Hey guys, I'm a 24 yr. old female who grad. from a private university with a 2.97 gpa. I have been taking upper level bio classes for the past year with A's
Problem #1 for you is having a sub-3.0 overall GPA. So having a recent string of A's is a very encouraging sign. The next step would be to see if you can keep those A's up under a full undergrad science load.
and applied to a post bacc program and didnt get in.
Based on your later comments you didn't apply to a postbac: you applied to an SMP. HUGE DIFFERENCE. Postbac is undergrad; SMPs are grad. See comments about not getting in below.
I didnt apply to any other OOS b/c with a low income fam. I cant afford it.
Having a low income family makes college
more affordable to you than to middle class students. Being low income means you're eligible for
grants, in addition to federal loans. Paying out of pocket for school is not what you should be trying to do. Think long term: you're going to be at least $150k in debt for med school, even if you go to your state school. Assume you'll borrow the equivalent of a year's worth of med school to do an SMP. Assume you'll borrow about half a year's worth of med school for each additional year of undergrad.
My mcat was pretty low. I plan to retake it in june/july.
Don't do it. Don't retake the MCAT until you can score 32+. Against a 3.0-ish undergrad GPA, you
need a killer MCAT, or you're not going to med school. No SMP can make you look like a great candidate against a low GPA
and a low MCAT.
I'm just frustrated b/c SMP's are supposed to give second chances, yet no one is giving me one! I dont know what to do...
Of course you didn't get into an SMP: your GPA is under 3.0, and your MCAT is bad. SMPs accept students that are
already very likely to get get into med school, or the school's post-SMP stats suffer. An SMP is what you do when every darned thing in your med school app is shiny and pretty
except for your impossible-to-repair-because-you-can't-budge-it-anymore undergrad GPAs. Before you can reasonably expect an SMP to accept you, and more importantly, before you can reasonably expect an SMP to get you into medical school, you need to fix your assets until there's nothing left you can fix.
Which means:
1. Take more undergrad coursework until your GPA is as far above 3.0 as mathematically possible. I expect you should do 2 more years, mostly upper-div science.
2. Retake the MCAT
but not until you can score way over 30.
3. Keep doing clinical volunteering and cherry pick any interesting ECs you can do without threatening your GPA or MCAT.
4. Aggressively seek 4+ faculty recommenders who will say
to your face that they will write a strong positive letter for you.
5. Draft your personal statement
for med school now. You need as many adult physicans or faculty to review this as you can; if you have it in hand, then it's easy to get early review.
Then apply to med school. If you don't get in, then do an SMP.
Best of luck to you.
