Major Advice Needed - What to do?

[MexicanDr]

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My friend applied to the Georgetown SMP and currently applying to med school. A few days ago she received the acceptance to the SMP program, now she feels very confused as to which route to take: To attend the SMP or simply go ahead and continue the med school app process.

Here are her stats:

UC Berkeley grad, B.S. in Environmental Engineering
Overall GPA: 3.35
Science GPA: 3.35
MCAT: 32 11 V, 11 P, 10 B

Current Job:

Coordinating a diabetes program for the diabetics at community clinic i work at - following the doctor, case management, giving one-on-one education, coordinating classes, taking retina images, going to trainings and educating staff, etc. [Rural Area]

ECs:

A) Full time summer internship at a vascular surgery clinic - helping as a medical assistant and developing study guides for textbook

B) 1.5 years working part-time and full time (in summers) at an environmental consulting company doing plant/soil research

C) 2 years working in a planetarium
D) 1.5 years working at a plant physiology lab doing research

(as far as the research goes I don’t have any peer-reviewed publications, it was mostly for various companies and if there was a publication involved I wasn’t named on it)

E) Did research on oil spill on environmental and human health (not replicated experiments, more like collaborating with responders and scientists to figure out what was going on) for 6 months.

F) 2 years volunteering at a low-come clinic, summer job working at a homeless services charity.

G) 2 years coordinating a women's health education program/ giving 1-1 education [A lot of sex ed; also taught class ]

H) 1 year as development officer in an environmental advocacy group.

I) 3 months 25 hrs/week as a program development intern at a social services non-profit organization

She has applied broadly

What do you guys sincerely think? Should she attend the SMP? Or should she just go ahead and apply this year to med school?

Thanks in advance,

Eddie

 

[Tapepsi]

Ditch the SMP and apply to med schools. Her chances of being accepted to at least 1 med school is ~40%. It's not great, but it's not that bad. Especially if she applies broadly.

 

[CodeBlu]

Tell your friend her chances are good....

oh and... have her make an account and join in on the SDN fun.

 

[MexicanDr]

Bump.. What would you do?

 

[kpcrew]

i would apply to med school, but major life decisions shouldn't be entrusted to a stranger's advice

 

[tima]

In many cases, my friend = I.

Tell your friend her chances are good....

oh and... have her make an account and join in on the SDN fun.

 

[chemistryguy]

I would just apply to medical school. One year may raise her GPA, but I dont think its worth the high cost of attendance if you have an ok GPA. If your applying very broadly your chances should be good enough to make it worthwhile.

 

[CodeBlu]

In many cases, my friend = I.

That's why I included the ....

 

[ash914]

In many cases, my friend = I.

The very-detailed post does seem to suggest this (or at least that the friend wrote a lot of the post).

 

[rgrell]

The SMP program at Georgetown from what I have read about allows the student to take all the first year medical student classes, but as a masters student. If you do well enough in the program, you get an automatic interview for Georgetown Med. Applying to medical school this cycle will not prevent her from going to medical school. In fact, she would still have a gap year if she gets accepted, so she would still be able to enroll in the program.

 

[NH14]

She has great ECs, went to a prestigious undergrad (they may take that into consideration), and did well on the MCATs. Her ECs and MCATs may make up for the lower GPA. She should probably just apply early and broadly.

That's just my two cents...

 

[Person0715]

i would apply to med school, but major life decisions shouldn't be entrusted to a stranger's advice

+1