Pre-reqs (post-bac) completed at numerous schools?

[letitgo]

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Hi all,

I'm not applying until 2007, but I'm on kind of a weird track toward med school and was wondering if anyone had any insight into it. I took exactly half of my pre-med classes at my undergrad institution (Ivy League - got A's in all, graduated last year), now I'm taking some at Northwestern (informally), and I'm moving back east in the summer. So I'm probably going to take my second semester of Orgo at Bryn Mawr and then a few upper-level courses wherever I happen to live next year. Does all this school-hopping look bad, or is my GPA the only thing that really matters? I guess I'm ultimately trying to get into a top school if I can (unless I bomb the MCAT, which is definitely possible). On a side note, I'm killing myself at Northwestern to get A's - I don't know where all these grade-inflated post-bac programs are, but I really wish I were in one.

Okay, that's it. Thanks. 🙂

 

[Law2Doc]

Hi all,

I'm not applying until 2007, but I'm on kind of a weird track toward med school and was wondering if anyone had any insight into it. I took exactly half of my pre-med classes at my undergrad institution (Ivy League - got A's in all, graduated last year), now I'm taking some at Northwestern (informally), and I'm moving back east in the summer. So I'm probably going to take my second semester of Orgo at Bryn Mawr and then a few upper-level courses wherever I happen to live next year. Does all this school-hopping look bad, or is my GPA the only thing that really matters? I guess I'm ultimately trying to get into a top school if I can (unless I bomb the MCAT, which is definitely possible). On a side note, I'm killing myself at Northwestern to get A's - I don't know where all these grade-inflated post-bac programs are, but I really wish I were in one.

Okay, that's it. Thanks. 🙂

I doubt the school hopping will hurt, but you may need to explain why. All the moving around probably hurts your chances of proving residency for state schools, if that is an issue.
I wouldn't get hung up on the "top school" concept, though -- getting A's is but one component they will look at. Apply broadly and once you actually have acceptances in hand, then you can decide. There are a surprising number of folks on SDN with good stats who seem to have boxed themselves out of acceptances this year by only applying to the top 20 schools (per US News research rankings). And if you perform solidly at a non-"top school" and do well on step 1, you can end up in virtually the same residency track in 4 years.

 

[njbmd]

Hi all,

I'm not applying until 2007, but I'm on kind of a weird track toward med school and was wondering if anyone had any insight into it. I took exactly half of my pre-med classes at my undergrad institution (Ivy League - got A's in all, graduated last year), now I'm taking some at Northwestern (informally), and I'm moving back east in the summer. So I'm probably going to take my second semester of Orgo at Bryn Mawr and then a few upper-level courses wherever I happen to live next year. Does all this school-hopping look bad, or is my GPA the only thing that really matters? I guess I'm ultimately trying to get into a top school if I can (unless I bomb the MCAT, which is definitely possible). On a side note, I'm killing myself at Northwestern to get A's - I don't know where all these grade-inflated post-bac programs are, but I really wish I were in one.

Okay, that's it. Thanks. 🙂

Hi there,
As a member of an admissions committee, what "looks bad" is a very poor GPA and a mediocre MCAT score. Those "look" the worse followed by several low MCAT scores and a poor GPA. If you are doing well in your coursework, are getting a good solid knowledge base that you can apply on the MCAT, then you should be OK (provided the rest of your application is competitive). Believe me, we can figure out grade inflation very easily.

njbmd 🙂

 

[letitgo]

Thanks for your replies...I'm definitely going to apply to a range of schools - I know how very competitive this is. I'd of course be happy to go anywhere.

 

[kate_g]

I took exactly half of my pre-med classes at my undergrad institution (Ivy League - got A's in all, graduated last year), now I'm taking some at Northwestern (informally), and I'm moving back east in the summer. So I'm probably going to take my second semester of Orgo at Bryn Mawr and then a few upper-level courses wherever I happen to live next year.

You didn't mention this, but if you've got credits from a number of schools, you might also have a number of grading systems - semesters, quarters, one "credit" or "unit" per hour of instruction vs. one per course... If so, then make sure you keep track as you go along as to what the equivalencies are in order to make sure you've actually got all your prereqs fulfilled. I dunno how the AMCAS app works, but they might let you translate all the courses into one system when you enter them. At the very least check if each transcript will have some indication of how much instruction time equals one "credit" or "unit". Hopefully somewhere in the system the policies at different universities are known and accounted for, but it would suck to get rejected on the first pass just because it looks like a bunch of your prereqs were only 1hr/week courses or something.

 

[r0b0tafflicti0n]

Hi there,
As a member of an admissions committee, what "looks bad" is a very poor GPA and a mediocre MCAT score. Those "look" the worse followed by several low MCAT scores and a poor GPA. If you are doing well in your coursework, are getting a good solid knowledge base that you can apply on the MCAT, then you should be OK (provided the rest of your application is competitive). Believe me, we can figure out grade inflation very easily.

njbmd 🙂

These might sound like dumb questions, but here goes:

What is a "very poor" or "poor" GPA, by med school admissions standards? I mean. . .I have a pretty good idea of this, I guess, but are people even applying with GPAs below the 3.0 range?

And what exactly do you mean by "grade inflation"? Would an example be, say, taking a hard course at an easier school just to get the A? Or am I missing something entirely (maybe it's a good thing that I don't know what you mean!).

 

[Law2Doc]

These might sound like dumb questions, but here goes:

What is a "very poor" or "poor" GPA, by med school admissions standards? I mean. . .I have a pretty good idea of this, I guess, but are people even applying with GPAs below the 3.0 range?

And what exactly do you mean by "grade inflation"? Would an example be, say, taking a hard course at an easier school just to get the A? Or am I missing something entirely (maybe it's a good thing that I don't know what you mean!).

The average GPA of matriculants at allo schools is a 3.5. The further you go below that, the worse it looks. Some schools will screen you out of consideration altogether below a 3.0 so I would consider that to be in the "very poor" range. That makes stuff in the 3.0 - 3.2ish range as "poor" in terms of chances for allo admission (not sure if this was what njbmd meant, but this would be my barometer; anyone feel free to disagree with me). It is pretty unrealistic to expect admission to med school with below a 3.0, unless most of the lower grades are many years and many programs ago, you have a current track record of exemplary academic performance (in postbac, SMP, other graduate or some combo of those), you have a strong MCAT, and you have some pretty significant nonacademic accomplishments.

Grade inflation is where the school either scales everyones scores up routinely, or uses a curve but keeps the class average at a higher mark. For instance if one school decided that the average was going to be curved around a B+ (such that the average student gets a B+), while other schools make the average a C+, then the former school would be grade inflated. While this happens a little bit everywhere, there have been more eggregious examples. A few decades ago, Harvard got slammed when it was revealed that grade inflation was so prevalent that over 90% of one graduating class was graduating "with honors". Other schools have had less publicized fiascos. The point of the MCAT to some extent is to gauge this, because it is a cross school yardstick -- if A students at one school and C students at another routinely get the equivalent scores on the MCAT, you have a sense that the former school is grade inflating. It is hoped that adcoms take this kind of data into account.