no direction

[trynapass]

I'm in my junior year of undergrad, with about a 2.7. I obviously messed up my college years but I have always wanted to become a doctor and was hoping to apply to DO schools and possibly the Caribbean. My ECs are pretty good and I have been scoring high on the MCAT and am taking it in June. The only thing that's holding me back is my GPA so I was looking into some postbacc programs but a lot of them are for career changes. Of course, I would love to just apply to med school and go right after I graduate, but I really don't think I have a shot. I'm just looking for options and ideas of where to go from here and if anyone has stories of their experience, I'd love to hear!

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[osckey]

I'm in my junior year of undergrad, with about a 2.7. I obviously messed up my college years but I have always wanted to become a doctor and was hoping to apply to DO schools and possibly the Caribbean. My ECs are pretty good and I have been scoring high on the MCAT and am taking it in June. The only thing that's holding me back is my GPA so I was looking into some postbacc programs but a lot of them are for career changes. Of course, I would love to just apply to med school and go right after I graduate, but I really don't think I have a shot. I'm just looking for options and ideas of where to go from here and if anyone has stories of their experience, I'd love to hear!

I know several people with 2.6 gpas and lower that got into the Caribbean. So you'd probably get in somewhere in the Caribbean. I don't advise you do that but a friend of mine just matched anesthesiology in ACGME from SGU so what the hell do I know.

You'd probably need a long term GPA repair to indicate consistent change and resilience. SMPs are no joke. Do well and doors might open, do poorly and it's curtains. Use a solid MCAT score to get your foot into a decent SMP if your GPA doesn't already exclude you.

 

[inky]

I'm in my junior year of undergrad, with about a 2.7. I obviously messed up my college years but I have always wanted to become a doctor and was hoping to apply to DO schools and possibly the Caribbean. My ECs are pretty good and I have been scoring high on the MCAT and am taking it in June. The only thing that's holding me back is my GPA so I was looking into some postbacc programs but a lot of them are for career changes. Of course, I would love to just apply to med school and go right after I graduate, but I really don't think I have a shot. I'm just looking for options and ideas of where to go from here and if anyone has stories of their experience, I'd love to hear!

I graduated with a < 3.0 undergrad GPA. I took time off and completed a MS program. I will be starting an MD/PhD program in the US this year. It is possible but you need to do your research (like reading the MANY threads on this forum that cover this topic) and be willing to take time off after you graduate. If you have specific questions feel free to message me.

 

[Goro]

Your fastest path to being a doctor will be to retake all F/D/C science coursework and apply to DO schools.

Don't even think about Carib diploma mills unless you really like the the idea of being unemployable and deeply in debt.

I'm in my junior year of undergrad, with about a 2.7. I obviously messed up my college years but I have always wanted to become a doctor and was hoping to apply to DO schools and possibly the Caribbean. My ECs are pretty good and I have been scoring high on the MCAT and am taking it in June. The only thing that's holding me back is my GPA so I was looking into some postbacc programs but a lot of them are for career changes. Of course, I would love to just apply to med school and go right after I graduate, but I really don't think I have a shot. I'm just looking for options and ideas of where to go from here and if anyone has stories of their experience, I'd love to hear!

 

[osckey]

http://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Advance-Data-Tables-2016_Final.pdf (see page 7, Table 4)

A decade or more ago, the Caribbean was a reasonable path to medicine It isnt the quality of the education in the Caribbean , which is questionable, that is the issue here at all. It is solely the reported (or discernible) match rate of the the graduates and the underlying (and mostly unreported) attrition rate for matriculants which leads to what I call the success rate. That is, if you start medical school, what are the chances you will get a residency slot. I have discussed this at length is several other threads (links below). Essentially, in US MD schools, 94% of students graduate in 5 years going to 97% in 8 years (accounts for dual degree students). Graduating US MD seniors match into residency at 94% with likely 2%-4% getting SOAP slots. Lets say 97% total get positions. So if you start a US MD school, you have an overall 94% chance of earning your degree and getting a residency slot, thus allowing you to eventually practice medicine and pay your loans back. It should also be noted that about 75% of graduating seniors get into one of their top three ranked choices.

Bloomberg has cited (see link below) that Ross, for example, has about 52% of their students who complete the program and earn a degree. Of these about 85% receive a residency slot. SGU has previously reported about 30% of it graduates go to non-match slots via SOAP, off-cycle, or other mechanisms which essentially means what is ever left open at the end of the match. So if you start Ross, for example, you have an under 45% chance of earning a degree and getting any residency slot. Big risk for several hundred thousands of dollars in loans and less than a 45% chance of practicing medicine.

Additionally, in the table in the link at the top of this post there are some other numbers to be noted that tend to be overlooked: the withdrew and no rank, which are not included of the match/unmatched percentages discussed above (NRMP mixes two totals and two percentage groupings) These are applicants who apply for residency but either withdrew from selection (often for not passing boards) or did not complete the process by submitting a ranking list (often cause they did not get an interview). For the US Seniors, withdrew was 2% and no rank was 0.3%. Adding that to unmatched a total of 7.9% of the applicants who originally applied did not match into a spot. For IMG-US Citizens, if we take all who applied to residency but did not get a slot either by unmatched, withdrew, or no rank, it comes to a whopping 61.5% or nearly 8 times the US percentages.

Just a decade ago, going to the Caribbean was a reasonable path to medicine. Now with the growing number of US-MD graduates and the lack of any real growth in residency slots, squeezes the off-shore grads. With the debt that a student must risk for the losing odds on getting a residency slot, I can no longer recommend off shore schools.


http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...an-medical-schools-use-federal-funds-loophole
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/thr...pre-med-matriculate-in-the-caribbean.1183556/
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/us-md-for-320k-or-img-for-100k.1130221/
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/good-chance-at-getting-into-st-georges-should-i-do-it-3-4-overall-gpa-3-55-science-gpa.1133776/#post-16443492

I agree and have always shared this view on the subject.