MD WAMC - High(ish) MCAT, Low-ish GPA. California

[drwannabe1]

Hello!

1. GPA: 3.48, UC Berkeley. Upward trend (Year 1: 2.50 (Only 8 units graded take it, rest was P/NP due to pandemic, got the worst grades I've gotten in my life).Year 2: 3.66, Year 3: 3.64)
2. MCAT: 520 (132 Chem, 129 CARS, 128 Bio, 131 Psych)
3. California Resident and Citizen
4. Middle Eastern
5. Shadowed a cardiologist for 6 months, around 200-300 ish hours?
6. NO RESEARCH EXPERIENCE ((
7. Volunteered in local hospital during the summer
8. Was in Berkeley MSA, did some hackathons, etc

Should I apply this cycle, or try and get some research experience during this year and get my GPA up higher, then apply next cycle? My goal is to get into an allopathic medical school in California, socal preferred. Would prefer a higher tier school, would settle. What can I realistically apply to and get accepted into? Also open to out of state schools. What tier of medical schools should I apply to? How many? Not interested in DO. If I were to apply this cycle, I would submit my primary in about a week.

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[chilly_md]

Please follow the template below (with detailed hours and descriptions of your activities, including non-clinical hours):

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Hello, and welcome to the What Are My Chances (WAMC) forum. The purpose of this forum is to Post threads about your chances of acceptance to MD and/or DO schools Have your school list critiqued and modified by other members of SDN Determine how to strengthen your current application General...

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You would need an additional year of grades to be competitive.

 

[Faha]

You appear to have completed only 3 years to college. You would be better off to apply in another year after raising your GPA to 3.6 .

 

[drwannabe1]

You appear to have completed only 3 years to college. You would be better off to apply in another year after raising your GPA to 3.6 .

Do you think it would hurt to apply to a couple schools this cycle, with the intention that I would probably have to reapply next cycle? Would it hurt my odds the second time around if I were to do that? I’d be willing to take another year to apply, but I’m not totally opposed to it. Thanks so much for your advice!

 

[Faha]

Do you think it would hurt to apply to a couple schools this cycle, with the intention that I would probably have to reapply next cycle? Would it hurt my odds the second time around if I were to do that? I’d be willing to take another year to apply, but I’m not totally opposed to it. Thanks so much for your advice!

You apply with the best application possible. The majority of applicants apply after 4 years of college.

 

[Goro]

Do you think it would hurt to apply to a couple schools this cycle, with the intention that I would probably have to reapply next cycle? Would it hurt my odds the second time around if I were to do that? I’d be willing to take another year to apply, but I’m not totally opposed to it. Thanks so much for your advice!

Waste of time and money, and a display of questionable judgement.

200 hrs of shadowing is overkill.

You appear to have no nonclinical volunteering, which is not good

 

[drwannabe1]

Waste of time and money, and a display of questionable judgement.

200 hrs of shadowing is overkill.

You appear to have no nonclinical volunteering, which is not good

My shadowing turned into more of a volunteer type thing as time went on. I ended up doing some work with patient records and such. Would this be worth including on my application?

 

[Goro]

My shadowing turned into more of a volunteer type thing as time went on. I ended up doing some work with patient records and such. Would this be worth including on my application?

Were you interacting with patients?

 

[drwannabe1]

Were you interacting with patients?

Yeah, every day!