Seeking advice

[Cosmicv1bes]

Hello friends! I hope you are all having a great day. After searching a long time on SDN and Reddit for people in a similar situation, I think my story is different enough to warrant its own post.

I am an ORM and I applied to DO schools in 2016, but I graduated with a poor gpa (~3.0 both sGPA and cGPA; 170 credits) and an unremarkable MCAT (501). So I applied to post bacc and masters programs to work on that. I just graduated from a health science masters program at an MD school with a 3.7 cGPA and a 3.6 sGPA (60 credits). I also took the MCAT last month and scored a 508 (123 CARS ). The bad CARS score totally shattered me. It was out of left field as I was consistently scoring 126-129 on each of my six practice exams... but what's done is done.

Anyway... I think the other parts of my application are decent. I have a little over 2000 hours in working in a clinical setting as a medical scribe and through work in free health clinics. I have research experience with co-authorship in three published papers (and another one coming up), design of an IRB protocol for a clinical trial, and a poster presentation. I have pretty good leadership experience from undergrad through founding a club that raises money for education in marginalized communities and I now tutor middle school kids living such neighborhoods in my city. I am also on the committee for a new nonprofit. I tutor graduate students and PA students taking medical science courses through my school. My personal statement and secondary essays are really good too, based on feedback from numerous people.

I applied to 20 MD schools:
All Ohio Schools,
Georgetown
Drexel
Jefferson
Temple
Wayne State
Central Michigan
Western Michigan
Loyola
NYCM
Rosalind Franklin
Morehouse
EVMS
Tufts

and 12 DO schools
PCOM
OUH
RVUSOM
MWU
Touro (Cali)
ATSU
MSU
KCU
Rowan
CHSU
DMU
Nova

I'm done with ~80% of the secondaries for schools I've heard back from. I'm worried that I'll have another year of bad luck and will be screened out of a lot of these schools, however. Does anyone have any useful insight or advice on moving forward? Thank you so much in advance.

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[Osteosaur]

Add more DO schools if you want to get in this year.

You've worked hard to improve, but you're subpar for MD still. I mean sure you can retake the MCAT (again) and get a 510+ and hope your past does not drag you down... but you're competing against 510+ and 3.7 who did not need to do an SMP or retake.

 

[Faha]

Add a few more DO schools such as:
MU-COM
VCOM (all 3 schools)
CUSOM
ARCOM
NYIT-Arkansas
UIWSOM
WVSOM
UP-KYCOM

 

[Osteosaur]

LECOM has a large number of seats and has no secondary essays. People complain about the dress-code, but they do well on boards, and all you need for a shot is $50.

If you had to pick between mandatory lectures for 2 years, and going through an SMP and NOT being a doctor what would you choose?

 

[Goro]

Add more DO schools if you want to get in this year.

You've worked hard to improve, but you're subpar for MD still. I mean sure you can retake the MCAT (again) and get a 510+ and hope your past does not drag you down... but you're competing against 510+ and 3.7 who did not need to do an SMP or retake.

I agree

 

[Cosmicv1bes]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I will definitely add those additional DO schools to the list. At this point I just want to get in somewhere lol (in the states of course). I also will not retake the MCAT unless I don't get in this cycle.