Successful reapplicants-- please share your stories!

[sunflower79]

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Hello,

As a future reapplicant, I am seeking advice -- and inspiration and hope -- from reapplicants who have made it the 2nd/3rd time around.

My story: I had a bad senior year due to personal problems, and now I am trying to resurrect my gpa (which, honestly, was not stellar to begin with-- 3.4 when applying the first time). Just retook the mcat and felt like I did well. I am currently very confused about how med schools view post-bac/masters coursework and whether it will even make a difference in the academic record! Also unsure about what I should do besides taking courses: I want to continue volunteering and doing research (in which I will interview patients!) but it's nothing spectacular -- or am I just not giving myself enough credit there? I am also considering doing an MPH before I reapply.

Anyway, please share your stories with me. I would especially like to know why you chose to do what you did to improve your app (e.g. post-bacc coursework vs masters, extracurriculars), where you go to med school and whether you think post-bacc coursework makes a difference in reapplying. Also, my pre-med advisor at my undergrad college says this is a two-time process, and adcoms give you the boot the third time around. Is this true?

Thanks everyone 🙂

 

[sunflower79]

Are there no med students in this forum who successfully reapplied and wish to share their experience?

 

[ckent]

Hi Karen, there are a lot of people who re-applied and got in the second time around in my class. I don't know of any third time around students though, although I imagine there might be. The key is to improve your application/ change your application significantly enough to warrant them to re-look at your application. This could involve getting an MPH, I know that one of my parent's friends kid got an MPH at Harvard and ended up getting into Harvard medical school after she did not get into anywhere the first time that she applied. I would also suggest doing some more volunteer/ clinical/ research work in addition to classwork and try to come up with new experiences that you can write about in your personal statement and new essays. Finally be sure to contact the schools that you really want to go to and ask for a meeting with their admissions people and ask why you didn't get in the first time and what you can do better to get in because you really want to get in. Good luck.

 

[praying mantis]

I was also wondering how grad work gets averaged into the med school application GPA. I'm taking classes to improve my GPA, but I don't really want to take undergrad classes.

Thanks

 

[bruinboy2000]

Hey there,

I was a successful reapplicant who went to grad school to improve his GPA. Here's the thing about grad school, grades are viewed differently by different schools. Some schools do average in grad and undergrad. Many schools keep grad GPA seperate from undergrad GPA and there are a select few (UCSD for one...) who do not use grad GPA at all when making admission decisions. I was successful in how I did things (a master's program), but if I had to do it all over again, I probably would have done a post-bacc program consisting of undergrad classes. The reason is that they are considered by ALL schools. From what I know, most schools want to see at least 2 years of solid grades. That is 2 years of full-time course work as well, not just one or two classes a semester. It is true that some schools will not consider an application a 4th time around unless there has been some major change in your application, but as far as I know most will look at your application at least three times.

If you guys have anymore questions about this, drop me a private message. I'll try to respond quickly, although first year anatomy is a killer, so I'll get to it as soon as I can

Good luck!!

 

[sunflower79]

Well, thanks everyone for your replies!

Wineland, for your question I refer you to this link: Post-bacc coursework confusion

Any more questions, please email me and I will help you as much as I can.

Bruinboy, thanks for the advice. What master's program did you do, and where? I would do anything to get into a CA school, but of course there are no guarantees... so for now I am considering an MPH so at least I have something to fall back on. I loathe the idea of taking post-bacc for 2 years! and I don't intend on repeating the basic courses since I got virtually all Bs or better. For now I am doing the post-bacc "a la carte" program, i.e. taking both grad and undergrad courses to cover my bases -- since different schools recommended different things. But honestly, given all these possible routes I am not confident about what I might do to best improve my academics. If anyone wants to help me think through this, that would be wonderful.

Thanks again 🙂

 

[daveshnave]

kareniw-
Ah yes, I've been through the application process many times.... FOUR years worth to be exact. My problems was that during the first three years I never really changed anything major about my application. I had received two interviews in my first two years of applying, and both the interviews were after the classes were filled! Needless to say, after the third year of applying, and getting no interviews, I decided to do something about it. I needed to raise my sub-par GPA (3.33 both science/overall- strictly a product of me screwing around in college), so I decided to apply to the IMS post-bacc program at MCPHU. It's unlike most post-bacc programs because it's designed for students who have already taken all the med school prereqs (bio, chem, ochem, physics). Instead we actually took classes with the first year med students, and were graded against them. We basically took the whole first year curriculum except gor Gross, Genetics, and Behavioral Science. I thought it was great because it proved to adcoms that I was capable of med school coursework, since we were graded against the med students. However, it was stressful, because in order to do well we had to do better than them, since we were still in the process of applying to schools. The other thing I did was retake the MCAT since my old score of 30 ran out after appylying three years with no accpetances... needless to say I was a little stressed, but fortunately I did substantially better. So, after four LONG years of applying, and of course staying active with volunteering, both in hospitals and the community, I ended up getting five interviews. Three of those turned into acceptances, and I was wait-listed at the other two, but I took myself off since I got into the school of my choice- at long last no more rejections!. Of course it was all worth it now, but those years entailed lots of nail-biting.... hmm, maybe I should have saved myself the trouble and actually gone to class back in undergrad.... nah! Anyway, I got here on my own terms and had a few years to enjoy life and work a little/play in a band. I wouldn't have given that time up for anything. On a last note, some schools do have policies about reapplicants and the number of times they can apply, although most don't- depends on the school. However, having talked to several directors of admissions at schools, they told me that if they rejected an applicant the year before and they reapply without anything new on the application, they generally pass over those applicants.
-FOURTH TIME'S A CHARM!