WAMC? Nontrad/cGPA 3.2/504

[tyrannosaurus_wrecks]

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I'm jumping the gun here because I also submitted this cycle but I'm done with secondaries and I have an inability to sit still so I'm self soothing a little here (I'm sorry, this post might be long 😅). Basically, I had a learning disability that wasn't diagnosed until I was almost done with college, a health condition that made it worse, and was the only real source of income for my parents during undergrad. I have a chronically seriously ill parent whose care needs have sort of defined/limited a lot of my life since I was pretty young and I had to pretty much drop everything and move states to be their caregiver right before my mcat too. I definitely didn't predict this happening but things have settled down for the foreseeable future so I'm hoping that if I have to apply again next cycle, there will be fewer surprises.

Thoughts on things to change? Schools that might be a good fit? I'm super interested in going into addiction medicine and pain management/palliative or hospice care in the future so any suggestions on places/schools where there are good resources or support for that kind of career path would be appreciated.

1. cGPA and sGPA
   • cGPA: undergrad cGPA: 3.2, did an MPH afterwards-GPA 3.7
   • sGPA: overall 3.1 (during undergrad 2.7 😬 3 Cs, 1 C- that I retook and got an A in). DIY postbacc GPA 3.65 (one week left in my last class that I have an A in right now)
2. MCAT score
   • 504 (122/130/124/128) (wasn't finished with my prereqs yet so will be taking again in 2023, hoping for a 510+)
3. State of residence or country of citizenship (if non-US)
   • New York, did undergrad & MPH in MA
4. Ethnicity and/or race
   • East Asian
5. Undergraduate institution or category
   • small liberal arts college (think Madeline Albright), graduated in 2018
6. Clinical experience (volunteer and non-volunteer)
   • Volunteer: 300 clinical volunteer (140 in pediatric neurology & infectious diseases, 150 in geriatric psychiatry/hospice & palliative care but got cut short due to COVID)
   • Non-Volunteer: clinical data analyst & process improvement job involved shadowing physicians about 25% of the time, so rounded to 500 hours?
7. Research experience and productivity
   • I'm a nontrad so I've been working full-time since I was done with undergrad in 2018. I used to work in microbiome engineering and biotech. I probably worked 20-30 hours a week as an undergrad.
   • Policy research: total 300 hours in two different organizations. One was part of my MPH thesis and was on addressing vaccine hesitancy in historically marginalized groups (probably my favorite activity).
   • 1200 hours total of undergrad research in animal behavior, bioengineering, and immunology (did this two summers).
8. Shadowing experience and specialties represented
   • Not really sure how to separate this from my job under clinical experience. Specialities were usually geriatric psychiatry and pain management.
   • Did some virtual shadowing. Does this count??
9. Non-clinical volunteering
   • Policy research/advocacy related to health education & sexual violence (about 100 hours by now and ongoing)
10. Other extracurricular activities
    • Head copy editor & staff writer for campus newspaper for four years
    • TA for intensive EMT course (we taught the whole course in a month lol)
    • Head of campus's student EMS organization, pushed for our first ever active shooter policy

 

[candbgirl]

Where did you apply?
I’m really not sure about your nonclinical volunteering. Your description doesn’t indicate that you interact with the unserved/underserved in your community. You might be better off finding a soup kitchen or homeless shelter and volunteer at those places.

I’m really sorry about all of your problems. Life is sometimes difficult but you seem to have lots of things happening. What were your MCAT practice test scores? Why did you take the test before you finished your prereqs? How many hours of courses have you taken for your DIY post bacc? Do your posted GPAs include your post bacc courses?

 

[Faha]

Which schools did you apply to ?

 

[tyrannosaurus_wrecks]

Where did you apply?
I’m really not sure about your nonclinical volunteering. Your description doesn’t indicate that you interact with the unserved/underserved in your community. You might be better off finding a soup kitchen or homeless shelter and volunteer at those places.

I’m really sorry about all of your problems. Life is sometimes difficult but you seem to have lots of things happening. What were your MCAT practice test scores? Why did you take the test before you finished your prereqs? How many hours of courses have you taken for your DIY post bacc? Do your posted GPAs include your post bacc courses?

Thanks for your reply! Honestly, I don't have a ton of nonclinical volunteering hours right now. Most of my time has been split between school, work, whatever other activities I had going on, and now being a caregiver. My nonclinical volunteering is combination of research and advocacy work. It's 50% digging in medical/education literature about how comprehensive sex ed protects against sexual assault and dating violence. The other 50% is talking to survivors, helping them find/navigate resources and the criminal justice system, etc. I would love to volunteer outside of the home right now but I'm limited in that regard because I'm caring for someone pretty severely immunocompromised so I'm really trying to limit possible covid exposure.

I went ahead and scheduled the MCAT because my practice scores were all around a 513-515! Again, learning disabled and one of the things I absolutely need for standardized testing is a super consistent study schedule up until the night before. Unfortunately, I had to move states like a week before the exam with very little notice. Hopefully next test will go more smoothly.

DIY postbacc is 26 credits so far. To be 30 in about a week. That GPA is currently a 3.65.

Here's my school list from this cycle:

• Tulane
• TCU
• MC Wisconsin
• Albany
• Temple
• Drexel
• Loyola
• UCLA/Drew
• SUNY Upstate/Downstate/Buffalo
• Rush

 

[Faha]

MD acceptances are unlikely with your stats. You need to raise your sGPA to 3.0 so you will not be screened out at many schools. Take enough additional undergraduate level science courses at a local college in the coming year in order to raise your sGPA to 3.0. At that point you could receive interviews at some DO schools when you reapply next June. Post your new MCAT score here when available and I will suggest schools.

 

[tyrannosaurus_wrecks]

MD acceptances are unlikely with your stats. You need to raise your sGPA to 3.0 so you will not be screened out at many schools. Take enough additional undergraduate level science courses at a local college in the coming year in order to raise your sGPA to 3.0. At that point you could receive interviews at some DO schools when you reapply next June. Post your new MCAT score here when available and I will suggest schools.

Hi Faha, thanks for your suggestion. Just to clarify about GPA, my total sGPA with my undergrad and postbacc classes (BPCM only, separate from my MPH) is about 3.1 now. My postbacc BCPM GPA is about a 3.65. Would you suggest I take more classes beyond the postbacc courses I've already taken? Realized I wasn't very clear about this in my original post. Sorry about that!

 

[Faha]

Hi Faha, thanks for your suggestion. Just to clarify about GPA, my total sGPA with my undergrad and postbacc classes (BPCM only, separate from my MPH) is about 3.1 now. My postbacc BCPM GPA is about a 3.65. Would you suggest I take more classes beyond the postbacc courses I've already taken? Realized I wasn't very clear about this in my original post. Sorry about that!

No, since your total sGPA is now 3.1 you do not need to take additional science courses. Where you can apply to will depend on your new MCAT score.

 

[premedBF]

MD acceptances are unlikely with your stats. You need to raise your sGPA to 3.0 so you will not be screened out at many schools. Take enough additional undergraduate level science courses at a local college in the coming year in order to raise your sGPA to 3.0. At that point you could receive interviews at some DO schools when you reapply next June. Post your new MCAT score here when available and I will suggest schools.

Hmm, The advice I have seen from @Goro before is that reinventors should apply broadly but can apply to schools as if their PB gpa was their overall gpa. Curious to hear if you guys have different opinions on on how realistic it is if reinventors to get into various tiers of medical schools

 

[Faha]

Hmm, The advice I have seen from @Goro before is that reinventors should apply broadly but can apply to schools as if their PB gpa was their overall gpa. Curious to hear if you guys have different opinions on on how realistic it is if reinventors to get into various tiers of medical schools

Every reinventor is different. A reinventor who graduated 5 or 10 years ago with a sub 3.0 GPA and then did a recent 2 year post bacc with a GPA of 3.8 is different than one who graduated from college with sub 3.0 GPA in 2021 and did a 1 year post bacc with a 3.8 . The former will be evaluated as a true reinventor while latter is an applicant with a recent poor undergraduate record and one good year in a post bacc. A 3.6 post bacc is good but a MCAT of 504 is not. Applicants with a MCAT of 504 do not get admitted to top 20 schools and such applicants may receive an acceptance at their state public schools but few are admitted to private or competitive state public schools.

 

[Goro]

Hmm, The advice I have seen from @Goro before is that reinventors should apply broadly but can apply to schools as if their PB gpa was their overall gpa. Curious to hear if you guys have different opinions on on how realistic it is if reinventors to get into various tiers of medical schools

With a great app and high MCAT score, I have seen reinvention work for schools like Vandy, BU, Case, Columbia, Sinai, UCSF, and Dartmouth.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Basically, I had a learning disability that wasn't diagnosed until I was almost done with college, a health condition that made it worse, and was the only real source of income for my parents during undergrad. I have a chronically seriously ill parent whose care needs have sort of defined/limited a lot of my life since I was pretty young and I had to pretty much drop everything and move states to be their caregiver right before my mcat too. I definitely didn't predict this happening but things have settled down for the foreseeable future so I'm hoping that if I have to apply again next cycle, there will be fewer surprises.

First, do you feel you are in a stable enough situation to apply and go through 4-8 years of training? What about your thoughts on taking on and paying off the additional student debt? Who is taking care of your parent if you are studying or have to do rotations, and what happens if the illness progresses?

Second, have you been properly diagnosed? How soon were you able to demonstrate that you could do well in your coursework after your diagnosis? Have you done any clinical work, and has your diagnosis affected your observations to shadow?

Third, why do you want to move away from the policy realm? While being involved as a physician is important, how do you see yourself leveraging this experience while you are a student/resident? Have you networked or connected with thought leaders in your field who happen to be med school faculty at schools on your list?

 

[tyrannosaurus_wrecks]

First, do you feel you are in a stable enough situation to apply and go through 4-8 years of training? What about your thoughts on taking on and paying off the additional student debt? Who is taking care of your parent if you are studying or have to do rotations, and what happens if the illness progresses?

Second, have you been properly diagnosed? How soon were you able to demonstrate that you could do well in your coursework after your diagnosis? Have you done any clinical work, and has your diagnosis affected your observations to shadow?

Third, why do you want to move away from the policy realm? While being involved as a physician is important, how do you see yourself leveraging this experience while you are a student/resident? Have you networked or connected with thought leaders in your field who happen to be med school faculty at schools on your list?

Yes, I have all the paperwork saying that I have a proper diagnosis! Finally got it my senior year of college and did some occupational therapy which was a tremendous help. Save for a couple of Bs pretty early on after my diagnosis, it's been smooth sailing. I spread out a 45 credit MPH and 30 credits of BCPM coursework over 3 years working two jobs. It sucked but I managed fine so I don't think workload will be an issue.

I don't think my diagnosis has had any impact on the shadowing or clinical activities I've done and I don't anticipate it'll be an issue moving forward either. I have no undergrad debt and will have maybe $20k left of my graduate loans to pay off by next summer so I'm not terribly worried about med school debt. To be frank, my dad's most likely approaching end of life and is expected to enter hospice care soon.

I've connected with med school faculty at Tulane, Temple, and Howard specifically through my MPH thesis work because I was writing about Covid vaccine hesitancy in Black/Latino communities. Without writing a novel, I really want to help change the conversation around palliative and end-of-life care. Harder to do that as an MPH than as a physician imo. I like policy work and the public health perspective will be helpful I think but what I really want to do is work more directly with people on the day to day.

 

[tyrannosaurus_wrecks]

Forgot to include this earlier but I did apply to Tufts because that's where I did my MPH and I really liked it there. I initially applied to their pain research/education program but it was being phased out. I did get to take quite a few of their classes though and really loved the professors who taught the program's courses. The program director ended up writing one of my LORs.