Need advice on what I should do next

[Yourse1f]

Hello all,

I am currently a senior and just finished what could be my last semester. However, I wanted guidance on what I should do next to maximize my chances of getting into medical school. Currently, I have a cGPA of 3.28 and sGPA of 3.32. I understand my GPA's are on the lower end and are due to me having a very bad semester sophomore year where I lost a very close friend suddenly and got extremely sick due to undiagnosed Lymes disease (my cGPA is low because I took college classes while in sophomore year of high school when I had no idea what I wanted to do in life and got a couple D's and a C). That bad semester resulted in me getting 2 D's and a C+ in genetics, bio 3 and Orgo 2. Since then, I have gotten 4 B's right after the bad semester and straight A's since then in upper-level sciences (A&P 1/2, Mam Phys, Mam Phys Lab, Neuroscience, Endocrinology, Micro Bio, Cell Bio, Cancer Bio, Virology) with my last 3 semesters specifically being straight A's with a heavy course load of all upper level sciences with ascending semester GPA's of 3.63, 3.86 and 4.0 respectively (4.0 semester was only 2 classes since it was my last semester to graduate and 2 classes was all I needed to do so, so that semester might be moot, in hindsight I would've taken a couple more but cant change that now). The high grades since my bad semester account for my last 52 credits. I also managed to score a 509 on the MCAT.

My question however is, do I take one more semester of full course load before I graduate which would include upper-level sciences I am personally interested in taking but never got a chance to take and not necessarily helpful for med school (Marine Ecology, Entomology, Advanced Cell Bio, Nutrition and maybe a 300 level Astronomy course) which if I were to score all A's in I would bring my cGPA to a 3.34 and my sGPA up to a 3.41, or do I cut my losses and file for graduation in the spring and take a gap year to beef up my EC's, maybe retake MCAT and apply next year to mostly if not all DO schools (I understand my GPA's are not realistic for MD). I am mostly concerned my trend since that bad semester isn't long enough to prove im a different person since that semester and I should take another 14 credits to not only boost my GPA's a bit, but also extend that trend some more. On the flip side taking another semester is another $5000 and theres always the chance I dont hit all A's to which then im pretty much where I started, so what should I do!? (Alternatively are my marks bad enough that I should do a post bacc, SMP or masters?)

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[M3_SixSpeed]

I'm a current M1, non traditional student who did an SMP.
Not sure what others think but from my understanding raising your GPA before you get the degree is key. You can always do a post bacc smp after but I promise you it'll cost more than 5k l. Mine was 58K but hey it got me where I need to be.

I don't think your stats are horrible. I think you'd get into DO school especially if you get those A or A- moving forward. And a 509 is competitive for DO school. My buddy got in with 3.2 GPA 505 MCAT.

Again that's my understanding. Just providing a little something so your post gets traction and more knowledgeable others can chime in.

Also share what your EC are.

 

[crimsonly]

Regardless of how much you can bring up your GPA, ending with an upward trend is the most important thing (a few semesters of As if possible)- ECs can only fix so much. You can either do that by dragging out your graduation taking science classes that you feel confident will get you As or enroll in a post bacc during your interrim years. It's important to ask yourself if you're mentally in a place where you will succeed trudging through a few more semesters of rigorous coursework or if you need a break first. I did the latter, didn't take classes for 6mo-1yr and it worked better for me.

509 MCAT can get you in the door at DOs schools and some MD schools but doesn't pair well with a lower GPA. If you can retake and get it 515+, that would be ideal.

 

[Yourse1f]

I'm a current M1, non traditional student who did an SMP.
Not sure what others think but from my understanding raising your GPA before you get the degree is key. You can always do a post bacc smp after but I promise you it'll cost more than 5k l. Mine was 58K but hey it got me where I need to be.

I don't think your stats are horrible. I think you'd get into DO school especially if you get those A or A- moving forward. And a 509 is competitive for DO school. My buddy got in with 3.2 GPA 505 MCAT.

Again that's my understanding. Just providing a little something so your post gets traction and more knowledgeable others can chime in.

Also share what your EC are.

Thanks so much for your reply, I think given what you and the other poster said I will take one more semester before I submit for graduation to try and boost those GPA's a little higher. I know I saw @Goro mention you need at least 30 credit hours to show reinvention and my last 40 credit hours are straight A's in upper-level sciences (8 of those credit hours are summer courses however not that I think that makes too much difference since those were accelerated upper-level sciences and as a result very difficult) so adding another semester probably couldn't hurt. I used to be predental so many of my EC's are geared towards that (few hundred shadowing hours with a dentist, hundreds of hours of paid dental assisting experience, about 50 hours of volunteering my dental assisting skills at a church to provide free dental care to those in need and a few hundred hours volunteering at a dental clinic in an underserved area), but I also have a few hundred hours volunteering at a children's hospital and hospice, and I just started shadowing a DO physician, hence why I wanted to take a gap year anyway to beef up my EC's for med school as opposed to dental school.