Strengthening my app

[DocOrBust2019]

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As someone who needed to reinvent, I started my post-bacc at my local state college(what Fl calls community colleges now) with a 3.04 GPA approximately 1.5 years ago. I'll only have a few upper level sciences when applying. I'll be taking Biochem I and II at my state college, and I'm looking to take possibly genetics and micro at the closest university as I'll have a lighter course load to allow for a commute when I'm preparing for the MCAT.

My goal is to apply next year. Is raising from a 3.04 to a 3.4 cGPA a strong enough upward trend? It'd be a 3.98 over my last ~70 credit hours. My sGPA is going to be 3.63 AMCAS and 3.74 AACOMAS

I won't be taking the MCAT until next May.

Additionally: I'm trying to work on my E.Cs and I'd like some advice: I'm the VP of my community college's science club, we're active in the community with beach cleanups and education opportunities for local schools. I'll have about 80 hours of volunteering through them, and I'll also have about ~300 hours of volunteering with my county's preserve system as someone who helps clean up our nature preserves. I don't have any clinical volunteering, but I've got about 4 years of full time phlebotomy experience, several years of work as a home health aide (~6000 hours) and I also worked as a M.A. at an oncology office for approximately ~500 hours. Around 13,000 paid clinical hours altogether.

I'll be working at my college's academic support center as a science tutor starting in the fall until I apply, probably 10-15~ hours a week. I know tutoring can help applications as well, so I wanted to mention that to see if it would get consideration.

Since I'm a C.C. student, it will be kind of difficult to find research opportunities. I'd appreciate any advice you may have on how I can strengthen my app in the future!


@Goro

 

[Moko]

My goal is to apply next year. Is raising from a 3.04 to a 3.4 cGPA a strong enough upward trend? It'd be a 3.98 over my last ~70 credit hours. My sGPA is going to be 3.63 AMCAS and 3.74 AACOMAS

Yes, that will be sufficient to show that you can handle the rigors of medical school. I agree with the tutoring job that you have set up. Teaching experience is looked up on highly. Good luck

 

[hamiltonnyc]

Yes, that will be sufficient to show that you can handle the rigors of medical school. I agree with the tutoring job that you have set up. Teaching experience is looked up on highly. Good luck

Those are CC classes though?

 

[el_duderino]

That's a solid GPA trend. Your volunteering is good and you have excellent clinical experience too.

Your MCAT will obviously be critical. Study hard and don't take it before you are ready.

How's your shadowing?

With a good MCAT you have a shot at MD, I think.

 

[DocOrBust2019]

That's a solid GPA trend. Your volunteering is good and you have excellent clinical experience too.

Your MCAT will obviously be critical. Study hard and don't take it before you are ready.

How's your shadowing?

With a good MCAT you have a shot at MD, I think.

I'll need to do some shadowing. I'm getting in contact with my local hospital in that regard.

 

[DocOrBust2019]

Those are CC classes though?

From what Goro has said I don't think that's an issue for a non-trad.

 

[hamiltonnyc]

From what Goro has said I don't think that's an issue for a non-trad.

My guess is it'll be less of an issue if you're a nontrad, and then it's still very dependent on the school. I imagine it's less of a problem for most DO's, but from what I've seen since it's less rigorous, unless you have a good reason for doing that over a 4 year, it's not seen as inconsequential.

 

[Moko]

Those are CC classes though?

Good catch. Depending on how far out they are from college and their reasoning for doing it at a CC, it may not be as big of a deal. Ideally there would be some classes at a four year institution to show that the GPA improvement isn't purely due to the classes being done at a CC. This is also very school dependent. Some are more open to CC credits than others.

 

[DocOrBust2019]

I applied to the closest state University recently and intend to take 2-3 upper level sciences there in the spring and summer before I apply. The issue is the nearest University is 50 minutes away, so it was not convenient or feasible to take all of my courses there.

 

[hamiltonnyc]

I applied to the closest state University recently and intend to take 2-3 upper level sciences there in the spring and summer before I apply. The issue is the nearest University is 50 minutes away, so it was not convenient or feasible to take all of my courses there.

Yeah that seems like it would be understandable and it might not cause any red flags. I think if you blast the MCAT away it'll be a stronger case. Still for anyone else in a similar situation I'd switch the allocation where the pre-reqs are done at a 4 year and the upper div done at a CC. This is just my experience, but pre-reqs tend to be harder than the upper level classes since they're premed weeders, and I know many friends who did not do well in the pre-reqs but are taking another year to do upper level classes as a strategy to boost their GPA since those are known to be more lenient.

Would be curious to see if this is just my personal experience or if others have seen this as well.

 

[DocOrBust2019]

Yeah that seems like it would be understandable and it might not cause any red flags. I think if you blast the MCAT away it'll be a stronger case. Still for anyone else in a similar situation I'd switch the allocation where the pre-reqs are done at a 4 year and the upper div done at a CC. This is just my experience, but pre-reqs tend to be harder than the upper level classes since they're premed weeders, and I know many friends who did not do well in the pre-reqs but are taking another year to do upper level classes as a strategy to boost their GPA since those are known to be more lenient.

Would be curious to see if this is just my personal experience or if others have seen this as well.

Very possible. I can say in my experience that the prereqs are harder at my community college then they would be at a 4-year University. At the very least they are as difficult. Our tutoring center has people who have gotten bachelors in their subjects from University of South Florida, University of Central Florida, and University of Florida and they are regularly surprised by the level of difficulty in our material. There is no curve at all in my organic chemistry class for example.

At the end of the day if I could have done my prereqs at a State University, I would have just for the blanket reputation alone. I was working full-time when I started and had no way to fit a 2 hour commute into my weekdays. I just have to ace the MCAT like you said. I plan on putting in a ton of work to make sure that happens.

I have some concerns over the lack of research, but there's nothing I can do to fix that since I'll have a full course load and have to start preparing for the MCAT next semester