The threads I've seen so far have all dealt with doing a SMP to show an alternative (and more positive) academic record, and people are advised not to do one if they have a good chance of getting into some medical school at all. Do people ever do a SMP for the sole purpose of wanting to get into more competitive schools, even if they have a good shot of matriculating at SOME medical school (ex. gpa 3.6, mcat 512)??
SMP for better chance at more competitive schools?
- Thread starter binderpaper
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SMPs often benefit those that had a lackluster undergraduate GPA in the sciences. Most of the students I know in SMPs graduated with a 2.5-3.0 sGPA. They're doing this to help boost themselves for any medical school. Once in a blue moon, a student will enroll at an SMP with the sole purpose of getting into that particular medical school if the university also offers an SMP. However, that is rare, most times is just to get in somewhere, not necessarily only competitive schools.
An SMP can be the kiss of death. If you screw it up, you can kiss medical school goodbye. It's definitely not worth the risk. Medical school isn't like law school, where it's top 14 or bust. You can go to the "weakest" schools and still be whatever you want based on board scores.
3.6 is far too high for an SMP or Postbacc to be warranted. They can also cost tens of thousands of dollars. 3.6/512 is good enough to be ready to apply
Your scores are too high to see much benefit from a SMP. You'd be better served by engaging in ECs (research, MPH, etc) or by getting an off-the-charts MCAT (a fool's errand for most, as improving more than a couple of points is extremely difficult and getting a similar or worse score will be seen as a misstep by adcoms) than you would by the marginal-to-negative benefit you'd see from a SMP.
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