speedyranger
New Member
- Joined
- Oct 5, 2023
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Hello SDN! This is my first post so a little background: this is my second application cycle and it's not looking successful. It should be noted, however, that with my first application cycle, I failed to submit most of my secondaries, and this cycle most were submitted in early September. I recognize the idiocy of this but without delving into too much detail, I just get into my head and undermine my confidence/ability to sell myself. My stats are as follows:
1) 3.43 cGPA | 3.33 BCPM
* Semester GPAs consistently averaging 3.6 with one semester in my sophomore year bringing cumulative down
2) MCAT: 516 (130/128/130/128) in 2022
3) Bio: 22yo from California. ORM (White; Middle Eastern)
5) First 2 years of undergrad were at community college (CC) followed by my last two years at UC Berkeley (Cal).
6) Clinical Experience: 3 years of fulltime employment as an ED Technician
7) No Research experience to speak of as CC didn't offer it, COVID hit when I got to Cal, and I started working shortly after that.
8) Shadowing: Internship during my freshman year ~100 hours
9) Volunteering:
- Student note-taker
- volunteer work at a local pro-bono civil rights legal firm for the past 6 years;
10) Others:
- Was a package handler at a FedEx warehouse during the summer of 2020.
- Vice President of CC American Medical Student Association (AMSA)
- Academic Vice President of UCB pre-med Frat
- Mental Health Department Head for a Cal student government senator,
- One year of on-campus employment as a CC peer mentor (campus tours, orientations, etc.)
- DeCal Committee Member for Berkeley Medical Reallocation Initiative (kind of a mix between volunteer/extra but I put it as an extra)
So as you can see I'm not exactly a traditional applicant. Due to personal circumstances that I expand upon in the app, I chose to drop out of high school two years early and begin my collegiate studies. I may have been a bit too eager as taking O-Chem, Bio, Physics, and Calc in the same semester two semesters in a row backfired a little bit as evidenced by my GPA. But for the past two years I've been in the predicament of not knowing if my circumstances will be seen in a positive light or negative? Will I be seen as too young and ergo immature to accept? Is the GPA a red flag in spite of the decent MCAT? Is the lack of research experience gonna be an issue?
Given that I've already applied twice I'm hesitant to apply again without concrete improvements to my app but I also recognize I'm setting myself up for failure with the delayed secondary submission despite the June 1st, 12am primary submission. What steps would y'all recommend I take from here? I'm debating doing an SMP to potentially improve my GPA. On the other end of the extreme, I'm debating just sucking it up going Caribbean, and grinding for two years rather than wasting more time on more degrees that won't guarantee me a spot in a medical school as Im confident I don't want to do a hyper-competitive specialty and would like to stay in the realm of EM or trauma surgery. If you read through all that, much appreciated. I recognize it's a lot of questions with no specific direction but that's kinda me right now. Let me know if I left anything out or can expand on anything.
1) 3.43 cGPA | 3.33 BCPM
* Semester GPAs consistently averaging 3.6 with one semester in my sophomore year bringing cumulative down
2) MCAT: 516 (130/128/130/128) in 2022
3) Bio: 22yo from California. ORM (White; Middle Eastern)
5) First 2 years of undergrad were at community college (CC) followed by my last two years at UC Berkeley (Cal).
6) Clinical Experience: 3 years of fulltime employment as an ED Technician
7) No Research experience to speak of as CC didn't offer it, COVID hit when I got to Cal, and I started working shortly after that.
8) Shadowing: Internship during my freshman year ~100 hours
9) Volunteering:
- Student note-taker
- volunteer work at a local pro-bono civil rights legal firm for the past 6 years;
10) Others:
- Was a package handler at a FedEx warehouse during the summer of 2020.
- Vice President of CC American Medical Student Association (AMSA)
- Academic Vice President of UCB pre-med Frat
- Mental Health Department Head for a Cal student government senator,
- One year of on-campus employment as a CC peer mentor (campus tours, orientations, etc.)
- DeCal Committee Member for Berkeley Medical Reallocation Initiative (kind of a mix between volunteer/extra but I put it as an extra)
So as you can see I'm not exactly a traditional applicant. Due to personal circumstances that I expand upon in the app, I chose to drop out of high school two years early and begin my collegiate studies. I may have been a bit too eager as taking O-Chem, Bio, Physics, and Calc in the same semester two semesters in a row backfired a little bit as evidenced by my GPA. But for the past two years I've been in the predicament of not knowing if my circumstances will be seen in a positive light or negative? Will I be seen as too young and ergo immature to accept? Is the GPA a red flag in spite of the decent MCAT? Is the lack of research experience gonna be an issue?
Given that I've already applied twice I'm hesitant to apply again without concrete improvements to my app but I also recognize I'm setting myself up for failure with the delayed secondary submission despite the June 1st, 12am primary submission. What steps would y'all recommend I take from here? I'm debating doing an SMP to potentially improve my GPA. On the other end of the extreme, I'm debating just sucking it up going Caribbean, and grinding for two years rather than wasting more time on more degrees that won't guarantee me a spot in a medical school as Im confident I don't want to do a hyper-competitive specialty and would like to stay in the realm of EM or trauma surgery. If you read through all that, much appreciated. I recognize it's a lot of questions with no specific direction but that's kinda me right now. Let me know if I left anything out or can expand on anything.
