Recent college grad looking to go on to Med School

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collegegrad

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Hello all,
I just want to let you guys know that I am new to this site and have found this to be very interesting and informative. Well, like the title states, I recently graduated from college c/o 2007. I have a BS in bio with a 3.025 cumulative GPA. I got a 24 on the MCATs. I recently started volunteering at a hospital close to my home. I have no research experience. My question is that do you guys think that I stand a chance to get into a DO school (I am thinking about applying to CCOM). Or should I go on to grad school so I can improve my GPA since it is somewhat low?

Also with these stats, should I apply to a carribean school (SGU is one of my choices right now)?

Any comments would be much appreciated.

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Grad school won't improve your GPA, but postbac work would. Your stats are marginal for DO schools but if you apply broadly you may have success. DO > Carribean, though. Retake the MCAT.
 
Hello all,
I just want to let you guys know that I am new to this site and have found this to be very interesting and informative. Well, like the title states, I recently graduated from college c/o 2007. I have a BS in Molecular Biochemistry and Biophysics with a 3.025 cumulative GPA. I got a 24 on the MCATs. I recently started volunteering at a hospital close to my home. I have no research experience. My question is that do you guys think that I stand a chance to get into a DO school (I am thinking about applying to CCOM). Or should I go on to grad school so I can improve my GPA since it is somewhat low?

Also with these stats, should I apply to a carribean school (SGU is one of my choices right now)?

Any comments would be much appreciated.

Agree with the prior poster -- nothing grad school level will affect the GPA. An undergrad postbac would. To make yourself competitive for a US school, you would likely want to improve the undergrad level GPA and retake the MCAT once you were scoring in your target range on full length practice tests. Can you do this? -- we really can't answer for you. You probably can get into a carribean school with your stats, but honestly, if your goal is to practice in the US, you create a harder road for yourself attending med school offshore, albeit perhaps a bit faster.
 
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Thank you so much for the insight! I definitely will be able to improve my MCAT scores with all this time in my hands. But what exactly is a postbac? Is is kinda like Midwestern's MS in Biomedical Sciences program or Rosalind Franklin's MS in Biomedical Sciences program? What is the difference between postbac and grad school? Is there a site which lists undergrad postbac programs in Illinois?
 
Also, what is the difference between an undergraduate postbac and a graduate postbac? (since you specified undergrad, Law2Doc)
 
Also, what is the difference between an undergraduate postbac and a graduate postbac? (since you specified undergrad, Law2Doc)

The term postbac means anything you take after college. However the term really ought to refer exclusively to undergrad postbac because of the confusion it creates on this board, because most of the time people when people say postbac, they mean ug postbac. There are formal undergrad postbacs where you take the med school prereqs in a formal program (eg. Bryn Mawr is a good example of this). You generally can only do these formal programs if you haven't already taken the prereqs or MCAT, so they tend to be for nonsci majors with good GPAs who decide late in college or beyond that they want to go to med school. Then there is the option of just taking undergrad upper level science courses and/or retaking prereqs that are old or sub-C at any open enrollment college, on your own -- this is what is referred to as an informal postbac. Some people have had success doing this as well. The point of undergrad postbac is that it gets combined with undergrad GPA in the column on AMCAS reportedly used by med schools, so great grades in an ug postbac can improve your ug GPA for med school purposes.

Graduate premed programs are typically called SMPs (Special masters programs). These do not affect your undergrad GPA, as they are graduate, and it is a separate column. So your undergrad GPA will continue to stay low, and perhaps haunt you. What SMPs do, however, is prove to med schools that you can handle a med school level science curriculum. There are some people who have benefitted by such proof. There are also folks who have combined the two approaches, first bringing up their ug GPA with an informal postbac, and then capping it off with an SMP.

For you, IMHO, you probably want to start by taking undergrad science courses (probably an informal postbac) to improve that ug GPA. And certainly improving the MCAT when you are ready will be critical. Whether you cap it off with an SMP at the end depends on how you do. Whatever you do, the key to remember is that at this stage, you really need to be getting "mostly A's".
 
For you, IMHO, you probably want to start by taking undergrad science courses (probably an informal postbac) to improve that ug GPA. And certainly improving the MCAT when you are ready will be critical. Whether you cap it off with an SMP at the end depends on how you do. Whatever you do, the key to remember is that at this stage, you really need to be getting "mostly A's".[/quote]

Yeah, I do plan on retaking the MCATs (and hopefully do better on it). When you say "start by taking undergrad science courses", do you mean retaking those course in which I didn't do too well during undergrad at any college (say a state college)? However, I am thinking about just doing a formal postbac program (in which I may have to retake the classes that i took anyway since it it part of the program anyways?)
 
Since your GPA is around a 3.0, it would lead one to believe the bulk of your grades were B-/B/B+ range, with a few A-/A and a few C/C+. Is this a correct assessment?

If so, don't bother retaking anything, unless you received a C- or below. Since your GPA is a 3.0, retaking things will barely benefit your GPA, since AMCAS averages the grades (an F with an A in a retake balances out to a C, numerically). Take a year of undergraduate courses, get a 4.0, and do a one year SMP. Programs with an SMP:

1) Georgetown
2) Boston U
3) Tulane
4) Cincinnati
5) Loyola
6) EVMS
7) VCU (1 year cert/optional 2nd year for MS)
8) UMDNJ
9) Midwestern
10) Drexel (1 year cert/optional 2nd year for MS)
11) Tufts

There's more, but those are ones off the top of my head. Also, like you said, get that MCAT score up. I think a couple of SMP programs (Loyola, Georgetown) have fairly strict MCAT requirements (~27+).
 
Since your GPA is around a 3.0, it would lead one to believe the bulk of your grades were B-/B/B+ range, with a few A-/A and a few C/C+. Is this a correct assessment?

If so, don't bother retaking anything, unless you received a C- or below. Since your GPA is a 3.0, retaking things will barely benefit your GPA, since AMCAS averages the grades (an F with an A in a retake balances out to a C, numerically). Take a year of undergraduate courses, get a 4.0, and do a one year SMP. Programs with an SMP:....

Yeah, the bulk of my grades were around B's (actually almost all of it). However I did have 2 D's in which one was a prereq class (molecular biophysics) and the other was an elective (medical microbio). Meatwad, you suggest that I should take a year of undergraduate courses. What courses would that consist of (with the fact that I took all the premed prereq classes and I probably took all the science classes at my school) Can I just go straight to the SMP program?

Oh yeah, and thanks for the list of programs! I appreciate it
 
Yeah, the bulk of my grades were around B's (actually almost all of it). However I did have 2 D's in which one was a prereq class (molecular biophysics) and the other was an elective (medical microbio). Meatwad, you suggest that I should take a year of undergraduate courses. What courses would that consist of (with the fact that I took all the premed prereq classes and I probably took all the science classes at my school) Can I just go straight to the SMP program?

Oh yeah, and thanks for the list of programs! I appreciate it

Hmm, you took every biology course at your school? In that case, I'd either

1) Go take courses at another nearby college; hopefully they offer at least 10 classes that are not offered at your school (5/semester for 1 year)
2) If there's no other school you can get to, retake the MCAT and destroy it; study non-stop for as long as possible until you peak. Then go straight to an SMP

I've never heard of anyone who took every Bio course at school, so your situation is pretty unique. If that's the case, I guess I'd just do option 2 (MCAT + SMP) and pray it works. Your GPA is a 3.0, so at least you aren't in the extreme-danger zone (< 3.0). With a 3.5+ in the SMP/30+ on MCAT, you'll almost certainly get into a few DO schools and maybe a couple of MD schools.
 
Hmm, you took every biology course at your school? In that case, I'd either

1) Go take courses at another nearby college; hopefully they offer at least 10 classes that are not offered at your school (5/semester for 1 year)
2) If there's no other school you can get to, retake the MCAT and destroy it; study non-stop for as long as possible until you peak. Then go straight to an SMP

I have quick question, would an informal postbac consist of only biology courses. Or would it consist of BCPM? Because option 1 seems better for my situation.

EDIT: Sorry, actually Law2Doc answered it "Then there is the option of just taking undergrad upper level science courses and/or retaking prereqs that are old or sub-C at any open enrollment college, on your own -- this is what is referred to as an informal postbac."

But, is math included in an informal postbac too?
 
You certainly can take math if you like, since it is factored into the BCPM GPA. I'd really only suggest taking Calculus 1/2 or statistics, though, unless you really have a strong talent for math. You really want to get an A in every class from here on out, so by taking a class on nonlinear dynamics or topology, you'll most likely be hurting your GPA.
 
Is it possible to do informal postbac after doing a SMP?

Also I've noticed that some programs (actually most or all)) contain prereq courses that I've taken during my undergrad years (ie. biochem and maybe o-chem) Do the AMCAS take in both grades or how does it work?
 
Yes, you can do a post-bacc after an SMP, granted that you had all the pre-reqs before the SMP, since they are requirements for admission. Honestly, though, why would you want to do that? You would ideally be accepted into med school for the fall following the last semester of the SMP (no gap year between SMP and M1). Even if there was a gap year, they wouldn't see your undergrad grades from that post-bacc until December or January, depending on how long it takes your school to get grades on transcripts. Basically, the SMP is a last ditch effort; it either works, or it doesn't. If you don't do awesome in the SMP, you might want to look into other paths rather than doing another post-bacc (Caribbean, etc.)

AMCAS is the application service for MD schools; AACOMAS is the application service for DO schools. AMCAS averages the two grades, AACOMAS totally replaces the first by the second. Example:

Physics 1 - C

Now, you retake Physics 1 and get an A.

AMCAS grade for Physics 1 = [A + C] / 2 = B
AACOMAS grade for Physics 1 = only the retake = A

So, if someone had bad grades in pre-reqs, you could see how retaking them and getting A's would be very beneficial if they apply to DO schools.
 
I was talking to an admissions counselor at UIC (because I do intend to apply to MD schools too). I was inquiring him about if I should do an informal postbac or just go to these programs (postbac). Btw, he referred to Loyola's and Midwestern's programs as postbacs (whereas you called them SMPs. Are you using it interchangeably?). He told me that I should just do the programs because it will 1) add in to your grade 2)look better in MD and DO school apps and 3)doing an informal postbac will be just like going backwards. He told me that for AMCAS they average undergrad and grad grades into one combined GPA.

What is your take on this? Because honestly now, I think that informal postbac would just be wasting time.
 
Midwestern is an SMP, to the best of my knowledge, but I also believe it is two years long, which is a turn-off for most people. Loyola has a good program, which is one-year in length.

I am not using the words post-bacc and SMP interchangeably. Personally, when I refer to a post-bacc I am speaking about undergraduate coursework taking after you graduate. An SMP is a master's degree which consists of courses taken alongside med students.

I don't know if the post-bacc + SMP is a waste of your time. The only reason I could see the admissions counselor saying this is because you are in the interesting predicament of having already taken a lot of biology courses and not doing bad but not doing great in them (mostly B range grades). I guess, then, in your situation, it might be best to just do the SMP. Realize though, that even if they average you grad GPA and your undergrad GPA together, it will still be very low. Also remember getting a 4.0 in medical school classes is going to be ridiculously more difficult than getting a 4.0 in post-bacc courses.
 
He told me that for AMCAS they average undergrad and grad grades into one combined GPA.

Either UIC does it differently than the rest of the med schools or you misunderstood what this guy was saying or s/he misspoke, with respect to the above sentence. AMCAS does have a combined column, but that is simply reportedly not the one most med schools will focus on -- they look at ug + ug postbac (according to a number of adcoms) as your GPA. Graduate is "looked at", but separately (largely because of the ease some grad programs give out A's compared to undergrad, and the fact that a lot of us have totally unrelated non-sci graduate education that could dwarf and skew the GPAs otherwise). So it doesn't really improve the GPA in that respect, the way you/he described. An SMP is not useful as a GPA raiser, but isn't really a tool for that -- it is meant to prove you can handle med school level sciences, if your record raised a question mark about that. If that was a concern of adcoms, the SMP can allay their fears.

Thus some schools put great value on SMPs, but others still want a certain GPA in that ugGPA+ ug postbac column (which is why, as I mentioned above, a few people have gone out and actually done both).
I think "wasting time" and "going backwards" is a false conclusion. None of this is wasting time. Some may be better for your situation than other things. There is no "one size fits all" fix here.
 
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