Terrible GPA Great Extraccuriculars. WAMC?

[Joat]

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OK, my GPA has been all over the place and right now it rests at a 3.2 entering my senior year. I am a Medical technology major + bio minor
Freshman First semester: 3.38 Second: 3.33
Sophomore First: 2.98 Second: 3.47 (became dad first semester)
Junior First: 2.75 Second: 2.89 (fiance returned to school/work this year, I also started working again)
Anticipated Junior/Senior Summer term gpa: 4.0 (retaking Organic and nailing it so far and EMT course 6 credits total)
My previous full length MCAT without preparation was a 500, I know I am capable of raising that to at least a 504.
For volunteering I have completed 80 hours at a camp for children with diabetes, 140 in a hospital's outpatient infusion center and pharmacy, 20 at Little sister's of the poor, 30 riding an ambulance with the fire company (much more of that to come!). I will become a fully certified EMT by the end of the summer. I have also worked over 1000 hours as a Certified pharmacy technician and completed the standard 50 hours of doctor shadowing

I am also the VP of my college's preconception peer educators club and I will be directing members to engage with middle/high school students about successful life planning this fall.

Realistically, do I have a shot at getting into any mainland DO school with the numbers? Can my extracurriculars/circumstance balance out my gpa? Is there anything else I should be doing besides studying hard and nailing the mcat?

 

[Blanky]

Coming from that junior year you want 1-2 years of solid GPA in sciences

 

[Joat]

Coming from that junior year you want 1-2 years of solid GPA in sciences

My courses for Senior Fall will be Immunohematology II, Hematology II, Clinical and Physiological Chemistry II, and Bacteriology/Mycology
Senior Spring will be a capstone course, Genetics, and two extracurriculars.

Do you think this is sufficient? If not what would you recommend adding?

 

[Blanky]

The EMT will be nice for some clinical hours to go with the volunteering. Idk that I would claim "great ECs" though.

 

[Blanky]

Those all seem like good courses. You need to separate yourself from your 2.xx semesters

 

[esob]

Yeah, your EC's are not really all that impressive TBH. The best thing you can do is forget about anything outside of GPA and MCAT and bear down to show you can ace everything.

 

[Joat]

The EMT will be nice for some clinical hours to go with the volunteering. Idk that I would claim "great ECs" though.

What else can I do? I've got being a dad (involved 20 days of nice hospital experience), Active healthcare club VP, EMS and the other assorted volunteering to boot. What is considered great ECs short of getting research published?

 

[rufflev]

Your ECs are mediocre but your GPA is low. If you can ace your classes senior year, then I'd plan on taking a year off prior to applying so that you can have those on your transcript.

It's important to note that ECs don't make up for a low GPA, rather it raises the question as to why did you invest time into your ECs when your studies needed the extra attention.

 

[esob]

What else can I do? I've got being a dad (involved 20 days of nice hospital experience), Active healthcare club VP, EMS and the other assorted volunteering to boot. What is considered great ECs short of getting research published?

Aside from research, I see lots of folks with hundreds, sometimes thousands of hrs of community and clinical service. And 1k hrs in the healthcare industry is a drop in the bucket for most non trad's coming from the healthcare industry. Great EC's include things like peace corp, teach america, military service, etc. A couple hundred hrs in this and that is pretty much checking the box and par for the course, pretty much every serious premed does that and maintains a > 3.5 GPA if they want to put forward a competitive application.

 

[Blanky]

GPA/MCAT>>>>>>>>ECs and everything else
So you are looking at your most recent coursework with a year of 2.75/2.89 and that's just aweful ( I understand your wife is in school and the child but these excuses simply won't make up for poor grades.) You need to set a large wide curve of upward trend and show what you are made of to Adcoms.
Congrats on the child I am honestly happy for you. I don't mean to disregard your life struggles

 

[Joat]

Aside from research, I see lots of folks with hundreds, sometimes thousands of hrs of community and clinical service. And 1k hrs in the healthcare industry is a drop in the bucket for most non trad's coming from the healthcare industry. Great EC's include things like peace corp, teach america, military service, etc. A couple hundred hrs in this and that is pretty much checking the box and par for the course, pretty much every serious premed does that and maintains a > 3.5 GPA if they want to put forward a competitive application.

Gotcha, thanks for the advice. I'll try to be more modest with my phrasing next time, just feels like I don't have any time left at all for anything else and I can't imagine how other students could juggle more.

 

[Blanky]

Get all As even if it means less courses per semester, and have fun with EMT and things may look different in a years time.

 

[Joat]

Get all As even if it means less courses per semester, and have fun with EMT and things may look different in a years time.

I'll do my best, and if I don't make it I'll find a way to worm my way into the healthcare industry.

 

[Peach Newport]

Get a better MCAT. MD schools won't take a person who compensates for a low GPA with a high MCAT, but some DO schools will (if mcat is high). Shoot for 507+

Apply to mission based schools compatible with your ECs.

Focus on new schools. If your MCAT is high, apply to the Touros (NY and CA).

You might be okay. It mostly depends on your MCAT imo. If you're URM, you're fine.

 

[Goro]

OK, my GPA has been all over the place and right now it rests at a 3.2 entering my senior year. I am a Medical technology major + bio minor
Freshman First semester: 3.38 Second: 3.33
Sophomore First: 2.98 Second: 3.47 (became dad first semester)
Junior First: 2.75 Second: 2.89 (fiance returned to school/work this year, I also started working again)
Anticipated Junior/Senior Summer term gpa: 4.0 (retaking Organic and nailing it so far and EMT course 6 credits total)
My previous full length MCAT without preparation was a 500, I know I am capable of raising that to at least a 504.
For volunteering I have completed 80 hours at a camp for children with diabetes, 140 in a hospital's outpatient infusion center and pharmacy, 20 at Little sister's of the poor, 30 riding an ambulance with the fire company (much more of that to come!). I will become a fully certified EMT by the end of the summer. I have also worked over 1000 hours as a Certified pharmacy technician and completed the standard 50 hours of doctor shadowing

I am also the VP of my college's preconception peer educators club and I will be directing members to engage with middle/high school students about successful life planning this fall.

Realistically, do I have a shot at getting into any mainland DO school with the numbers? Can my extracurriculars/circumstance balance out my gpa? Is there anything else I should be doing besides studying hard and nailing the mcat?

Downward trend is concerning, as it brings into question not only your academics, but your judgment. The 500 MCAT score will keep you out of the coastal Touros, AZCOM and CCOM...that's it.
If you ace everything from now on, your chances will be vastly improved.

 

[esob]

Gotcha, thanks for the advice. I'll try to be more modest with my phrasing next time, just feels like I don't have any time left at all for anything else and I can't imagine how other students could juggle more.

Trust me, I understand, I have 4 kids + work + full time school, shadowing, hospice, food bank, habitat, student veterans association, blah blah blah. There is zero time left for anything but that's where you have to be if you want to be competitive. For comparison, I've got 8K+ clinical hrs as a combat medic and lab tech and I'm still doing more clinical hrs to round out my clinical experience for my EC's. If you're going to swing, swing for the fences friend 🙂

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

What else can I do? I've got being a dad (involved 20 days of nice hospital experience), Active healthcare club VP, EMS and the other assorted volunteering to boot. What is considered great ECs short of getting research published?

Try a few thousand hours of service, a few thousand hours of clinical experience, hundreds of research hours, a few hundred leadership hours in community positions. This guy (my close friend) also had good numbers and was a dad as well. You will see when you start to head out on interviews just how good some medical applicants really are, it's something you can't quite grasp until you start meeting lots and lots of people with credentials far better than yours. I really gained an appreciation for my peers going through this process, people with resumes like my friend's aren't as uncommon as the rest of us normal people would like to think.

Unfortunately your ECs are fairly average and I would suggest doing everything you can to kill this last year and raise that MCAT up to 508+, which should be decently doable if you hit 500 without any prep at all. I am also a dad and know how hard it can be to be a dad and get quality ECs, so focus on the academics which really do make or break your app regardless of what people say. Numbers (especially a good MCAT score) open doors.

 

[Mr. Babe]

First off, what practice test are you taking? If it's Kaplan then you can hope for like 5-10 points higher than 500 because Kaplan grades stuff pre weird and it's all part of the getting a better score stuff. I echo what everyone else says with your EC's. After 500+ hours of volunteering and stuff it's not how much you've done, but what you've done. If you're looking primarily DO, research schools and find lower average GPA's. I high MCAT will definitely help. I personally know people who have been accepted with 490, 492, 494, and 497 MCAT scores so it can be done. Also you need to get some research hours and more shadowing hours, especially DO and get a get LOR. Make sure you explain your EC's well and emphasize underserved with DO. Buckle down and work hard your last year. I took Genetics, Cell Bio, Adv Cell Bio, Dev Bio, Tissue Bio, Evo Bio, Pathophys, Endocrinology, and O-Chem all my last year of undergrad and I got 3.83 for it all, so it can also be done. Good luck!

 

[Joat]

First off, what practice test are you taking? If it's Kaplan then you can hope for like 5-10 points higher than 500 because Kaplan grades stuff pre weird and it's all part of the getting a better score stuff. I echo what everyone else says with your EC's. After 500+ hours of volunteering and stuff it's not how much you've done, but what you've done. If you're looking primarily DO, research schools and find lower average GPA's. I high MCAT will definitely help. I personally know people who have been accepted with 490, 492, 494, and 497 MCAT scores so it can be done. Also you need to get some research hours and more shadowing hours, especially DO and get a get LOR. Make sure you explain your EC's well and emphasize underserved with DO. Buckle down and work hard your last year. I took Genetics, Cell Bio, Adv Cell Bio, Dev Bio, Tissue Bio, Evo Bio, Pathophys, Endocrinology, and O-Chem all my last year of undergrad and I got 3.83 for it all, so it can also be done. Good luck!

I've been doing kaplan. I also tried ExamKrackers but can't find an appropriately scaled score, getting approximately 67% with that.