Odds are better than zero, and on the low end, but it can be done. The key is getting past the filters schools have, and the big filter is GPA. Ten years ago, the filter was generally expected to be around 3.0 for science and core GPA. Schools that were willing to give feedback to me on that subject told me that. Others were more cryptic, but the results of others that had applied and got interviews seemed to support that. Many schools will mention minimum requirements, or else publish a statistical profile of the typical accepted student. That’s are usually very accurate. Yes, there are outliers, but nobody should be comforted by the thought of getting in as an outlier when there are 10 applicants for each seat (10 applicants if you are lucky, and even more if you aren’t lucky).
So think about this… if an average accepted student in a class of 60 has a gpa of 3.6 in core and science, then it’s more likely that many more accepted students will actually have >3.6 vs much less than 3.2 due to the fact that quality grades will not be punished, but instead will be rewarded as standouts. That leaves a very small portion of seats for folks with poor GPAs and incredible upward trends, demonstration of overcoming adversity, extracurriculars, service, HCE, etc. The lower into the GPA pool that a program dips into, the more risk they are taking. Imagine what scenario they would take an applicant of 2.8 GPA. What would compel them to take someone with a 3.0? Again, the vast majority of applicants will fall between 4.0 and 3.3 since the national average GPA of a matriculated seat is like 3.65. The math on this pans out if you average 4.0 and 3.3. My guess is that 3.3 is the silent cutoff to have them even look at an application to read someone’s essay, read their letters of recommendation, catch their hours of HCE/service/shadowing, or see their upward trend. They will let just about anyone send them application fees, and secondary application fees. Fees from applicants at a single program can easily pay for at least a couple administrative assistants for a year, or one professor and benefits. One year I calculated one of my top choice programs as being on track to collect close to a couple hundred thousand from application fees alone. So they have no interest in discouraging an applicant by putting it out there that they have a high unofficial cutoff.
Another thought exercise: 100 seat program. 1100 applicants. 10% are folks who are applying who have no business even bothering, but disregarded the schools published minimum requirements. 10% would be high, but we are being generous with that. The rest of the applicants are wise enough to know that sub 3.0 GPAs have no hope, so they all have >3.0 GPA. Distribute the rest of the grades out. You are looking at literally hundreds of applicants who have >3.5 GPAs who worked hard for years to get that GPA and were consistent. Everything a school is looking for as far as non traditional background, disadvantaged but successful student, overcoming adversity, committed to social justice…. all while still having great GPA. If folks are smart enough to get >3.5 GPA, they are smart enough to put together a great application packet. Those aren’t students who waste their energy on idle quests, they are there to succeed at getting into school, just like they succeeded in undergrad. They will pick from the 800 kids above the 3.1. Programs won’t look at the wings of the bell curve equally. The 4.0 student will get more attention than the 3.9 ones, or the 3.8, and so on. What incentive would a program have to ignore a kid with a 3.9 in favor of one with a 3.1?
