MD Schools that accept lower mcat?

Started by Ryudo
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Ryudo

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GPA 3.89 MCAT 25.

I am retaking the MCAT this summer BUT I want to know if there are any schools that might be more lenient to accepting me with a lower MCAT. I am a Texas resident but am willing to attend a school out of state Private or Public (odds smaller of being accepted though).
 
slim chance at finding an out of state MD school willing to overlook a 25 mcat.
 
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Ryudo said:
GPA 3.89 MCAT 25.

I am retaking the MCAT this summer BUT I want to know if there are any schools that might be more lenient to accepting me with a lower MCAT. I am a Texas resident but am willing to attend a school out of state Private or Public (odds smaller of being accepted though).
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If you speak Spanish you can go to Puerto Rico.
 
Ryudo said:
I do not mean to start a war here but I was told I was better off going to SGU or Ross than DO school. I personlly would have thought otherwise but that is what I was told.
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And who told you that? Why don't you go over to the Caribbean thread for students attending, you will hear a lot to the contrary.

If you check out the attrition rates (students that drop out of medical school), you will see that there is a greater chance that you actually finish medical school if you stay stateside...

If the MCAT is the only thing that is making you decide on going to the Caribbean...I would do everything that I could to better my score. Don't rush into it though...prepare well, and take a lot of practice tests.

And do yourself a favor and research DO schools on your own...don't rely on someone else's opinion only.
 
Some old doctors will tell you that you are better off going with the foreign MD route, because there used to me more prejudice against DO's and it used to be easier for foreign-trained MD graduates to get a residency. It was pretty easy in the 1970's and 1980's, apparently...there were a lot more residency spots than there were US MD graduates. That appears to be changing, with US MD and DO schools expanding their ranks.

I agree w/above comment...if you speak Spanish well, you might want to explore the Puerto Rican schools...they are considered US schools (same accreditation) unlike the Caribbean med schools which have no official US accreditation at all. Not sure if the Puerto Rican schools accept out of state students, however...
 
that's a lot of out of staters...so if Ryudo speaks Spanish then I think it would be worth looking in to. I also think he should retake the MCAT, try to pull it up, and try again at all the Texas state MD schools, and throw in some osteopathic schools too.
 
Stop wasting time thinking about this and start spending every waking hour studying for the MCAT. You have a good gpa, so you have the ability to do well on the exam. Put in a ton of practice time and you can get that score up. Do that and you won't have to worry about what schools might give you a shot with a low MCAT.

BTW - anyone who tells you to go foreign over DO has no idea what they are talking about. Never ask them for advice again.
 
dragonfly99 said:
that's a lot of out of staters...so if Ryudo speaks Spanish then I think it would be worth looking in to. I also think he should retake the MCAT, try to pull it up, and try again at all the Texas state MD schools, and throw in some osteopathic schools too.
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Yes I'd agree PR schools would be good to look into, I'd researched this & found high acceptance rates for out-of-state (out of territory?) applicants.

Ultimately I decided not to apply to them (former spanish major so no major language issue) because 1) poor fit for my family, given our research of PR versus where we live now 2) I was concerned about learning the spanish words for many medical conditions that I'd need to relearn in English to communicate w/physicians & patients upon moving back to the 48 contiguous states and 3) a little concerned about perception of the schools for residency application purposes, given stats of accepted students to PR schools versus non-PR allo US schools. This last point was just my perception, however.

suggest putting in lots more months studying for the MCAT; doing well is largely a function of hours put into studying.
 
Ryudo said:
I do not mean to start a war here but I was told I was better off going to SGU or Ross than DO school. I personlly would have thought otherwise but that is what I was told.
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Well, whoever told you that was wrong. Not to start a war.

Aside from that, you won't find a school that will openly say, "Hey! We accept lower MCAT scores!". There are always crazy circumstances and outliers. I am one of those outliers. I am at an MD school and had a 27 and a MUCH lower gpa (3.3ish). Lets just say that I pretty much fit into the exact framework of what that school wanted and did everything in my power to impress them...and I was still pulled off the waitlist a few days before orientation.
 
Going to a Puerto Rican medical school would be better than going to a Caribbean school, because by going to a Puerto Rican school you'd be going to a LCME accredited medical school. You would not be an international medical grad, the way you will be if you attend Ross or St. George. There is a difference in not only what they have to do to get a residency, but the obstacles they will face trying to get a license in some states. I wouldn't have applied to Puerto Rican schools b/c I don't speak good Spanish, but I do think they'd be a good thing to consider for someone who does speak Spanish well.
 
gman33 said:
Stop wasting time thinking about this and start spending every waking hour studying for the MCAT. You have a good gpa, so you have the ability to do well on the exam. Put in a ton of practice time and you can get that score up. Do that and you won't have to worry about what schools might give you a shot with a low MCAT.

BTW - anyone who tells you to go foreign over DO has no idea what they are talking about. Never ask them for advice again.
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Agreed with this advice. You need to work your ass off and retake the MCAT.
 
Ryudo said:
I do not mean to start a war here but I was told I was better off going to SGU or Ross than DO school. I personlly would have thought otherwise but that is what I was told.
Click to expand...

To start a war there would need to be proponents for two different sides. I don't think anyone on this thread takes the view of what you were "told". If you want to practice in the US, your first choice is always going to be to go to school in the US. Offshore schools have horribly high attrition and a much harder road to getting a desirably residency. While those schools post better match lists compared to their offshore brethren, you have to realize that it's after huge attrition cuts paring down a large class of hopefulls into a very very small class of successes. In a US school you are less likely to be one of the casualties.
 
Ryudo said:
I do not mean to start a war here but I was told I was better off going to SGU or Ross than DO school. I personlly would have thought otherwise but that is what I was told.
Click to expand...

To start a war there would need to be proponents for two different sides. I don't think anyone on this thread thus far takes the view of what you were "told". If you want to practice in the US, your first choice is always going to be to go to school in the US. Offshore schools have horribly high attrition and a much harder road to getting a desirably residency. While those schools post better match lists compared to their offshore brethren, you have to realize that it's after huge attrition cuts paring down a large class of hopefulls into a very very small class of successes. In a US school you are less likely to be one of the casualties.
 
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I dont know about Texas, but if you were from one of the rural states like Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana etc you could probably get in with a 25. I'm from Arkansas and know quite a few people who have gotten in with that score and lower.
 
Hi,

Going to Puerto Rico is your best bet. See, PR schools accept lower MCAT scores because it is expected that most students coming out of PR will not do well in the MCAT. The reason for this is because the MCAT is written in English and most Puerto Ricans may speak the language but do not have full dominion of the English language. It has not to do with the content of the exam itself but rather with the language in which it is written. A 25 would be very good here. I am attending San Juan Bautista Medical School in PR, currently MS3, and I speak English quite well but it takes me longer to fully process the questions when they are in English. Just learn sufficient Spanish to get by and you'll be fine. Remember all 4 of the medical schools in PR are LCME accredited. University of PR School of Medical Sciences Campus is public and very cheap (under $8,000 per semester), San Juan Bautista School of Medicine (around $10,000 per semester), Caribbean Central University School of Medicine (a bit more expensive than that), and Ponce School of Medicine (the most expensive of the 4). Still even the most expensive school down here is way cheaper than any medical school in the US. Good luck.
 
I currently attend San Juan Bautista School of Medicine in PR as MS3 and must say that about a 1/3 of students MS1 are from the US. Not too many students from US applied when I was admitted but still about 10 students out of 73 is not bad.
 
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