nursing, social work, case management, therapist, PT, etc. Just my humble thoughts.

 

[Goro]

OP, you need ot be doing much better in your post-bac work, like 3.7+; I agree with my learned colleague Moko with his comments.

Read this:

• Goro's advice for pre-meds who need reinvention

 

[CyrilFiggis]

Having an “interest in medicine” does not mean becoming an MD. Nursing, PA, NP, nurse midwife, CRNA, etc are all clinical, patient-centric fields that don’t require the time, money, re-education that an MD does. Before you spend more money, get clinical exposure and ask if MD is really what you desire or if it’s just the title.

 

[redfish955]

I would be pursuing a secondary dream job while taking the pre requisites. Maybe biomedical engineering.