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[Food]

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Greetings! Okay, I'm a re-applicant this cycle. My MDApps is a pretty thorough summary of my last application, and activities since. I'm wondering about which route to go for the upcoming year. With a 3.35Sci and a 38 MCAT, and being a reapplicant, I narrowed it down to two choices:

1. I applied to USF's molecular medicine masters, and judging from the vague e-mail they sent me back, I think I've been accepted. It's a typical 1 year SMP-type thing with 32 credits over 3 semesters. I guess the advantage here is I wouldn't be responsible for doing much else while in the program. I could just focus on grades and try to prove I can get a good GPA. But it's expensive (I'd be looking at about 22,000 in loans to cover the tuition + living expenses), and again there is no gaurantee I'll get in to med school this cycle either.

2. I could stay in my current city (Gainesville) and continue doing the activities I started this summer. In addition to Hospice patient volunteering, I am doing some volunteering at a rehabilitation / physical therapy hospital. I'm also shadowing a couple doctors here, in two diff. specialities. One of them is having me write case reviews, etc for him since he's an assistant prof. of Urology. I figure I could stick around for another 6-7 months in Gainesville and apply on the basis of these activities.

Ultimately I am looking for the best answer to the question I know I will see on the secondary: "If you are not in school this year, what are your plans?".

Any suggestions? I'm pretty double-minded.

 

[Food]

Clearly not the best thread title. But...anybody???

 

[YouNeverKnow22]

I'm by no means an expert but your EC's seem good, your MCAT is awesome and though ur GPA is kind of on the low side I don't think in my humble opinion it'd be worth doing that program because you end up 22,000 in debt. My suggestion would be to continue to stack those EC's by shadowing, volunteering and maybe get a job in a clinical setting and apply the next cycle and you should be straight. just my 2 cents.

 

[Food]

I'm by no means an expert but your EC's seem good, your MCAT is awesome and though ur GPA is kind of on the low side I don't think in my humble opinion it'd be worth doing that program because you end up 22,000 in debt. My suggestion would be to continue to stack those EC's by shadowing, volunteering and maybe get a job in a clinical setting and apply the next cycle and you should be straight. just my 2 cents.

Thanks. I forgot to mention I already sent out my AMCAS for this year, with about 4-5 activities that I did not have last time. It was ready for review 6/29.

 

[uclaussr]

i honestly think your mcat will help you get in despite your lowish science gpa. your sgpa isnt too bad even, ive seen people with lower get in. depending on what undergrad you attended, it might be harder to get a good gpa, and your mcat proves your smarty pants

 

[Food]

Anyone else? I'm leaning towards not doing the SMP.

 

[Food]

i honestly think your mcat will help you get in despite your lowish science gpa. your sgpa isnt too bad even, ive seen people with lower get in. depending on what undergrad you attended, it might be harder to get a good gpa, and your mcat proves your smarty pants

Thanks, but the last cycle did a lot to shatter my confidence!

 

[Kaustikos]

Anyone else? I'm leaning towards not doing the SMP.

Don't listen to those saying don't do the SMP. You could greatly benefit from this program and prove you can get a great GPA. Your MCAT is fine and your EC would be stellar. Just focus on the gpa atm.

 

[Food]

Don't listen to those saying don't do the SMP. You could greatly benefit from this program and prove you can get a great GPA. Your MCAT is fine and your EC would be stellar. Just focus on the gpa atm.

Hrm...thanks. Now I'm back to being on the fence.

 

[jkurtz02]

I don't know where you applied last year (outside of UF, I saw you in last years thread), but I think the best thing you can do if you are applying again immediately is to pick where you apply wisely. With such a high MCAT and good EC's you can start thinking you have a shot at schools your GPA will prevent you from getting into (this isn't meant to be obnoxious this is coming from experience). I would apply to a number of "mid to lower tier" schools and not just in the state of Florida and the southeast. This gives you the best oppprtunity to get in somewhere.

 

[Food]

I don't know where you applied last year (outside of UF, I saw you in last years thread), but I think the best thing you can do if you are applying again immediately is to pick where you apply wisely. With such a high MCAT and good EC's you can start thinking you have a shot at schools your GPA will prevent you from getting into (this isn't meant to be obnoxious this is coming from experience). I would apply to a number of "mid to lower tier" schools and not just in the state of Florida and the southeast. This gives you the best oppprtunity to get in somewhere.

Thanks - you're right. I made the mistake of applying to a bad distribution of schools last year, especially when I had done such a poor job of marketing on my application. I'm applying to mostly mid to low tier schools this cycle. What do you think about the year off though? I've just made some useful contacts here in Gainesville and I could either continue working with them or could ditch them and head to an SMP at USF. I feel like I could learn much more working with these doctors who have been kind enough to let me tag along on their rounds and write case reviews for them, etc.

 

[jkurtz02]

I know UF likes their own so staying around UF's doctors and the medical school would probably benefit you in getting in their, but your GPA was the weakest part of your application so you need to improve that. What were your grades like this past year? Now most schools won't see your SMP grades before interview invites come along so it won't help too much in terms of that. If you had a 4.0 last year your GPA will have gone up since your last cycle and you could show a good improvement in your app, if you didn't have a great GPA last year I would do the SMP to show that you are dedicated to raising it and prove you can succeed at that level and you can send your first semester grades to a number of schools as an update for a late interview.

 

[jamesq]

You indicated you applied to only 16 schools, which is a problem because of your GPA. Might I suggest applying to something like 30-35 schools, imo it will be worth it in the long run. Other than that I suggest really explaining your activities througholy on the extracurricular section as well as all your awards. I generally took up the entire word limit. Although your GPA is a little low, i thought your MCAT which is outstanding would offset it. Just hang in there and all will work out. Finally, dont sacrifice quality for quantity. There were many people who told me to get everything in as fast as I could but I dont think thats true. Schools can see how much quality you put in your primary app as well as secondary app.

 

[Food]

You indicated you applied to only 16 schools, which is a problem because of your GPA. Might I suggest applying to something like 30-35 schools, imo it will be worth it in the long run. Other than that I suggest really explaining your activities througholy on the extracurricular section as well as all your awards. I generally took up the entire word limit. Although your GPA is a little low, i thought your MCAT which is outstanding would offset it. Just hang in there and all will work out. Finally, dont sacrifice quality for quantity. There were many people who told me to get everything in as fast as I could but I dont think thats true. Schools can see how much quality you put in your primary app as well as secondary app.

Thanks - I think you really hit the point home there. This is advice for anybody who is panicking about the timing of the app. There is no point sending it in early if you sacrifice quality The biggest problem I had was the lack of a quality AMCAS application. I didn't even make it to the interview phase - so I'm relatively sure that was the thing. If you look at my bracket in the AAMC aggregate application data spreadsheet - I had about a 65 - 72% chance of getting accepted last cycle. That suggests to me that my problem was only partly academic. I lost out on the quality of my application.

 

[unsung]

If I were you, I'd continue doing the clinical activities, and with your time left before application hits, I would possibly add additional activities to enhance your appeal to the adcom & show you're constantly improving. If there's non-clinical volunteering you're interested in doing, I'd do that too. I think the adcom likes to see non-clinical volunteering sometimes because it shows the person has a genuine interest in volunteer work, outside of just wanting clinical experience to get in med school.

I would also consider taking additional sciences courses (say at your local uni) to boost your GPA. It doesn't even matter how much the courses actually budge your GPA up... it just looks good to have a yr's worth of solid A grades in several classes.

Can you update your LORs, as well?

I also don't think it's necessary to do a SMP. You have fine stats. Actually I got in with lower stats. Be sure to apply more broadly this cycle, as well!!

 

[unsung]

Looking at your MDApps... you had a great shot at UF! Were your LORs from UF? If not, I would consider getting LORs from professors, etc. at UF, when you reapply to UF this cycle. Schools love letters from their own people because they know their own better.

I'd also call up the director, if you haven't already, and discuss how you can improve your app. Whatever feedback you get back, make sure you follow every single point!

The director at my school told a story of a guy who failed to get in one yr, called to ask why, the director told him "you need to improve x & y" (it was something like, you have no clinical exp, go get some)... Guy spends the yr trying to improve his app by doing various things... applies with the same lack of clinical exp. Director throws his app into the reject pile. Guy is completely baffled & calls up the director again.

Also, I'm sure you know this, apply early! And consider sending a strong letter of interest to UF (if that's indeed where you want to go)... you'll have an excellent chance.