Post-Bacc or SMP Recent Grad

[Torsten22]

Hi Everyone,
I am a recent graduate (May 2017) with a Biology degree. I have completed all of my pre-req courses for pre-med and my sGPA is 2.9 "mainly Bs and couple Cs" my biggest hit was my senior year, I took a lot of upper-level courses combined with other issues that tanked my GPA from 3.3

so what have I been doing since graduation? mainly Clinical and non-clinical volunteer work since I hold couple certification (EKG, CNA, etc..). I am also studying for the MCAT with the intention of taking it March 2018.

My second pitfall is my lack of undergrad research. I'm working on finding research lab that will take me for the 2018 year.
I'm not sure for someone in my case should I consider SMPs which think it's near impossible that I would be accepted with that low GPA or a Post-bacc would be a good approach.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, especially things to focus on during and post the application process to a couple of these programs out there.

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[deleted709753]

I think the option to give you best chance at getting accepted into a school at the earliest time is doing a competitive SMP. If you can score an mcat of 30+ (i don't know the current equivalent--510?), you will have a chance at getting into a SMP. Ideally, you would want to shoot for 35+ but getting 30+ should make you competitive for SMPs. Taking extra postbac courses will not move your gpa that much and honestly even though the gpa trend is really upward, it doesn't matter that much when you're that low.
I graduated with a 2.69 ugpa, then did postbac for 3 years to bump it up to 3.0, then did a smp and now i'm a ms2 in a md school.

I speak my honest opinion from experience. Your best bet at getting into an md school as fast as possible is getting acceptance to a competitive smp, then doing really well in it. That path will also put you in a good position for DO schools (I had much success at DO). Doing more postbac isn't time/money effective at this point.

A few programs I would look into if I were you: georgetown smp, cincinnati smp, rfu bms, evms med masters, toledo

 

[DelayedGratification]

which SMP did you do if you don't mind me asking @20Hopeful16

 

[deleted709753]

which SMP did you do if you don't mind me asking @20Hopeful16

I did the cincy smp a few years ago. I highly recommend it. In hindsight, I'm glad I had to do an SMP because the extra head start is helping me tremendously in the pre-clinical curriculum.

 

[DelayedGratification]

I did the cincy smp a few years ago. I highly recommend it. In hindsight, I'm glad I had to do an SMP because the extra head start is helping me tremendously in the pre-clinical curriculum.

great to hear! Definitely looking into it currently, did you apply as an ohio resident after the SMP? Or did you apply during the SMP

 

[deleted709753]

great to hear! Definitely looking into it currently, did you apply as an ohio resident after the SMP? Or did you apply during the SMP

I applied as my home state residency (not OH) during the program, and right after the program ended. Applied twice. Technically I could have applied with OH residency after my one year of living in OH but I wanted my home state residency b/c I had a better shot there. And technically there are like 6 MD schools in ohio and me completing the cincinnati smp in theory would have given me some familiarity with those schools even if I didn't claim OH residency.

 

[DelayedGratification]

I applied as my home state residency (not OH) during the program, and right after the program ended. Applied twice. Technically I could have applied with OH residency after my one year of living in OH but I wanted my home state residency b/c I had a better shot there. And technically there are like 6 MD schools in ohio and me completing the cincinnati smp in theory would have given me some familiarity with those schools even if I didn't claim OH residency.

thank you so much for the help! How cutthroat were the classes?

 

[deleted709753]

thank you so much for the help! How cutthroat were the classes?

The classes were not cutthroat in that people are going after each other. But they were tough in that you're competing against highly motivated students M1 students and you're trying to beat the M1 average.