Need Advice

[tempod]

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I graduated with a business degree almost 10 years ago. Worked and decided to pursue a career in healthcare. I've taken 2 years of science courses and have a science gpa of 3.68 but my overall gpa is a 2.82 (with aacomas grade replacement). My MCAT score is a 26.
I've volunteered at a hospital, worked in a research lab, presented posters but nothing major.

I am interested in osteopathic manipulations but I don't think I will get into any D.O. schools because of my gpa. I was about to apply for podiatry school but there is a crisis going on with a residency shortage. Do you think I have a chance at D.O. school? What do you all think about chiropractors?

 

[LJA1]

In my novice opinion, getting that cGPA >3.0 will give you a decent shot of a DO acceptance; granted your MCAT is not too old and your EC's, essays, LOR's, and interview skills are solid. Look through the following threads for some motivation:

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=675835

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=675835

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showpost.php?p=5184261&postcount=192

 

[tempod]

thank you!

 

[hallowmann]

thank you!

Like LJA1 said, you need to bring that cGPA above a 3.0. If you do that, you'll make it above the cutoffs. Your sGPA is really good, so as long as you can get schools to actually look at your app and see that your low grades are over a decade old, you should be good. Look into taking a semester/year of grade replacement to bring up your cGPA. Retake the Fs & Ds & low Cs, and you should be fine. When you do the replacements, make sure you are taking equivalent courses with equal or greater credit hours than your first attempts.

 

[MuggleMeow]

I graduated with a business degree almost 10 years ago. Worked and decided to pursue a career in healthcare. I've taken 2 years of science courses and have a science gpa of 3.68 but my overall gpa is a 2.82 (with aacomas grade replacement). My MCAT score is a 26.
I've volunteered at a hospital, worked in a research lab, presented posters but nothing major.

I am interested in osteopathic manipulations but I don't think I will get into any D.O. schools because of my gpa. I was about to apply for podiatry school but there is a crisis going on with a residency shortage. Do you think I have a chance at D.O. school? What do you all think about chiropractors?

if your gpa is a 2.82 from 10 years ago and youve gotten a 3.68 over the past two years....im going to be the odd one here and say you dont need to improve your gpa, just keep taking classes. i say this only because i have a friend who graduated with a BS in business and a gpa of a 2.6. 10 years later after a stint in the military, he spent 2 years taking nothing but the prereqs and ended up with a 3.8 gpa for those two years. he got accepted into a top 25 MD school regardless of the fact that his overall gpa was about a 2.9. his final two years in school proved to admissions committees that he had matured over that 10 year period and that gpa was forgiven. improving your gpa cant hurt but at the same time i think bringing your mcat up a couple points would help a lot more. gpa's from 10 years ago may look bad, but as long as youre able to prove to an admissions committee that you have changed, matured, and found something you're passionate in, i dont think trying to redeem grades you got 10 years ago is completely necessary. it cant hurt but i wouldnt retake classes you took 10 years ago just to fix ur gpa. if anything spend a year taking nothing but upper division science classes and load your schedule. prove to them that you can handle it and that youve changed and i still think you have a good chance

 

[hallowmann]

if your gpa is a 2.82 from 10 years ago and youve gotten a 3.68 over the past two years....im going to be the odd one here and say you dont need to improve your gpa, just keep taking classes. i say this only because i have a friend who graduated with a BS in business and a gpa of a 2.6. 10 years later after a stint in the military, he spent 2 years taking nothing but the prereqs and ended up with a 3.8 gpa for those two years. he got accepted into a top 25 MD school regardless of the fact that his overall gpa was about a 2.9. his final two years in school proved to admissions committees that he had matured over that 10 year period and that gpa was forgiven. improving your gpa cant hurt but at the same time i think bringing your mcat up a couple points would help a lot more. gpa's from 10 years ago may look bad, but as long as youre able to prove to an admissions committee that you have changed, matured, and found something you're passionate in, i dont think trying to redeem grades you got 10 years ago is completely necessary. it cant hurt but i wouldnt retake classes you took 10 years ago just to fix ur gpa. if anything spend a year taking nothing but upper division science classes and load your schedule. prove to them that you can handle it and that youve changed and i still think you have a good chance

Its not impossible for OP to get an acceptance as is, but its in OP's best interest to take a few retakes to bump the cGPA above a 3.0. About half the DO programs have a 3.0 cutoff, meaning almost all of them screen pre-secondary for 3.0 in both cGPA and sGPA.

Anyone who actually sees OP's app, will probably look at it favorably, but OP needs to get past the screen in order for anyone to actually see the app.

 

[tempod]

The thing is I've already taken 2 years of post bac science courses. I've also taken the MCAT. I don't want to go back and take more classes. The classes I received F's in were from 10 years ago and they were not science classes. What do you all think about my MCAT score? I am going to apply and see what happens. THanks everyone

 

[hallowmann]

The thing is I've already taken 2 years of post bac science courses. I've also taken the MCAT. I don't want to go back and take more classes. The classes I received F's in were from 10 years ago and they were not science classes. What do you all think about my MCAT score? I am going to apply and see what happens. THanks everyone

Your MCAT score is a perfectly fine mid-range MCAT score. Your sGPA, like I said before is great. The only issue is that your cGPA is below the screen cutoffs for a bunch of the programs.

You can apply to the other ones and you should be able to get at least one acceptance. I personally would recommend against applying to the schools that will screen you out based on your cGPA though. These include VCOM, OSUCOM, RVUCOM, WVSOM, CUSOM, DMU, KCUMB, Touro-CA, and Touro-NV. Marian has a similar cutoff, but only based on the last 120 credits, and Nova has a 3.0 cutoff, but makes exceptions for non-trads.

 

[BuddyTheElf]

I graduated with a business degree almost 10 years ago. Worked and decided to pursue a career in healthcare. I've taken 2 years of science courses and have a science gpa of 3.68 but my overall gpa is a 2.82 (with aacomas grade replacement). My MCAT score is a 26.
I've volunteered at a hospital, worked in a research lab, presented posters but nothing major.

I am interested in osteopathic manipulations but I don't think I will get into any D.O. schools because of my gpa. I was about to apply for podiatry school but there is a crisis going on with a residency shortage. Do you think I have a chance at D.O. school? What do you all think about chiropractors?

No. Just don't do it.

 

[tempod]

No. Just don't do it.

HAHAHAHA!!! this is great! But just curious, why do you say this?

 

[darklabel]

HAHAHAHA!!! this is great! But just curious, why do you say this?

I don't think he is knocking down the profession, merely that it isn't a good back up option to DO schools since they are two completely different things.

While DO and MD and basically interchangeable, Chiropractic (DC) is a completely different field.

However, if OP has a genuine interest in it, it doesn't hurt to research the field, just don't see it as a back up to DO schools.