my story

[wjs010]

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so, I know it's basically in the middle of the cycle and people are nervous, but I just wanted to give a small amount of perspective/advice.

I was a terrible student when I started college. I was able to BS in high school and still make good grades, but I didn't transition well. I screwed around my chances ( or so I thought) of becoming a doctor after just the first quarter in college. I made a 2.7 in that quarter I believe. So after playing around for the first two years and having <3.0 GPA, I decided to try for PT school. I had some stumbling blocks and was working quite a lot, but I graduated with a 2.9 sGPA ( for PT school...it's a little different for DO school) and like a 3.1 cGPA. I had a gut feeling that I should not continue to pursue PT when my original goal was medicine.

Soooo, I decided to go back to school several months after graduating. I had been accepted into a PT school but decided not to attend, so I could go back to school. I didn't even know about DO at the time ( this was early 2012) so I just wanted to re take a bunch of classes and apply MD. During my "post bach" is when I found out about SDN and DO. A whole knew world opened up. So, with the blessing of retakes, I was on a roll from summer 2012 all the way into basically August 2013 after I took the MCAT.

I had to retake a bunch of sciences ( I literally had like 8 C's that I had to retake and made A's) and I had to take a new class that I heard was difficult: organic. lol. Needless to say, I tried hard in that class and did well. After almost a year of retakes and reading about how to apply, I finished up the spring quarter of 2013. Then AACOMAS opened up. It calculated my GPA as: 3.71 sGPA / 3.56 cGPA, which was a huge jump from before when I didn't know about DO and retakes.

I applied and studied for a few months over the summer and took the MCAT in Aug 2013. I scored poorly, even lower than my practice exams, but after all the stress, I didn't care. I still applied. I have had multiple acceptances, and it was all because DO was very forgiving with the grade replacement.

I just wanted to say that , with hard work, you can definitely do it. Look at my original GPA's. They were absolutely appalling. I even had several W's on my transcript, but I worked it out by having ~ 34 hours of all A's during my post bach. So, keep your heads in the game and don't give up...you can do it, so keep trying!

*BTW, I wrote this pretty fast, so it isn't perfect. If you have questions just let me know!

 

[MJS4878]

so, I know it's basically in the middle of the cycle and people are nervous, but I just wanted to give a small amount of perspective/advice.

I was a terrible student when I started college. I was able to BS in high school and still make good grades, but I didn't transition well. I screwed around my chances ( or so I thought) of becoming a doctor after just the first quarter in college. I made a 2.7 in that quarter I believe. So after playing around for the first two years and having <3.0 GPA, I decided to try for PT school. I had some stumbling blocks and was working quite a lot, but I graduated with a 2.9 sGPA ( for PT school...it's a little different for DO school) and like a 3.1 cGPA. I had a gut feeling that I should not continue to pursue PT when my original goal was medicine.

Soooo, I decided to go back to school several months after graduating. I had been accepted into a PT school but decided not to attend, so I could go back to school. I didn't even know about DO at the time ( this was early 2012) so I just wanted to re take a bunch of classes and apply MD. During my "post bach" is when I found out about SDN and DO. A whole knew world opened up. So, with the blessing of retakes, I was on a roll from summer 2012 all the way into basically August 2013 after I took the MCAT.

I had to retake a bunch of sciences ( I literally had like 8 C's that I had to retake and made A's) and I had to take a new class that I heard was difficult: organic. lol. Needless to say, I tried hard in that class and did well. After almost a year of retakes and reading about how to apply, I finished up the spring quarter of 2013. Then AACOMAS opened up. It calculated my GPA as: 3.71 sGPA / 3.56 cGPA, which was a huge jump from before when I didn't know about DO and retakes.

I applied and studied for a few months over the summer and took the MCAT in Aug 2013. I scored poorly, even lower than my practice exams, but after all the stress, I didn't care. I still applied. I have had multiple acceptances, and it was all because DO was very forgiving with the grade replacement.

I just wanted to say that , with hard work, you can definitely do it. Look at my original GPA's. They were absolutely appalling. I even had several W's on my transcript, but I worked it out by having ~ 34 hours of all A's during my post bach. So, keep your heads in the game and don't give up...you can do it, so keep trying!

*BTW, I wrote this pretty fast, so it isn't perfect. If you have questions just let me know!

Congratulations! It's quite an inspiring story. Have you decided which school you will be attending ?

 

[wjs010]

Congratulations! It's quite an inspiring story. Have you decided which school you will be attending ?

Thanks a lot 😀 yes I'll be going to GA-PCOM unless I get lucky and state school is interested lol.

 

[Hvilledoc]

so, I know it's basically in the middle of the cycle and people are nervous, but I just wanted to give a small amount of perspective/advice.

I was a terrible student when I started college. I was able to BS in high school and still make good grades, but I didn't transition well. I screwed around my chances ( or so I thought) of becoming a doctor after just the first quarter in college. I made a 2.7 in that quarter I believe. So after playing around for the first two years and having <3.0 GPA, I decided to try for PT school. I had some stumbling blocks and was working quite a lot, but I graduated with a 2.9 sGPA ( for PT school...it's a little different for DO school) and like a 3.1 cGPA. I had a gut feeling that I should not continue to pursue PT when my original goal was medicine.

Soooo, I decided to go back to school several months after graduating. I had been accepted into a PT school but decided not to attend, so I could go back to school. I didn't even know about DO at the time ( this was early 2012) so I just wanted to re take a bunch of classes and apply MD. During my "post bach" is when I found out about SDN and DO. A whole knew world opened up. So, with the blessing of retakes, I was on a roll from summer 2012 all the way into basically August 2013 after I took the MCAT.

I had to retake a bunch of sciences ( I literally had like 8 C's that I had to retake and made A's) and I had to take a new class that I heard was difficult: organic. lol. Needless to say, I tried hard in that class and did well. After almost a year of retakes and reading about how to apply, I finished up the spring quarter of 2013. Then AACOMAS opened up. It calculated my GPA as: 3.71 sGPA / 3.56 cGPA, which was a huge jump from before when I didn't know about DO and retakes.

I applied and studied for a few months over the summer and took the MCAT in Aug 2013. I scored poorly, even lower than my practice exams, but after all the stress, I didn't care. I still applied. I have had multiple acceptances, and it was all because DO was very forgiving with the grade replacement.

I just wanted to say that , with hard work, you can definitely do it. Look at my original GPA's. They were absolutely appalling. I even had several W's on my transcript, but I worked it out by having ~ 34 hours of all A's during my post bach. So, keep your heads in the game and don't give up...you can do it, so keep trying!

*BTW, I wrote this pretty fast, so it isn't perfect. If you have questions just let me know!

Congrats!.. I have been following your posts throughout the cycle.. Great story!... 🙂 Hope that I land an acceptance this cycle.

 

[desdes]

so, I know it's basically in the middle of the cycle and people are nervous, but I just wanted to give a small amount of perspective/advice.

I was a terrible student when I started college. I was able to BS in high school and still make good grades, but I didn't transition well. I screwed around my chances ( or so I thought) of becoming a doctor after just the first quarter in college. I made a 2.7 in that quarter I believe. So after playing around for the first two years and having <3.0 GPA, I decided to try for PT school. I had some stumbling blocks and was working quite a lot, but I graduated with a 2.9 sGPA ( for PT school...it's a little different for DO school) and like a 3.1 cGPA. I had a gut feeling that I should not continue to pursue PT when my original goal was medicine.

Soooo, I decided to go back to school several months after graduating. I had been accepted into a PT school but decided not to attend, so I could go back to school. I didn't even know about DO at the time ( this was early 2012) so I just wanted to re take a bunch of classes and apply MD. During my "post bach" is when I found out about SDN and DO. A whole knew world opened up. So, with the blessing of retakes, I was on a roll from summer 2012 all the way into basically August 2013 after I took the MCAT.

I had to retake a bunch of sciences ( I literally had like 8 C's that I had to retake and made A's) and I had to take a new class that I heard was difficult: organic. lol. Needless to say, I tried hard in that class and did well. After almost a year of retakes and reading about how to apply, I finished up the spring quarter of 2013. Then AACOMAS opened up. It calculated my GPA as: 3.71 sGPA / 3.56 cGPA, which was a huge jump from before when I didn't know about DO and retakes.

I applied and studied for a few months over the summer and took the MCAT in Aug 2013. I scored poorly, even lower than my practice exams, but after all the stress, I didn't care. I still applied. I have had multiple acceptances, and it was all because DO was very forgiving with the grade replacement.

I just wanted to say that , with hard work, you can definitely do it. Look at my original GPA's. They were absolutely appalling. I even had several W's on my transcript, but I worked it out by having ~ 34 hours of all A's during my post bach. So, keep your heads in the game and don't give up...you can do it, so keep trying!

*BTW, I wrote this pretty fast, so it isn't perfect. If you have questions just let me know!

Thank you for sharing what a great story I wish you the best

 

[TXKnight]

so, I know it's basically in the middle of the cycle and people are nervous, but I just wanted to give a small amount of perspective/advice.

I was a terrible student when I started college. I was able to BS in high school and still make good grades, but I didn't transition well. I screwed around my chances ( or so I thought) of becoming a doctor after just the first quarter in college. I made a 2.7 in that quarter I believe. So after playing around for the first two years and having <3.0 GPA, I decided to try for PT school. I had some stumbling blocks and was working quite a lot, but I graduated with a 2.9 sGPA ( for PT school...it's a little different for DO school) and like a 3.1 cGPA. I had a gut feeling that I should not continue to pursue PT when my original goal was medicine.

Soooo, I decided to go back to school several months after graduating. I had been accepted into a PT school but decided not to attend, so I could go back to school. I didn't even know about DO at the time ( this was early 2012) so I just wanted to re take a bunch of classes and apply MD. During my "post bach" is when I found out about SDN and DO. A whole knew world opened up. So, with the blessing of retakes, I was on a roll from summer 2012 all the way into basically August 2013 after I took the MCAT.

I had to retake a bunch of sciences ( I literally had like 8 C's that I had to retake and made A's) and I had to take a new class that I heard was difficult: organic. lol. Needless to say, I tried hard in that class and did well. After almost a year of retakes and reading about how to apply, I finished up the spring quarter of 2013. Then AACOMAS opened up. It calculated my GPA as: 3.71 sGPA / 3.56 cGPA, which was a huge jump from before when I didn't know about DO and retakes.

I applied and studied for a few months over the summer and took the MCAT in Aug 2013. I scored poorly, even lower than my practice exams, but after all the stress, I didn't care. I still applied. I have had multiple acceptances, and it was all because DO was very forgiving with the grade replacement.

I just wanted to say that , with hard work, you can definitely do it. Look at my original GPA's. They were absolutely appalling. I even had several W's on my transcript, but I worked it out by having ~ 34 hours of all A's during my post bach. So, keep your heads in the game and don't give up...you can do it, so keep trying!

*BTW, I wrote this pretty fast, so it isn't perfect. If you have questions just let me know!

You are going to rock PCOM man. Best of lucks!

 

[wjs010]

Congrats!.. I have been following your posts throughout the cycle.. Great story!... 🙂 Hope that I land an acceptance this cycle.

Keep plugging along. Whatever you do, do it early. You're gonna get in!

 

[wjs010]

You are going to rock PCOM man. Best of lucks!

Hey buddy thanks a lot . I am sure you will too. 😀

 

[stlrams22]

so, I know it's basically in the middle of the cycle and people are nervous, but I just wanted to give a small amount of perspective/advice.

I was a terrible student when I started college. I was able to BS in high school and still make good grades, but I didn't transition well. I screwed around my chances ( or so I thought) of becoming a doctor after just the first quarter in college. I made a 2.7 in that quarter I believe. So after playing around for the first two years and having <3.0 GPA, I decided to try for PT school. I had some stumbling blocks and was working quite a lot, but I graduated with a 2.9 sGPA ( for PT school...it's a little different for DO school) and like a 3.1 cGPA. I had a gut feeling that I should not continue to pursue PT when my original goal was medicine.

Soooo, I decided to go back to school several months after graduating. I had been accepted into a PT school but decided not to attend, so I could go back to school. I didn't even know about DO at the time ( this was early 2012) so I just wanted to re take a bunch of classes and apply MD. During my "post bach" is when I found out about SDN and DO. A whole knew world opened up. So, with the blessing of retakes, I was on a roll from summer 2012 all the way into basically August 2013 after I took the MCAT.

I had to retake a bunch of sciences ( I literally had like 8 C's that I had to retake and made A's) and I had to take a new class that I heard was difficult: organic. lol. Needless to say, I tried hard in that class and did well. After almost a year of retakes and reading about how to apply, I finished up the spring quarter of 2013. Then AACOMAS opened up. It calculated my GPA as: 3.71 sGPA / 3.56 cGPA, which was a huge jump from before when I didn't know about DO and retakes.

I applied and studied for a few months over the summer and took the MCAT in Aug 2013. I scored poorly, even lower than my practice exams, but after all the stress, I didn't care. I still applied. I have had multiple acceptances, and it was all because DO was very forgiving with the grade replacement.

I just wanted to say that , with hard work, you can definitely do it. Look at my original GPA's. They were absolutely appalling. I even had several W's on my transcript, but I worked it out by having ~ 34 hours of all A's during my post bach. So, keep your heads in the game and don't give up...you can do it, so keep trying!

*BTW, I wrote this pretty fast, so it isn't perfect. If you have questions just let me know!

Congratulations on the acceptance. I wasn't very optimistic for you based on your low MCAT, but knowing the rest of your application and story it doesn't surprise me you got accepted.

 

[wjs010]

Congratulations on the acceptance. I wasn't very optimistic for you based on your low MCAT, but knowing the rest of your application and story it doesn't surprise me you got accepted.

Thanks a lot.

 

[user3]

Congrats on your acceptances...but to warn anyone else with 23's reading this, their mcat still very seriously limited their opportunities, even at the newest schools (ie denials from ACOM, WCU, and LMU).

 

[Temperature101]

Congrats on your acceptances...but to warn anyone else with 23's reading this, their mcat still very seriously limited their opportunities, even at the newest schools (ie denials from ACOM, WCU, and LMU).

I am shocked this is coming from you!

 

[edgerock24]

Congrats. Good story

 

[bcurtis]

Congrats!

 

[Isha2018]

Congratulations! You certainly demonstrated the beauty of retakes in the AACOMAS. I personally benefitted greatly from them. My sGPA without a couple of retakes would have been a 3.28.

You also showed how a student can really mature after college, especially once he/she decides to faithfully pursue medicine. Bravo!

 

[wjs010]

Congratulations! You certainly demonstrated the beauty of retakes in the AACOMAS. I personally benefitted greatly from them. My sGPA without a couple of retakes would have been a 3.28.

You also showed how a student can really mature after college, especially once he/she decides to faithfully pursue medicine. Bravo!

Thanks a lot. And thanks to everyone else. I really appreciate it. I had some people help me last year. Literally I was reading someone else's post just like this one, and of course i was just wishing I could fast forward to this November when I was accepted.

People from the Facebook group and sdn helped me a ton. I can't imagine where i would be if I hadn't gotten lucky and researched on my own the best ways to get back into the med school track. I certainly couldn't rely on my advisor.. He is awesome, but i was a kinesiology major so he was trying to get me to go to PT school lol. He looked at my transcript when I was going back to school and said "organic chemistry, you're crazy." Lol.

I am just a regular Joe who is determined enough to get stuff done. I'm not a genius. I'm smart, and I know how to be hungry for knowledge . I know a lot of you here may feel like your acceptance day will never come, but take one look at my transcript and you'll know it's possible. It just takes a lot of introspection and dedication. Again, good luck to all of you. I'm always open for questions if anybody has them 😀

 

[user3]

I am shocked this is coming from you!

Well I still would have said they'd have gotten in somewhere with their stats, but in all likelihood to only the newer schools. I was surprised at their rejections from LMU ACOM and WCU, but they did manage to get into PCOM Ga and LUCOM. The hit and miss pattern of the accepts/rejects at even the newest schools showed that the 23 still hurt (although was not lethal in the end).

 

[TXKnight]

Well I still would have said they'd have gotten in somewhere with their stats, but in all likelihood to only the newer schools. I was surprised at their rejections from LMU ACOM and WCU, but they did manage to get into PCOM Ga and LUCOM. The hit and miss pattern of the accepts/rejects at even the newest schools showed that the 23 still hurt (although was not lethal in the end).

To be fair, once you get an interview you most likely passed the numbers game. So, in the grand scheme, having a 23 going into the interview will not help a lot but most likely can't hurt you bad either. If you get a rejection after an int it's because you didn't convince the adcom in person. It can happen to anyone,even the best intervIewees out there, it just takes bad 5 minutes of an interview.

 

[user3]

To be fair, once you get an interview you most likely passed the numbers game. So, in the grand scheme, having a 23 going into the interview will not help a lot but most likely can't hurt you bad either. If you get a rejection after an int it's because you didn't convince the adcom in person. It can happen to anyone,even the best intervIewees out there, it just takes bad 5 minutes of an interview.

Not really true. Pre-interview, candidates sit on different areas of a "ladder", as LizzyM says. Some high, some low. The interview can move you up or down the ladder towards acceptance, WL or rejection. Those that come in with lower numbers generally have to do better in the interview to be accepted.

Also, as Goro has written, it is common following an interview for an adcom to say "nice guy/gal, but low MCAT/low gpa concerns me"-- and subsequently waitlist or reject the applicant.

 

[SpartanWolverine]

Not really true. Pre-interview, candidates sit on different areas of a "ladder", as LizzyM says. Some high, some low. The interview can move you up or down the ladder towards acceptance, WL or rejection. Those that come in with lower numbers generally have to do better in the interview to be accepted.

Also, as Goro has written, it is common following an interview for an adcom to say "nice guy/gal, but low MCAT/low gpa concerns me"-- and subsequently waitlist or reject the applicant.

Totally agree, because I feel like it's happened to me. However, I was wondering... why the **** do you invite me for an interview if my low stat is a dealbreaker from the beginning?! Either it's poor communication between people inviting/accepting, or they expected something truly mind-boggling from the interview. I don't appreciate spending many hours preparing and close to $1,000 traveling if there was no chance from the beginning.

 

[TXKnight]

Totally agree, because I feel like it's happened to me. However, I was wondering... why the **** do you invite me for an interview if my low stat is a dealbreaker from the beginning?! Either it's poor communication between people inviting/accepting, or they expected something truly mind-boggling from the interview. I don't appreciate spending many hours preparing and close to $1,000 traveling if there was no chance from the beginning.

Totally agree, because I feel like it's happened to me. However, I was wondering... why the **** do you invite me for an interview if my low stat is a dealbreaker from the beginning?! Either it's poor communication between people inviting/accepting, or they expected something truly mind-boggling from the interview. I don't appreciate spending many hours preparing and close to $1,000 traveling if there was no chance from the beginning.

Sure, I don't doubt what the ADCOM's say, though different schools must have different acceptance formulas/profiles; TOURO-NY comes to mind, where MCAT is king. But because there are schools that have rates of 80% acceptance post-interview, that alone tells me it's a personality match for many schools -more than numbers per se. That is, you got an ii with whatever numbers you have, then the acceptance is yours to loose. So my guess is that is it more-less school specific?

 

[BestDoctorEver]

Sure, I don't doubt what the ADCOM's say, though different schools must have different acceptance formulas/profiles; TOURO-NY comes to mind, where MCAT is king. But because there are schools that have rates of 80% acceptance post-interview, that alone tells me it's a personality match for many schools -more than numbers per se. That is, you got an ii with whatever numbers you have, then the acceptance is yours to loose. So my guess is that is it more-less school specific?

I was arguing the same thing with my friend the other day. MSUCOM does not have an interview process and they are one of best DO schools out there. Is the interview that significant in the admission process? It is up to someone after getting accepted without an interview to visit the school so you know whether that school fits you or not... It is not fair to invite someone and then says: "He/she is a nice guy/gal, but the MCAT or GPAs is (are) so low. Therefore, we have to reject him/her." The admission process can be a huge financial burden for many.

Edit: As you say TXKnight if a school has 80/20 acceptance to rejection ratio, I can understand that. But I heard there are schools that have 50/50 or 40/60 ratio. That tells me that they already know that there are a bunch of people they will reject regardless the outcome of their interviews.

 

[wjs010]

I was arguing the same thing with my friend the other day. MSUCOM does not have an interview process and they are one of best DO schools out there. Is the interview that significant in the admission process? It is up to someone after getting accepted without an interview to visit the school so you know whether that school fits you or not... It is not fair to invite someone and then says: "He/she is a nice guy/gal, but the MCAT or GPAs is (are) so low. Therefore, we have to reject him/her." The admission process can be a huge financial burden for many.

The schools wouldn't gain anything from that financially. They do that anyway with the secondary 😀

 

[BestDoctorEver]

The schools wouldn't gain anything from that financially. They do that anyway with the secondary 😀

I was not talking about financial gain that a school would get from that. Obviously they will get none... My question was: Is it fair to have a 40/60 acceptance to rejection ratio policy when you know that you will reject a bunch of applicants regardless of the outcome of the interviews?

 

[TXKnight]

I was not talking about financial gain that a school would get from that. Obviously they will get none... My question was: Is it fair to have a 40/60 acceptance to rejection ratio policy when you know that you will reject a bunch of applicants regardless of the outcome of the interviews?

It's a good question. But which students get to stay and which ones stay out?...we don't know, we all have a chance. So the more people they interview, maybe the better for us? I mean the more interviews the more chances to win the big price Dunno..lol this is getting complicated