What are my chances?

[Oregon_state]

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Hey everyone,
I wanted to get some advice if I even have a chance to get into DO school. My grades are not the best with a graduating GPA of 2.96 and a 3.06 sGPA (terrible I know) a biology degree. I have not taken the MCAT yet but I have done some practice tests scoring in three tests (510, 513 and 510 respectfully). I am a first generation Mexican American graduating from college. Overall, I want to become a family medicine doctor but I starting to have my doubts if I should instead become a nurse practitioner. Although, I will not give up on my dream to become a doctor! I want to own my own practice in the future so that I can help low income people families by using my bilingual skills. Not in for the money but for the vast amount of knowledge medical doctors achieve during their medical school career (not the reason why I want to be a doctor that's a different tragic story but happy ending).
My extracurricular activities as follows volunteered over 500 hours at a clinic as a medical interpreter, (Spanish), over 300 hours translating medical terminology from English to Spanish, 70 hours in clerical support for a clinic, shadowed 1 M.D. and 1 D.O. approx 25 hours each, employment weekly 30-40 hours (taking majority of my time) for the past 5 years. Approx 500 hours in a medical internship in Mexico I did in the summer (learned how to do vital signs, chief complaint analysis, basic weight/ height measurement, etc). I have pretty good recommendation letters from my professors, doctors, and other professionals. Any help is appreciated! Just an ambiguous individual trying to survive life 🙂
Also, I wanted to add will an SMP be a beneficial option for me? I am also thinking if I should go to medical school in Mexico at UAG medical school of Universidad Autonoma de Guadalajara (I have family living there so housing is paid for).

 

[Goro]

I can't recommend applying because no med school will do you any favors by accepting you if you are at high risk for failing out of med school. Hence, do a DIY post-bac or SMP and do well in them (3.6+)

 

[kamakazi5]

With your ECs and an MCAT near your practice scores, I think you'll be in great shape with a year of good grades in upper level courses as goro has pointed out.

 

[rufflev]

Hey everyone,
I wanted to get some advice if I even have a chance to get into DO school. My grades are not the best with a graduating GPA of 2.96 and a 3.06 sGPA (terrible I know) a biology degree. I have not taken the MCAT yet but I have done some practice tests scoring in three tests (510, 513 and 510 respectfully). I am a first generation Mexican American graduating from college. Overall, I want to become a family medicine doctor but I starting to have my doubts if I should instead become a nurse practitioner. Although, I will not give up on my dream to become a doctor! I want to own my own practice in the future so that I can help low income people families by using my bilingual skills. Not in for the money but for the vast amount of knowledge medical doctors achieve during their medical school career (not the reason why I want to be a doctor that's a different tragic story but happy ending).
My extracurricular activities as follows volunteered over 500 hours at a clinic as a medical interpreter, (Spanish), over 300 hours translating medical terminology from English to Spanish, 70 hours in clerical support for a clinic, shadowed 1 M.D. and 1 D.O. approx 25 hours each, employment weekly 30-40 hours (taking majority of my time) for the past 5 years. Approx 500 hours in a medical internship in Mexico I did in the summer (learned how to do vital signs, chief complaint analysis, basic weight/ height measurement, etc). I have pretty good recommendation letters from my professors, doctors, and other professionals. Any help is appreciated! Just an ambiguous individual trying to survive life 🙂
Also, I wanted to add will an SMP be a beneficial option for me? I am also thinking if I should go to medical school in Mexico at UAG medical school of Universidad Autonoma de Guadalajara (I have family living there so housing is paid for).

What is your cGPA/sGPA in your last 60 hours of undergraduate education?

Have you taken the AAMC practice tests? If so, what were your score? (I ask this because scores from outside of AAMC tend to either be inflated or deflated).

You have good clinical extracurriculars, I'd take the next step and reach out to the lesser fortunate in your community in a non-clinical setting (i.e. Voices Against Violence, homeless shelters, etc).

SMPs are generally for people that have lower GPAs and high MCATs as it functions to show that you are capable of succeeding in a medical school curricula - these can be fairly expensive and often enough you can opt to do a post-bacc that will be just as effective if not more. Also if you do poorly in the SMP, then it is hard to come back from that as it is indicative of your success in medical school.

The general rule of thumb is that you should go to medical school in the country that you wish to practice. I'm not too familiar with UAG, but I imagine that it wouldn't have as good of match-rates in comparison to US MD schools.

 

[zukunft195]

OP, do a one-year post-bacc to get that cGPA above a 3.0 (in order to avoid being screened out). Then apply broadly to DOs and to the Puerto Rican MDs.

 

[JB50]

 

[Peach Newport]

OP is URM. That's the key thing here.

While I don't like the look of his chances of succeeding in medical school, I do like the look of his acceptance chances. With a 510 on the MCAT there are several DO schools that will take you in an instant. Actually, according to AAMC, a 3.0 and a 30 mcat (507 or so) gives a Hispanic student a 50% of acceptance.

 

[Hero6]

Interestingly enough being a URM doesn’t help chances much. I know from experience. I have higher stats and am Mexican-American. I applied and had the “right connections” in admissions and still no go. I was even told by by one admissions committee that just because I’m a URM doesn’t mean I get preferential treatment, they gave me an alternate spot.

There is a school that just opened in my home town and my pcp is on the admission committee, she said I won’t get accepted because they want to have a “stellar” first few classes to show the school can rise to the top quickly.

I applied to UAG and was accepted. I’m currently attending. Classes are great. Everything as far as curriculum and classes is in English and mirrors the block system with organ systems. Advantages are that we get more hands on clinical experience starting from the first few months. We only stay for 2 years and go back to the US for clinical at several university owned hospitals and rotate with their medical students.

Other advantage, at least in Texas is a lot of physicians that attended school outside the US (mostly private in Mexico in my experience)are looked on highly in their respective specialties.

There are no issues with going back to the US. We are ECFMG certified as soon as we meet the requirements which mirror US school requirements.

As for residency I know many programs that accept graduates from UAG and are just as competitive as the mid-high end students in US.

We are taught very well and my upper semester friends (whom do not speak Spanish) have scored 240+ on STEP 1.

Ultimately your medical education is what you make it. You learn what you want. If a student in the US does not work at their education they won’t make it. I know US students who fail and just don’t apply themselves.

Main goals should be learn medicine from as many sources as possible, score high in exams, dedicate yourself to STEP 1, get hogh scores in rotations, make sure you leave nothing to chance as to what program directors would want in a applicant

 

[Coltuna]

Interestingly enough being a URM doesn’t help chances much.

This statement is not true, and there is a plethora of applied vs accepted numbers to support that being URM increases one's chance of acceptance greatly with GPA and MCAT held constant.

 

[Hero6]

This statement is not true, and there is a plethora of applied vs accepted numbers to support that being URM increases one's chance of acceptance greatly with all other factors held constant.

I’m speaking from my experience and from the experiences of those I know personally (including direct experiences of admins that I know)

Just because you are a URM doesn’t mean you’re good to go when you have average scores.

The numbers that are shown in statistics do not necessarily indicate that it’s true. Many of those that apply and are accepted as URM go to schools that have relative high numbers of URM, like Howard or Meharry, which offset what most other schools accept. I’d like to see direct numbers of Mexican-Americans applying vs accepted and see what those numbers really say.

In the end, medical school only gives you the tools. You make it what it is. Your acceptance into residencies is on what you have accomplished as a student, not what school you go to

 

[Hero6]

And by no means am I implying, or otherwise, to not apply with what stats you have. Regardless of who you are and your background it’s up to admins to accept you or not. If they don’t like you for their program then you’re SOL.

 

[Coltuna]

I’m speaking from my experience and from the experiences of those I know personally (including direct experiences of admins that I know)

Just because you are a URM doesn’t mean you’re good to go when you have average scores.

The numbers that are shown in statistics do not necessarily indicate that it’s true. Many of those that apply and are accepted as URM go to schools that have relative high numbers of URM, like Howard or Meharry, which offset what most other schools accept. I’d like to see direct numbers of Mexican-Americans applying vs accepted and see what those numbers really say.

In the end, medical school only gives you the tools. You make it what it is. Your acceptance into residencies is on what you have accomplished as a student, not what school you go to

What you've heard from people personally (admin or not) is still purely anecdotal. While I do agree that average stats shouldn't be the goal for any applicant, and you're not "good to go" with average scores, there's still data with fairly large sample size (too large to only be applicable to a few schools) which supports that URM gives a significant advantage. I've attached the link to charts published by AAMC. I wasn't aware that OP was asking about residency placement and am definitely not qualified to give insight into that lol.

Applicants and Matriculants Data - FACTS: Applicants, Matriculants, Enrollment, Graduates, MD/PhD, and Residency Applicants Data - Data and Analysis - AAMC