Please help, don't know what to do. no flaming please! niceness all around.

[surag]

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Ok so here's my deal...some may recognize me because I'm repeating my concerns that came about several years ago.

Basically here's the deal. I took the MCATs got a 37...in 2006) 2009 i believe is basically the last year for me to apply.

I have a 2.76 GPA.

I got into LMU-DCOM and I also got into postbacc program at Drexel.

I am hopeful to become a neurosurgeon. I am definitely smart and capable of doing whatever I choose sans the crummy GPA.

However, I don't know if I should do the DO route apply to allo nsg by killing the USMLE and hope to get in or the DO neurosurgery whichever I can get into.

Or should I just do the postbacc, do well enough to get into med school(if that is possible, and from what I hear drexel takes its top students at the program every year) and go to an allo med school? is this too big a risk to take?

does "a bird in hand is worth two in the bush" apply here? Please do help me out!

 

[drizzt3117]

Ok so here's my deal...some may recognize me because I'm repeating my concerns that came about several years ago.

Basically here's the deal. I took the MCATs got a 37...in 2006) 2009 i believe is basically the last year for me to apply.

I have a 2.76 GPA.

I got into LMU-DCOM and I also got into postbacc program at Drexel.

I am hopeful to become a neurosurgeon. I am definitely smart and capable of doing whatever I choose sans the crummy GPA.

However, I don't know if I should do the DO route apply to allo nsg by killing the USMLE and hope to get in or the DO neurosurgery whichever I can get into.

Or should I just do the postbacc, do well enough to get into med school(if that is possible, and from what I hear drexel takes its top students at the program every year) and go to an allo med school? is this too big a risk to take?

does "a bird in hand is worth two in the bush" apply here? Please do help me out!

I'd just go to LMU, it's not any easier to become a neurosurgeon (which isn't easy) from a low tier allo school than it is from an osteo school. In both cases, it will be difficult (but not completely impossible).

 

[Habeed]

I'd just go to LMU, it's not any easier to become a neurosurgeon (which isn't easy) from a low tier allo school than it is from an osteo school. In both cases, it will be difficult (but not completely impossible).

Why do you say this? At least for an allopathic neurosurgery spot, the odds are vastly lower for an "independent applicant" (D.O. or FMG) than for an allopathic applicant. I'm not entirely sure how competitive those D.O. neurosurgery spots are. I was also in this situation, and I went with the postbacc option, and got into allopathic. Guess I'll post here when/if I match neurosurgery in 4 years.

 

[TyrKinase]

The SMPs like Drexel aren't a sure thing (I should know as a student in the IMS program). Also, many (most?) medical students will change their mind about their future specialty sometime down the line.

That being said, DOs have their own match which may make the competition for a neurosurgery spot less intense. With a sub-3.0 GPA, even good grades in an SMP doesn't guarantee that you'll land an allopathic seat. I'd go with LMU-DCOM, work your tail off and go from there.

 

[surag]

Why do you say this? At least for an allopathic neurosurgery spot, the odds are vastly lower for an "independent applicant" (D.O. or FMG) than for an allopathic applicant. I'm not entirely sure how competitive those D.O. neurosurgery spots are. I was also in this situation, and I went with the postbacc option, and got into allopathic. Guess I'll post here when/if I match neurosurgery in 4 years.

when you got into postbacc how did you get into the med school? was it through the postbacc program?

I've looked at statistics and heard of anecdotal evidence of students from DO schools getting into allo residencies. basically maybe 1 or 2 ever year get into an allo residency program.

also, I've looked into the DO programs and I cannot tell how good or bad the programs are. there are a lot of flame wars here regarding that so I can't tell how much bias or knowledge goes into what is said. It would be nice to see links to articles about DO nsg residencies or any other 'affirmative' information regarding this subject.

please keep posting!

 

[drizzt3117]

I don't know how competitive the DO neurosurgery matches are, IIRC there are nine programs with ~27 spots, compared to 171 spots in allo programs. I have no idea how many DOs try to match into these DO neurosurgery programs, so it might be in your best interest to do some research.

It's definitely pretty rare to match into the MD match as a DO for neurosurgery, I believe only 3 people did it last year. Neurosurgery is also a field that is basic science research drive, so finding opportunities for good neurosurgery basic science research could be challenging as there are not too many medical centers that have neurosurgery programs.

If you're interested, here's the match list for 2008 for neurosurgery.

http://uncleharvey.com/index.php/wiki/2008_Match_List_for_Neurological_Surgery/

 

[Perrotfish]

If it was me I'd go to medical school while I could. As you said, bird in the hand. With most SMPs best case you'll be starting 2 years from now, if you get in at all (with a 2.76 that's tough), which would also mean retaking the MCAT and killing it AGAIN. Worst case you'll either screw up in the SMP and kill your app for all time or find out that you really average a 33 on the MCAT. Don't risk it, there are plenty of DO neurosurgeons.

Also, the odds that you're going to want neurosurgery in 4 years are slim to none.

 

[surag]

thanks perrotfish. where are you attending right now.

also what do you find interesting in medicine.

I'm curious as to what information is out there regarding medical specialties/careers and lifestyles/work done.

 

[Habeed]

I don't know how competitive the DO neurosurgery matches are, IIRC there are nine programs with ~27 spots, compared to 171 spots in allo programs.

There are 4389 osteopathic medical student seats. A ratio of 162 osteopaths for every Osteopathic neuro slot. There's 17769 allopathic slots, for a similar ratio of 103 : 1. It looks like it might be harder to match into an osteopathic NS slot, but more research is needed. As for D.O.s going into an allopathic slot : the success rate for a U.S. graduate was 88%, while for a D.O. graduate it was 38%.

Doing some more calculating : it seems that out of all osteopaths, the 1 : 133 got into neurosurg. Out of all allopaths, 1 : 115 actually got into neurosurg. It is a very reasonable assumption to assume that as a group, allopathic medical students have greater ability to ace standardized tests. (I did NOT say smarter, for those D.O. students who read this). From this data, it appears that the competition is similar no matter which track you take.

Yes, I did SMP...and got in, although I got another acceptance to a state school that I will take instead. My GPA was 3.4 and my MCAT was a 36...so maybe my advice doesn't apply in your situation.

Here's where some data is : http://uncleharvey.com/index.php?ACT=23&fid=18&aid=55

Bottom Line : go Osteopathic this year. The time you lose pursuing a spot in allopathic might not ever pay off, even if you got in. I should mention that I did SMP because I didn't finish my medical pre-requisites and get my transcript corrected (my school falsely reported several Fs in courses I in fact had completed) until last May. Since I was going to lose a year anyways, I figured I should try to guarantee a spot in allopathic.

But, I also applied to SGU this year (accepted) and to three osteopathic schools (didn't finish the secondaries). I would have gone osteopathic had that been the only acceptance I was holding.

 

[drizzt3117]

There are 4389 osteopathic medical student seats. A ratio of 162 osteopaths for every Osteopathic neuro slot. There's 17769 allopathic slots, for a similar ratio of 103 : 1. It looks like it might be harder to match into an osteopathic NS slot, but more research is needed. As for D.O.s going into an allopathic slot : the success rate for a U.S. graduate was 88%, while for a D.O. graduate it was 38%.

Yes, I did SMP...and got in, although I got another acceptance to a state school that I will take instead. My GPA was 3.4 and my MCAT was a 36...so maybe my advice doesn't apply in your situation.

Here's where some data is : http://uncleharvey.com/index.php?ACT=23&fid=18&aid=55

Be aware that if you can't get a 40 on the MCAT (yes, I didn't, but I only studied for 3 weeks...I think it is reasonable to suspect that my 'std test taking talent' level would let me hit 40) then you're unlikely to 0wn the boards, either. Studying helps, but there is an irreplacable component of
talent most likely dependent on how your brain is wired, that influences performance on standardized testing.

Bottom Line : go Osteopathic this year. The time you lose pursuing a spot in allopathic might not ever pay off, even if you got in. I should mention that I did SMP because I didn't finish my medical pre-requisites and get my transcript corrected (my school falsely reported several Fs in courses I in fact had completed) until last May. Since I was going to lose a year anyways, I figured I should try to guarantee a spot in allopathic.

But, I also applied to SGU this year (accepted) and to three osteopathic schools (didn't finish the secondaries). I would have gone osteopathic had that been the only acceptance I was holding.

My guess would be a significantly lower percentage of DO students are trying to match into neurosurgery, but the OP would probably have to research that. Also keep in mind while there certainly is a correlation between the MCAT and the boards in terms of performance, they're very different tests, in that the boards require a much broader knowledge base and studying and a detailed understanding of basic science and pathophysiology plays a bigger role in your score. While your knowledge base plays a role in your MCAT score, I scored in the top 1% without any actual review of material and hadn't finished my prereqs when I took it, I'm sure that isn't possible with the USMLE. One downside to DO is that you have to study (and take) separately for the COMLEX and USMLE, even though they are pretty similar.

I agree the OP should take the DO acceptance and run with it.

 

[Habeed]

erm...drizzt you're responding to my post before I was done editing it 🙁

 

[surag]

I'm sorry but i find it hard to believe that you can score in the top 1% in the mcats-which is basically what I got or higher and not have reviewed your material and not take the pre reqs.

This isn't just an IQ test..while much of it requires intelligence you can't just get the answers correct without having scientific knowledge. The only way I see it is if you scored a 14+ on verbal and a 11 on the other two. Even then it shows mastery of subject to a certain extent.

In any case, mentioning your prowess doesnt help any1, makes us all want to question you and pisses some off. Thanks though for all the help.

 

[surag]

and dude... to Habeed

you're comments are near ridiculous. I'm not even going to question your 36 which is totally cool but. a 40? who are you fooling here? If you look at national statistics no one even scores over a 43. Every year its 0% 0% .01%.

Go look it up yourself.

a 37 puts me at about 99%

And yes I am totally capable of killing the boards-not that im offended by what you said but simple math shows that your comments on getting a 40 are ridiculous.

now lets take my 37 and look at the numbers. a 37 puts me at 98.8% or something like that. making it 99 makes it simpler for all of us. out of 60,000 that makes me 1 of 600 students who scored a 37 or higher. now there are approximately 16000 students who get into medical school. if you assume that the vast majority of the 600 get into medical school then 600/16000 puts u at 96.25% of accepted medical students who would score a 37.

now this link http://www.medfriends.org/step1_estimator/USMLE Step 1 Score Percentile Conversion.htm

I hope you can read charts 😉

shows that a 90% is about a 240. 97% is about 260.

IF YOU BASE IT OFF WHAT YOU SAID ABOUT MCAT-STEP1 CORRELATION.

then someone with a high MCAT score in the range of 36+ should do significantly well.

The ridiculous need for a 40 is not only silly but sounds pretty unbelievable.

Please don't post rubbish like that. It only makes this thread that much more useless. Me even posting a reply adds to the waste...but I had to so that people don't make the mistake of assuming they need a magical 40 to succeed!

 

[drizzt3117]

and dude... to Habeed

you're comments are near ridiculous. I'm not even going to question your 36 which is totally cool but. a 40? who are you fooling here? If you look at national statistics no one even scores over a 43. Every year its 0% 0% .01%.

Go look it up yourself.

a 37 puts me at about 99%

And yes I am totally capable of killing the boards-not that im offended by what you said but simple math shows that your comments on getting a 40 are ridiculous.

now lets take my 37 and look at the numbers. a 37 puts me at 98.8% or something like that. making it 99 makes it simpler for all of us. out of 60,000 that makes me 1 of 600 students who scored a 37 or higher. now there are approximately 16000 students who get into medical school. if you assume that the vast majority of the 600 get into medical school then 600/16000 puts u at 96.25% of accepted medical students who would score a 37.

now this link http://www.medfriends.org/step1_estimator/USMLE Step 1 Score Percentile Conversion.htm

I hope you can read charts 😉

shows that a 90% is about a 240. 97% is about 260.

IF YOU BASE IT OFF WHAT YOU SAID ABOUT MCAT-STEP1 CORRELATION.

then someone with a high MCAT score in the range of 36+ should do significantly well.

The ridiculous need for a 40 is not only silly but sounds pretty unbelievable.

Please don't post rubbish like that. It only makes this thread that much more useless. Me even posting a reply adds to the waste...but I had to so that people don't make the mistake of assuming they need a magical 40 to succeed!

The people that match into neurosurgery from lower tier schools have astronomically high board scores. The average is already 240. I don't know how the COMLEX translates to scores, though. The people I know who managed to match into surgical specialities from lower tier MD programs (but still good ones, like VCU) that were less competitive than neurosurgery all had 260+ which is in the 99th percentile.

37 on the MCAT is a nice score but it isn't in the 99% percentile.

In any case, people are trying to give you advice. If you don't want to take it, that's fine. I don't have to help you and would be better off doing something productive anyways.

 

[phospho]

and dude... to Habeed

you're comments are near ridiculous. I'm not even going to question your 36 which is totally cool but. a 40? who are you fooling here? If you look at national statistics no one even scores over a 43. Every year its 0% 0% .01%.

Go look it up yourself.

a 37 puts me at about 99%

And yes I am totally capable of killing the boards-not that im offended by what you said but simple math shows that your comments on getting a 40 are ridiculous.

now lets take my 37 and look at the numbers. a 37 puts me at 98.8% or something like that. making it 99 makes it simpler for all of us. out of 60,000 that makes me 1 of 600 students who scored a 37 or higher. now there are approximately 16000 students who get into medical school. if you assume that the vast majority of the 600 get into medical school then 600/16000 puts u at 96.25% of accepted medical students who would score a 37.

now this link http://www.medfriends.org/step1_estimator/USMLE Step 1 Score Percentile Conversion.htm

I hope you can read charts 😉

shows that a 90% is about a 240. 97% is about 260.

IF YOU BASE IT OFF WHAT YOU SAID ABOUT MCAT-STEP1 CORRELATION.

then someone with a high MCAT score in the range of 36+ should do significantly well.

The ridiculous need for a 40 is not only silly but sounds pretty unbelievable.

Please don't post rubbish like that. It only makes this thread that much more useless. Me even posting a reply adds to the waste...but I had to so that people don't make the mistake of assuming they need a magical 40 to succeed!

so you basically start a thread with the stupid ass title "Please help, don't know what to do. no flaming please! niceness all around" - essentially begging people to respond, and then you go off on Habeed for giving you his opinion? Whether you agree with him or not, the least you can do is thank him for going out of his way to respond👎

 

[surag]

habeed posted it as if it were fact. if someone were to come by this thread and read it they would only be misled. not that they should trust anything on a thread per se but still it can happen.

making extraordinary claims like that can only do harm for anyone who doesnt understand whats going on. It pisses me off when people add what they consider fact when its really an opinion and not disclosed as such.

anyway, yes i was asking for a response and i wanted to see what people had to say about the TOPIC I ASKED about.

you're comments aren't needed either...not exactly helping.

 

[drizzt3117]

habeed posted it as if it were fact. if someone were to come by this thread and read it they would only be misled. not that they should trust anything on a thread per se but still it can happen.

making extraordinary claims like that can only do harm for anyone who doesnt understand whats going on. It pisses me off when people add what they consider fact when its really an opinion and not disclosed as such.

anyway, yes i was asking for a response and i wanted to see what people had to say about the TOPIC I ASKED about.

you're comments aren't needed either...not exactly helping.

Who's the one being ridiculous? Someone telling you to get a high board score? or the person with the 2.76 GPA who wants to be a neurosurgeon? If that isn't presumptuous, I don't know what the hell is. Good luck with that.

 

[surag]

dude..


a 37 ranges from 97.9 to 98.7. its between almost a 98 and a 99....the difference between a 37 and 39 isn't statistically that relevant nor important.

we're talking about change here. the difference between a 35 and a 39 is significant. and even then...a student with a 35 certainly can do well on the step1.

I know a friend who rotated in my lab this summer who's at the carribbean. he ended up there because he didn't have stellar MCATs. his step 1 was a 290.

trust me when i say I didn't believe him. But then he also had interviewed with my boss(a neurosurgeon) who happened to bring it up in front of him because he had asked about doing his residency at my school. My boss basically said that it was the highest score he had ever seen during his career...now unless its a huge conspiracy and both are lying I'm inclined to believe him.

I honestly do not know how good a 290 is but I do know its insane. So take it for what it is. I'm not making it up either. But no need to believe me.

Anyway, from what I also know...MCATs are not good indicators of Step scores. they never were. If anything the biological sciences are the closest to it. But the STEP from WHAT I know are so dependent on information that a poor MCAT performance does not mean some1 will always study poorly in life...they can always improve over time. Intelligence is harder to improve with time...

anyway, my questions seem to have been answered to the best possibility so I'm satisfied as can be. I dont think I'll get anymore relevant answers.

 

[surag]

no1 told me to get a high board score. However, the person seemed to imply if you don't get a 40 on the MCAT then forget it. Thats ridiculous.

I hope this isnt amazing news to you but a poor undergrad GPA really has nothing to do with one's ability to become a neurosurgeon granted he can do very well in med school.

I have a 2.76 GPA...on its own its reasons for concern to say that I could succeed well enough in med school to become a neurosurgeon. However, a 37 certainly shows something else. So clearly theres a disconnect in my ability and what I've performed thus far. I had significant family issues and troubles that led me to do very poorly during the last 2 years of my college.

My initial concern with your comments were that you claimed to have studied very little and not have taken pre-reqs for the MCAT and yet have scored so highly. Whether you got a 39 or not is not my concern. making unnecessary claims(who asked you anyway? certainly not from my threads or OP) about how u did it with little preparation throws doubt into anything else you say. The test requires a significant amount of material knowledge to even succeed. To get a certain score(and i pick arbitrarily a score here of 33) you need to know significant amount of material. To score higher is when aptitude becomes more important. NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND. So its very very difficult for me to believe what you said.

Also, the other poster did not say that I should get a high board score, merely that some how not getting a 40 precludes you or throws incredible doubt on step1 success which I found to be ridiculous.

Now whos' ridiculous?

 

[drizzt3117]

no1 told me to get a high board score. However, the person seemed to imply if you don't get a 40 on the MCAT then forget it. Thats ridiculous.

I hope this isnt amazing news to you but a poor undergrad GPA really has nothing to do with one's ability to become a neurosurgeon granted he can do very well in med school.

I have a 2.76 GPA...on its own its reasons for concern to say that I could succeed well enough in med school to become a neurosurgeon. However, a 37 certainly shows something else. So clearly theres a disconnect in my ability and what I've performed thus far. I had significant family issues and troubles that led me to do very poorly during the last 2 years of my college.

My initial concern with your comments were that you claimed to have studied very little and not have taken pre-reqs for the MCAT and yet have scored so highly. Whether you got a 39 or not is not my concern. making unnecessary claims(who asked you anyway? certainly not from my threads or OP) about how u did it with little preparation throws doubt into anything else you say. The test requires a significant amount of material knowledge to even succeed. To get a certain score(and i pick arbitrarily a score here of 33) you need to know significant amount of material. To score higher is when aptitude becomes more important. NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND. So its very very difficult for me to believe what you said.

Also, the other poster did not say that I should get a high board score, merely that some how not getting a 40 precludes you or throws incredible doubt on step1 success which I found to be ridiculous.

Now whos' ridiculous?

The MCAT isn't a test that requires a deep understanding of material. It's simply not, especially now that it's computer based. The boards are very different, because they're deeply knowledge based. You can get passages in very few functional areas and if they're areas you happen to be good in, you'll do well. I DID take the MCAT without much studying and not having finished all the prereqs. That's pretty common for people in formal postbac programs, and the average score at my program is 33, so it's not uncommon that people do pretty good given those conditions.

You missed my entire point, which you actually STATED YOURSELF in your last post. My point was while the MCAT is significantly correlated with step performance, the two tests are very different and getting a high MCAT doesn't mean you can expect to score well on the step. IMO, your ability to learn and retain material during med school is going to be a much better predictor of step scores, and UG GPA is at least a proxy for how hard people work and how well they study, even though it probably doesn't have a perfect correlation.

I also said in my post that the people I know from lower tier schools that matched into competitive surgical specialties scored 260+ on the USMLE.

Obviously a 37 MCAT and 2.7 GPA show that something weird is going on. Unfortunately the fact that the 2.7 GPA is over a long period of time will likely lead programs and schools to assume you had a good day when you took the MCAT and assume the body of work over a longer period of time is more representative.

Anyways, I think the posters that replied to your posts gave you good advice in saying that you should take your acceptance and run with it. If you're right in your estimation of your own abilities, with hard work, you should be able to do well in school and score well on the USMLE/COMLEX and maybe you'll be able to match into neurosurg, who knows. As I said earlier, good luck with that.

 

[drizzt3117]

for the record, I don't think you have to have a 40 MCAT, or a high MCAT, or feel your MCAT really makes much difference one way or the other.

Yes a 97+% MCAT is nice but it is difficult to take a candidate seriously who wants to go into one of the most competitive sub-specialities in medicine (into which most top allo schools match 1-2 people per class) who is averaging less than a B in every class for their entire college career.

 

[Habeed]

Surag : sorry for upseting you. I misread a post above, and if you'll notice, I retracted what I said about a 40.

Point is, it looks like you have almost as good a shot overall doing D.O. as waiting a year or two for allopathic.

 

[surag]

thanks for the replies and im glad we clarified everything.

To the poster who was referring to my poor college grades...

so do residencies actually still see my undergrad GPA? I thought med school basically was a fresh start and since I got into the DO program basically I could just do really well then and thats what they'd see....so they'll also see my undergrad GPA? Thats what I seem to get from what you said, correct me if I'm wrong. That seems very unfair! Med school is all they should look at if you ask me.

 

[drizzt3117]

thanks for the replies and im glad we clarified everything.

To the poster who was referring to my poor college grades...

so do residencies actually still see my undergrad GPA? I thought med school basically was a fresh start and since I got into the DO program basically I could just do really well then and thats what they'd see....so they'll also see my undergrad GPA? Thats what I seem to get from what you said, correct me if I'm wrong. That seems very unfair! Med school is all they should look at if you ask me.

I meant med schools, not residency programs. This is not to say that individual programs won't ask about your UG GPA but it won't be their focus most likely.

 

[braluk]

Stop the bickering. If you guys have something constructive to say, then say it. If not, don't post. This includes everyone in this thread.