Second degree or not; help wanted

[thisisapickle]

---

Members don't see this ad.

Hey all thanks for looking, let me lay it out for:

My GPA when I graduated was a 2.75 and after taking a few A LA CARTE postbacc classes its now like a 2.80 w/BCMP about 2.7. MCAT is up and coming in Jan. 25. So my trends are kinda all over the place I started with 1.25 at a CC then 3.75 at a CC went to local university got 3.0 and got about a 3.0 from a top tier university. One kinda helpful thing is that I took like 18 hours each semester sometimes w/15 hrs of upper level bio. I also worked full time during UG and now I work at Cancer Hospital doing bench research. I have several papers in submission or in progress <-- This has made it hard to take alot of classes so after the spring 08 semester I will quit and go to school full time.

I would like to go an SMP but I understand my chances are unlikely at best. With this in mind, is it worth doing a second degree and then applying to med. school and if that is unsuccessful then try smp?

Basically is it worth doing a second degree? Any other help would be useful also!

WOW THAT WAS ALOT THANKS FOR TAKING THE TIME!

 

[Perrotfish]

Your GPA is on the very low end of competitive for an SMP, so to be admitted you would need a good MCAT. If you haven't taken the MCAT yet, to be admitted for fall 2008 you would need to take it very soon, which would mean studying pretty much full time starting now.

If you did well on the MCAT then yes, an SMP would be a good option for you. Really it would be the only option for you.

A second undergraduate degree would only help if you did well enough to get your GPA over a 3.0, and really over a 3.2 to be competitive. The second degree itself doesn't even matter, just the improvement in your GPA. You can have every Undergraduate degree, Masters, and PhD known to man and Medical schools won't care if your GPA is under a 3.0. Judging from your post it sounds like you already have a lot of undergraduate hours, so another degree probably might not help much. I'd say focus on the MCATs and then apply to the SMP programs.