Somewhat confused and uncertain...

[Deforciant]

Hey guys. After hearing about such good MCAT scores some of you guys have been getting, I got mine back with 9's straight across the board and an O on the writing sample.

Also, I have a 3.92 GPA and am in my third and last year of undergraduate study. I overloaded most of my semesters with courses in order to do this, so I have barely any non-extracirricular activities and absolutely no medical or research experiences since high school (graduated 1999). But, I should mention that I did get a lot of experience working and shadowing people in a hospital during my last two years of high school by taking two clinical classes.

Are my chances of getting into medical school okay? Should I take a year off after I get my BS in Biological Sciences in Spring 2002 to get some recent experience or maybe take the MCAT again? I am just confused because I am not really a cookie-cut applicant.

BTW, I don't know why I didn't score high in the BS section. I'm surprised that I did equally in Verbal as I did in Biological Sciences.

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[jargon124]

If I were you I would take a year off and get some volunteering/clinical experience. Anything you did in high school is irrelevant. You will hve a hard time getting in anywhere, in my opinion, with a 27 and weak extracurriculars. The MCAT score brings the GPA into question, so the non-numbers aspects of your app have to be top notch.

 

[Otomakan]

Hey folks, it seems I too am confused and uncertain. I've got a mediocre GPA (below 3.5) and MCAT scores of V.11/P.08/B.10 I've already sent out my AMCAS app, but should I be getting my hopes up, or planning to take the MCAT again in April?

 

[none]

I know all of you want some level of privacy...but a GPA without a school mentioned is completely useless. It could be Harvard or Fresno City College.

 

[Fixed Gear]

good call, "none"

The whole point of the MCAT, as I understand, is not so much a predictor of how you will perform in medical school, but more to give an equalizer to applicant who come from diverse schools. On the MCAT, I scored fairly well. However, the surprising point is that my GPA is not comparatively good (less than 3.2). I meet all these kids who went to Pudonk State University got 4.0s but got 20s on the MCAT. I went to a tough. large midwestern university with an excellent history of sending it's graduates to medical school. I feel, therefore, that my professors were prepared to teach us the necessary components of a rigorous scientific curriculm to prepare us for future study. If you went to a school where 2 people in the last 5 years have gone on to medical school, Medical schools, unfortunately are going to relaize that maybe your school doesn't do a good job preparing its graduates for med school.
Secondly, because of the nature of college, there are a lot of people out there who simply "test well". The kids that barely study, admit they didn't know what the hell they were doing on an exam and yet score well, all "test well". The MCAT serves to show what sort of abilities a person really has in processing information and then showing the depth of their own understanding. Thus, having a high GPA and a low MCAT can only hurt you as much as the low MCAT, whereas a mediocre GPA and higher MCAT can help an applicant.
By no means did I mean to sound snobby or elitist in refering to Podunk State University in a negative way. I attended such a school for my freshman year, then realized I would likely graduate with a 4.0 GPA and MCAT and opted to transfer to a more competitive university. Plus, these are only my ramblings. I've yet to get into med school and I'm not exactly on an admissions committee.

Good luck y'all
Carley

 

[SnudgeMuffin]

For Deforciant, I don't know which school you are attending right now. But if you are in a competitive school and graduating in three years, I think that is pretty impressive in that it shows that you can manage your time really well. Granted that you might haven't had enough time to study for MCAT. But I think if you are thinking about applying right after your junior year, I think you should come up with a really good explanation why you chose to shorten your undergraduate eudcation sacrificing excurricular activities. Also, why don't you start getting involved more now? Many people get waitlisted to good medical schools and the battle doesn't end at the end of your junior year, b/c you can still send them stuff about what you are doing till you get that acceptance letter. Whatever you do, Good Luck to ya!