unsuccessful postbac

[TriagePreMed]

Lets be real here. It really isn't fair to have a system where retakes make grades just disappear so easily. Also, it isn't fair for a student that was immature and now has grown up to have the medical school door closed to them because of past mistakes. Personally, I would support a policy that would allow a certain number of retakes based on how old the original grade was. If it has been 5+ since you took the class, you should be able to retake it as is now. If the class is within the first 3 to 5 years, then it should only be grades where you got an F or a D that you're allowed to retake. Then if it's 0 to 3 years, your grades should average.

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[DrWily]

Lets be real here. It really isn't fair to have a system where retakes make grades just disappear so easily. Also, it isn't fair for a student that was immature and now has grown up to have the medical school door closed to them because of past mistakes. Personally, I would support a policy that would allow a certain number of retakes based on how old the original grade was. If it has been 5+ since you took the class, you should be able to retake it as is now. If the class is within the first 3 to 5 years, then it should only be grades where you got an F or a D that you're allowed to retake. Then if it's 0 to 3 years, your grades should average.

I don't understand why we're talking about whats "fair" or not. It is what it is, and it has been in place for many years (since 1999 or something). The AACOMAS has deemed replacement grades fair game, and many of us take advantage of this policy. I wouldn't even be competitive if it wasn't for this policy (I'm probably not even considered competitive still). I can tell you that I know I deserve a chance to be a physician and will probably do as well or better than my fellow classmates who got in without replacement grades. It's not like those grades "magically" disappear. They are still listed on your application and on your transcripts. They don't count towards GPA calculations, but ADCOMs can still see how well you performed. They will be the ultimate judge on whether you can cut it in medical school or not. If we truly believe that ADCOMs take a holistic approach to accepting quality students into their program, then the weight rests on their shoulders, not on the AACOMAS's grade replacement policy.

p.s. i think i just got trolled into an MDvsDO debate disguised as an AMCASvsAACOMAS debate.

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF............

 

[poopyhead]

How about if you retake a class 1 year later, how about 5 years later, or even 10? Would there still be a significant advantage to having taken the class before?

Many applicants who take advantage of this haven't taken the course in a long time and are returning students. If you're willing to put in the work it offers a way to become an attractive candidate even if you were a poor student in the past. Also, adcoms do take retakes into account and it does matter if you took 2 recent tries to get an A in Ochem versus 1 retake of an old D in a history class. What classes are being retaken and when they were taken matter. That said, if someone is willing to put in the work and retake a ton of old classes and succeed in a lot of science-based new ones they have a shot at redemption.

It makes some sense to have a filter for relevant coursework to allow highly capable students with a past to be noticed:

Hypothetical Example:

2.4 old gpa (10 yrs ago) - 4.0 new gpa (60 cr, half retakes) / 33 MCAT
ACCOMAS - 3.3+ cgpa / 3.5+ sgpa - competitive candidate with MCAT
AMCAS - 2.9 cgpa / 3.2 sgpa - probably screened out at most schools, marginal candidate


The above example is kind of extreme, this is a 4.0/33 student, better than most applicants, but isn't seen that way because of grades from the distant past. In AMCAS this is in many cases an impossible situation, schools will disqualify excellent students for ancient mistakes. The ACCOMAS system gives these people an opportunity to not be automatically filtered out. The opposite is true as well, some students had a great gpa in an easy school/major college then do a postbacc later an score lower in a small dose of science prereqs. Should they be seen as their high gpa when they are barely cutting it in the present with relevant coursework?

A simpler system may be to place most of the weight on the last 60-90 credits, this could allow trads and nontrads a more level playing field.

I'm pretty sure there are many traditional applicants taking advantage of grade replacement, who simply just sucked the first time they took the courses. If the original intent was for non-trads to redeem themselves from mistakes made years/decades ago, then AACOMAS should only allow grade replacement for courses taken 10+ years ago. Anything before that would be averaged like AMCAS.

 

[TwinsFan]

Though there are many cases of situations like this present on SDN, I don't think this is frequently occurring for entire forgiveness policies to be written in the AMCAS. But even in that situation he still has the option of doing an SMP for total forgiveness of his past grades.
The fact is that there are plenty of MD-applicants with perfect 4.0's to fill the roasters on all the medical schools. They understand he made a mistake, but there are plenty of pre-MD students who have never made a mistake.

As much as people are avoiding the answer, it is simple, MD schools have more than enough people to select for perfection. DO schools have a lot less quality applicants and as such there is more leeway and willingness to take in potentially weaker candidates as students. It's never been about forgiveness, it's always been about the overall caliber of applying students. These redeeming students are high caliber applicants who DO schools are more than willing to take in to better their overall class.

This isn't even an option for the hypothetical scenario suggested above because many SMPs require a 3.0 minimum (not a 2.9). This would require a 3 year postbacc to even have a shot at an SMP. This option is unrealistic for almost any applicant.


Secondly, there are not enough 4.0s with decent MCAT scores to fill all the classes. There were only 28,530 with a 3.8-4.0 gpa over the last 3 years combined, and of these over 5,000 had MCAT scores under 27 (not likely to get in). That means you have about 7,800 of these 3.8-4.0 applicants a year (~23,500/3 = 7833) and over twice that many spots. Clearly this is an exaggeration perpetuated at each school, yes top schools can have all high stat people but not all MD schools, the statistics are published. They have a glut of high stat applicants, but if you take all the ~70+ Lizzy scores from the same data you have less than that (using linear estimation for the distributions in the AAMC MCAT/gpa grid) at what looks like ~21k over 3 years (7k / yr).

 

[Drrrrrr. Celty]

This isn't even an option for the hypothetical scenario suggested above because many SMPs require a 3.0 minimum (not a 2.9). This would require a 3 year postbacc to even have a shot at an SMP. This option is unrealistic for almost any applicant.


Secondly, there are not enough 4.0s with decent MCAT scores to fill all the classes. There were only 28,530 with a 3.8-4.0 gpa over the last 3 years combined, and of these over 5,000 had MCAT scores under 27 (not likely to get in). That means you have about 7,800 of these 3.8-4.0 applicants a year (~23,500/3 = 7833) and over twice that many spots. Clearly this is an exaggeration perpetuated at each school, yes top schools can have all high stat people but not all MD schools, the statistics are published. They have a glut of high stat applicants, but if you take all the ~70+ Lizzy scores from the same data you have less than that (using linear estimation for the distributions in the AAMC MCAT/gpa grid) at what looks like ~21k over 3 years (7k / yr).

Well, some people do it.
Yes, I was erroneous with that comment. Substitute 4.0's for high caliber candidates.

 

[TwinsFan]

I'm pretty sure there are many traditional applicants taking advantage of grade replacement, who simply just sucked the first time they took the courses. If the original intent was for non-trads to redeem themselves from mistakes made years/decades ago, then AACOMAS should only allow grade replacement for courses taken 10+ years ago. Anything before that would be averaged like AMCAS.

I agree this can be total crap. I have seen students use Ws for the same thing. Take a class for 2/3 of the semester and drop it, use the experience and old tests to take it again the next semester and shoot for an A. Considering how relatively few difficult premed classes there are (in my opinion) it really lets people use those 2-3 Ws for the toughies and make them reasonable to get an A (or at least a B) in.

It can be very frustrating to see the degree people go to to protect or enhance their gpa. Grade grubbing, rate my prof for easy teachers, only taking 1-2 science courses a semester, using strategic Ws, picking easy majors, picking an easier school (small private noname U), using groups of people alternating what courses to take and passing old tests/hw etc. Many pre-meds only have high gpas because they know how to play the game (and yes I never did anything like this and wish I had a high cGPA, not just a 4.0 postbacc).

It is really sickining to see all of this after having to hump it in a major where there was over 90% attrition and people were ecstatic just to pass, all while taking breaks in "easy" classes like materials engineering. At least the MCAT levels the playing field a bit. /rant

 

[TriagePreMed]

I don't understand why we're talking about whats "fair" or not. It is what it is, and it has been in place for many years (since 1999 or something). The AACOMAS has deemed replacement grades fair game, and many of us take advantage of this policy. I wouldn't even be competitive if it wasn't for this policy (I'm probably not even considered competitive still). I can tell you that I know I deserve a chance to be a physician and will probably do as well or better than my fellow classmates who got in without replacement grades. It's not like those grades "magically" disappear. They are still listed on your application and on your transcripts. They don't count towards GPA calculations, but ADCOMs can still see how well you performed. They will be the ultimate judge on whether you can cut it in medical school or not. If we truly believe that ADCOMs take a holistic approach to accepting quality students into their program, then the weight rests on their shoulders, not on the AACOMAS's grade replacement policy.

p.s. i think i just got trolled into an MDvsDO debate disguised as an AMCASvsAACOMAS debate.

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF............

Ehh... we are just playing around with hypothetical scenarios here. I don't know about you, but my first 2 weeks of school have been dirt easy; so this place is a good time waster.

 

[mishaS]

You're an allo student. Why do you even care about DO admissions policies?

You guys want to be treated the same, after all you're doctors who can do the same thing, and yet in this instance you want to be separate? I care because DOs will be colleagues, and as such things like an admissions policy that has serious potential to let in terrible candidates, allowing for profit medical schools to be opened, allowing schools to be opened without any connection to teaching hospitals, allowing massive increases in graduate numbers (through new schools and aggressive expansions in established schools) without having growth in residency slots, allowing nurses to precept medical students, etc. will drive down the quality of the profession. There are plenty of great DO schools, but the downward trend with the new schools is a bit worrying. Any DO should care as well, because if new schools have a race to the bottom, any respect the DO name has earned will go down the ****ter.

So someone like me who was obviously not mature and serious enough during my 1st two years in college (where all the pre-reqs are), but turned it around and received 3.5-4.0 GPA during my last two years (upper division science courses) should not be allowed to retake classes to boost my GPA? It's obvious that I can handle difficult sciences (A's) due to my major being Chemistry. I had a full course load including labs AND research on top of that. Should I be so punished by my mistakes during my 1st two years to bar me from getting into medical school? Getting a 30+ on my MCAT also shows that I have enough understanding of these pre-reqs to do reasonably well on Medical College Admissions Test. Without replacement grade policy, my sGPA would be around 2.6 due to multiple Cs and lower during the first two years. I should be forced to pay $50,000 for a master's program when I have no desire to pursue a master's degree, only to "demonstrate" my worthiness for Medical School?

Not everyone who gets a C the first time is due to intellectual deficiency. Outside circumstances play a role in determining grades. However, I will agree that there is a point when too much is too much. But that point is not for me or you to decide. I might also add that the competitive nature of my top 10 public university probably hurts my GPA more than going to a no-name state school.. and yet the numbers are probably still weighed the same.

Wouldn't a system where your GPA was weighted more heavily with advanced classes make more sense than this? Seriously, how idiotic is it that after taking advanced classes, you have to play cleanup and waste time taking classes that are way bellow you? And to those who graduated years before, please tell me DO admissions puts a limit on how long ago you could have taken a prereq... My gf had to retake tons of classes to be able to apply to PA school because they don't count anything that was taken 6 years ago. Seriously, I hope that a program that trains the top tier of the medical profession has a higher standard of admission than a masters program....

edit*
Let me put it this way, because there won't ever be an ideal, would you rather have a system that is too forgiving and allows for the creation of more crappy doctors, or a system that denies some people who would have made good doctors entry? I sympathies with people who deserve a second chance, but not enough to put it over patient welfare....

 

[DrWily]

You guys want to be treated the same, after all you're doctors who can do the same thing, and yet in this instance you want to be separate? I care because DOs will be colleagues, and as such things like an admissions policy that has serious potential to let in terrible candidates, allowing for profit medical schools to be opened, allowing schools to be opened without any connection to teaching hospitals, allowing massive increases in graduate numbers (through new schools and aggressive expansions in established schools) without having growth in residency slots, allowing nurses to precept medical students, etc. will drive down the quality of the profession. There are plenty of great DO schools, but the downward trend with the new schools is a bit worrying. Any DO should care as well, because if new schools have a race to the bottom, any respect the DO name has earned will go down the ****ter.

You say these things but they have nothing to do with the admissions process. They are AOA/COCA issues which are being addressed with new proposed guidelines for establishing new schools. None of these things have to do with letting replacement classes override old grades. DOs claim that their medical school training is equal to MD, and says nothing about the application system. If the process is letting in terrible candidates, then they will be weeded out when it comes to getting that degree. Let's not forget about passing medical school courses, passing your boards (COMLEX/USMLE) Step 1/2, passing shelf exams, and doing well enough to make it through residency. I'd think that with this many checks, the terrible candidates will have a difficult time making it through. I'm not saying its impossible, but improbable given the system. If someone can make it through the whole system, then I say that they are qualified to be a physician. They may not be a "good" physician, but they certainly are qualified.

Wouldn't a system where your GPA was weighted more heavily with advanced classes make more sense than this? Seriously, how idiotic is it that after taking advanced classes, you have to play cleanup and waste time taking classes that are way bellow you? And to those who graduated years before, please tell me DO admissions puts a limit on how long ago you could have taken a prereq... My gf had to retake tons of classes to be able to apply to PA school because they don't count anything that was taken 6 years ago. Seriously, I hope that a program that trains the top tier of the medical profession has a higher standard of admission than a masters program....

edit*
Let me put it this way, because there won't ever be an ideal, would you rather have a system that is too forgiving and allows for the creation of more crappy doctors, or a system that denies some people who would have made good doctors entry? I sympathies with people who deserve a second chance, but not enough to put it over patient welfare....

See above about creation of crappy doctors. Patient welfare has nothing to do with undergraduate grades. I found that my undergraduate classes were extremely boring, and we've already decided on another thread that OChem has very little to do with medicine at all. So why even require it? I would have loved if the AMCAS and AACOMAS weighs the last two years more heavily than the first two. It would have given me a lot more opportunities than I have now. However, this is not how the system is currently, and I have taken the steps necessary to "play the game" as it is now. Being a DO will always put me at a disadvantage, but it will make me work that much harder. I'm sure that when push comes to shove, I will curse the DO name and cry about it.. but without the current system in place, I would never have been able to have the chance at becoming a physician like I have now.

 

[TwinsFan]

...would you rather have a system that is too forgiving and allows for the creation of more crappy doctors, or a system that denies some people who would have made good doctors entry? I sympathies with people who deserve a second chance, but not enough to put it over patient welfare....

Old low undergrad grades have very little correlation with patient welfare or being a good doctor. Especially in completely unrelated coursework.

As someone who has worked as a professional for several years I would go so far as to say undergrad grades in general don't have a lot of correlation with quality, at least in my field. I have worked with some pretty crappy engineers who had excellent grades and some very good ones who barely graduated. It was more about the soft skills (people skills) and how you think to solve problems in innovative ways (vision, creativity, problem solving) and these skills aren't really taught in the classroom. Some is God-given and the rest is a combination of passion, personality, learning, and the will to push yourself.

I am going to go on a limb and say the being a physician is similar. Yes, you must aquire the knowledge base (med school vs. engineering school) and have some practical experience, but what makes you "good" or "bad" is probably weighted more heavily on the soft factors. Since you are interacting with people constantly and the process of how you think about and approach a patient to diagnose, treat and care for them is also analogous to the problem solving skills when troubleshooting a design. And you can be sure as hell that the skillset used by the grade grubbing automatons who memorized the book and got only As is not going to overlap heavily with the skillset it takes to become a "good" physician, other than the persistence it took to do this. Most of these courses don't require complex thinking, much problem solving or any kind of soft skills. Does that mean that straight A students won't be good doctors, No. But it doesn't mean they will be good ones either.

Having a system that puts less emphasis on gpa, which should be an indicator of hard work and persistence and not so much of intelligence, in an attempt to focus on these important soft factors by "looking at the whole applicant" probably makes a lot of sense. As far as repeating classes taking away from the integrity of the gpa, it does less than you think, because you have to be willing to put in the hard work to do it (which I'm arguing is what gpa is supposed to measure anyways). For intelligence there is the MCAT and the interview (raw and social/emotional respectively). It is not a catch all, but it does a decent job to address these factors.

 

[ksmajmudar]

You guys want to be treated the same, after all you're doctors who can do the same thing, and yet in this instance you want to be separate? I care because DOs will be colleagues, and as such things like an admissions policy that has serious potential to let in terrible candidates, allowing for profit medical schools to be opened, allowing schools to be opened without any connection to teaching hospitals, allowing massive increases in graduate numbers (through new schools and aggressive expansions in established schools) without having growth in residency slots, allowing nurses to precept medical students, etc. will drive down the quality of the profession. There are plenty of great DO schools, but the downward trend with the new schools is a bit worrying. Any DO should care as well, because if new schools have a race to the bottom, any respect the DO name has earned will go down the ****ter.



Wouldn't a system where your GPA was weighted more heavily with advanced classes make more sense than this? Seriously, how idiotic is it that after taking advanced classes, you have to play cleanup and waste time taking classes that are way bellow you? And to those who graduated years before, please tell me DO admissions puts a limit on how long ago you could have taken a prereq... My gf had to retake tons of classes to be able to apply to PA school because they don't count anything that was taken 6 years ago. Seriously, I hope that a program that trains the top tier of the medical profession has a higher standard of admission than a masters program....

edit*
Let me put it this way, because there won't ever be an ideal, would you rather have a system that is too forgiving and allows for the creation of more crappy doctors, or a system that denies some people who would have made good doctors entry? I sympathies with people who deserve a second chance, but not enough to put it over patient welfare....

I can understand where you're coming from. I personally think there should be a limit on how many credits one can retake and still have grade-replacement work. Additionally, I don't believe that adcoms weight a 4.0 with no retake and a 4.0 with 5 retakes the same. I have no hard evidence to back that up, only anecdotal evidence as I sifted through underdog and pre-DO school threads. Maybe Goro can chime in to give his opinion?

While I do believe grade-replacement should be limited, I think it's a false statement to assume that someone who needs to retake classes is incapable of learning medical school information and being a good doctor. There are quite a few circumstances that may inhibit someone from performing well in a class the first time around - family, financial, health reasons or just plain immaturity. That does not directly correlate to intellectual deficiency.

I do agree that upper division classes should be weighted more heavily than gen bio 101. Perhaps that would be a better system than grade replacement? I did not use grade-replacement, but I would have had I not been accepted this cycle.

This is just a thought of mine, but I believe that as admissions gets more competitive for both MD and DO, there will be more spillover of exceptionally qualified candidates to the osteopathic community. I think grade-replacement GPAs will be more difficult to sell to the osteopathic adcoms several years from now. Not impossible, just more difficult.

 

[poopyhead]

Having a system that puts less emphasis on gpa, which should be an indicator of hard work and persistence and not so much of intelligence, in an attempt to focus on these important soft factors by "looking at the whole applicant" probably makes a lot of sense.

These aren't mutually exclusive though. Good GPA and "soft factors" can coexist together.

For intelligence there is the MCAT and the interview (raw and social/emotional respectively). It is not a catch all, but it does a decent job to address these factors.

Many DO students enter with crappy MCAT scores though. I think PCSOM and WVSOM average MCAT ~24, which is lower than the average of all MCAT test takers.

This doesn't matter though...even without grade replacement, the applicants:seat ratio of DO schools would still allow lower GPA/MCAT in at some schools.

 

[TwinsFan]

These aren't mutually exclusive though. Good GPA and "soft factors" can coexist together.

Many DO students enter with crappy MCAT scores though. I think PCSOM and WVSOM average MCAT ~24, which is lower than the average of all MCAT test takers.

This doesn't matter though...even without grade replacement, the applicants:seat ratio of DO schools would still allow lower GPA/MCAT in at some schools.

I completely agree with both points. Great gpa can be combined with the "soft factors." However, many of the premeds I have met seem to be a bit weak in the latter. As far as the low MCAT at a few of those schools, I think some of it has to do with their mission and regional bias. There are plenty of 26-29 MCATs out there who don't get in anywhere and this may be because they are selected against based on these criteria.

I haven't taken the MCAT and maybe I'll feel differently after I do, but it is a bit weak to have such low averages (24) at some of the schools. On the other hand, having students that actually fit what you are wanting your school to produce is probably worth a lot more than filling the class with cookie cutter applicants who have another tenth higher gpa and 2 or 3 points on the MCAT. These are still above average college students who will have A LOT more expected of them in med school, but it is a stark contrast to some schools (HMS, washU etc.) who won't even consider you without 30+/3.6+, and to have a decent shot it's more like 35+/3.8+ with a lot of "soft factors."

 

[ManBroDude]

Though there are many cases of situations like this present on SDN, I don't think this is frequently occurring for entire forgiveness policies to be written in the AMCAS. But even in that situation he still has the option of doing an SMP for total forgiveness of his past grades.
The fact is that there are plenty of MD-applicants with perfect 4.0's to fill the roasters on all the medical schools. They understand he made a mistake, but there are plenty of pre-MD students who have never made a mistake.

As much as people are avoiding the answer, it is simple, MD schools have more than enough people to select for perfection. DO schools have a lot less quality applicants and as such there is more leeway and willingness to take in potentially weaker candidates as students. It's never been about forgiveness, it's always been about the overall caliber of applying students. These redeeming students are high caliber applicants who DO schools are more than willing to take in to better their overall class.

You have a reputation here on this board, but I actually agree with you on this non-troll and non-combative post!

 

[Prairiepalmeri]

OP, stay out of the pre-allo forum. Most of the non-trads and pre-osteo people are pretty decent. We may be frank, but generally not snide or mean...

Anyway, 3.0 ain't gonna cut it. I would say 3.5 MINIMUM to even be considered. Preferably a 3.8. You have a long hard road ahead of you, and that means pulling that 2.6 way up. After your PB work, start retaking courses that you have a C or less in, the AACOMAS gpa will calculate the new grade, not the old. This could be a big help to you... Additionally, B's aren't terrible, but you need to have more As than Bs... Start meeting with the profs and tutors and see about getting those grades up...

Don't give up, just figure out what works!! Best of luck!

You are right, my friend. I asked a question about EC's in the pre-allo forum and got pooped on lol