•••quote:•••Originally posted by Samoa:
•I've been hesitant to share too much about my degrees or profession, for a lot of reasons I won't go into here. But the rest I'll be happy to share. MCAT 33-35O, UGPA 2.5, GGPA 3.4 at a very high-ranked, competitive school for that program, PBGPA 3.85, should go up to 3.9 after this semester. I can only take 1-2 classes per semester, so I'll have about 20 hours after this semester. I've had an enviable career so far, and my colleagues think I'm completely nuts to want to go to med school.•••••Samoa, let me talk a bit about myself because I see a bit of similarities, then give you some advices.
Like you, I had a very enviable career. I was an engineer and got paid tons. In fact, the money I saved up in two years from that job has supported me for 3 years since I left to take on this medicine thing. My ex-boss told me to reconsider it, because this was equivalent to a financial suicide. But I was determined, so quit I did. It took me 2 years to get my candidacy up to a respectable shape. I did a lot of volunteer work and took some classes. I love my volunteer work and work hard at it, but clearly some aspects of community work and volunteering were not suited to my strengths. While I shot up the ladder as an engineer, I almost got fired by one of my volunteer supervisors. Anyways, I applied in 2000 with good GPA (3.6) but bad MCAT (27). I got rejected everywhere. I improved my MCAT to 30 and reapplied in 2001. So far, I've got 4 interviews and 0 acceptance, although I'm still holding out some hope. These 3 years have been rough; in a lot of ways, I feel like I'm naturally good in engineering and I have to work hard to become good in some aspects of medicine. But I am absolutely passionate about medicine, and I'll reapply if I don't get in this year. I think it's important to follow through on things you feel passionate about.
As for your situation, what you need to do is get your postbac classes up to about 35 hours with ~3.8 gpa. Seeing that your undergrad GPA is 2.5, you'll never get your GPA above 3.0 unless you take like 90 PB hours (not worth it). But you don't necessarily have to. I've come across so many posts here by people who've gotten into med schools after making amends through excellent postbac work following washed-up undergrad years. By the way, you may still have a chance to get your BCPM GPA up to a respectable level. You'll also need to take on some clinical activities (volunteering). You say that your MCATs will expire. I think it's more like each school sets different expiration date. I think it's 3 years for many schools, while it's longer for others. I could be wrong about this, but check to see if you really need to retake your MCAT. As long as you'll have about 20 mainly 2nd and 3rd-tier schools to apply to, you may not need to retake it because your scores are really good. If this is not the case, then forget what I said. Finally, you'll really need to sell yourself in the next application as a person who's turned things around, rededicated himself to his goals and will not give up, but now feels really well-prepared to take on med schools as evidenced by good grad gpa and even better pb gpa. I'm sure that a majority of schools will continue to be unforgiving of your undergrad gpa but that some schools will take notice of your subsequent performance and forgive you for your lack of focus years and years ago.
