Second Bachelor's: Business(3.0) -> Neuroscience(3.91)

[ThePACK]

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[Goro]

Hi all,

I have been lurking in the reinvention threads for a while, and was wondering if anyone could help me understand how schools will evaluate my first vs second bachelor's (even though they will be averaged for the cGPA)

• First degree (top five business school): 3.0 gpa (~3.4 sgpa over this timeframe)
• Second bachelor's (with one year to go): 3.91 gpa (~3.8 sgpa over this timeframe)
• "pseudo-cumulative" science gpa: ~3.7

I have all the other pieces of my app coming together (lots of research w/ expected pubs, 400+ volunteering with under-deserved, 50+ shadowing, MCAT studying in progress), but right now I am just not sure how schools will see the gpa's. Will they just see it as one cumulative? Will the second bachelors be weighed more, by how much? I know there is no exact science to it, I am just not sure where I fall at the moment.

I know I need an MCAT to start looking at specific schools, but with my current situation and a 517 are mid MD's (Keck/Dartmouth/Einstein) realistic?

Lastly, I will be applying for fall 2021 (IL, not URM) so I still have a lot of time to gain more clinical experience. I just got ahead on the MCAT studying because a high score will just further offset the low gpa from my first bachelors.

Thanks in advance for the advice, this site has been incredibly helpful!

(and if your are curious, why I decided on the second bachelor's route):

• Only took two years
• was not exactly sure I was going to apply to medical school at the time afterwards
• genuinely interested in neuroscience
• I want to apply MD, was not convinced one year would have been enough transcript repair
• Business advisor was not helpful, and I might have not done enough front-end research on my options

So far, so great.
You will need to get in patient contact experience, whether paid or volunteer.
A 517 MCAT will likely make you competitive for Stanford/Harvard class schools.

 

[ThePACK]

Thanks for the reply Goro, I definitly need more patient contact. I was thinking of a combination of EMT and clinical volunteering for my gap year, however it might be a little too early to make a firm decision on that. At the very least I will start clinical volunteering this semester. Thank you for the advice!

 

[Road_to_Medicine]

How are you able to complete a second bachelors in 2 years?

 

[ThePACK]

I started questioning my career choice back at the first school. I took class every summer there, so I was able to start taking extra classes outside my major in preparation for eventually getting a second bachelors. The biggest part though is that since I already had one bachelor's degree, I did not have to take any gen eds at all for this second one(most schools do this I think). So I just jumped into the core classes. Only problem is that since my schedule is only core major classes, its a packed 4 semesters with EC's in there too. Overall its still manageable...

 

[Road_to_Medicine]

I started questioning my career choice back at the first school. I took class every summer there, so I was able to start taking extra classes outside my major in preparation for eventually getting a second bachelors. The biggest part though is that since I already had one bachelor's degree, I did not have to take any gen eds at all for this second one(most schools do this I think). So I just jumped into the core classes. Only problem is that since my schedule is only core major classes, its a packed 4 semesters with EC's in there too. Overall its still manageable...

Wow! I did not know there were programs that would let you do only major courses. I wonder how it would look if the first degree is a non-science degree however filled with science classes and then the second degree would be a science-specific program (i.e. Biology, Neuroscience, etc)? Very interesting. Well, I wish you much luck this semester.

 

[curbsideconsult]

As a non-trad myself, I had some lackluster grades in undergrad and then did much better in post-bacc. Yes, all undergrad grades were lumped together for a cumulative GPA, but adcoms are pretty good about looking at trends in GPA. They'll see your upward trend and know that you've applied yourself the second go-around.

 

[ThePACK]

@Road_to_Medicine Yea it will be interesting to see how they will look at that. I only took ~12 credits and 3 of them were for my major, so hopefully its not a red flag at all.

@curbsideconsult thanks for the reply! I am a little worried that I would be screened out at some programs solely based on the cGPA, so that's good to know that most will spot the trends.