Hello! I'm new to this site so please correct me if I'm doing anything wrong.
I wanted to know (I've heard the SDN community was the place to go for these sorts of questions), with my specific situation, what exactly should I do to increase my chances (as much as possible) of getting into a great school (hopefully a UC/public MD/DO)? Open to everyone's opinions and ideas.
Stats:
cGPA: 3.14 BA English Major (switched from Economics, which was one of several reasons for my abysmal GPA from first two years), 3.67 Education Minor, UC Santa Barbara (strong upward trends)
Background: Raised in Compton with no access to healthcare most of my life, was too busy trying to make money at home to support family, neglected school and solely went to college for a degree with the plan of helping my family's business post-college. Also, I'm "ORM" (Korean-American) but definitely wouldn't say I grew up in a "traditional Asian-American" background. Parents weren't necessarily employed while I was in high school (although they worked really hard to find stable employment), so I had to find ways to support a family of five as the youngest daughter. One reason why I was pushed into the "money-making" business realm instead of focusing on what I really wanted to do at heart (medicine).
Volunteer: ~60 hours of TAing in under-served schools, ~1,000 hours of AmeriCorps service for aiding homeless children and families in Title 1 (homeless/unstable residence-based) elementary schools, ~30 hours nursing home volunteer, wrote an SAT prep book for impoverished teenagers who wanted to do well on their SATs, and finally going to be shadowing family physicians in two weeks.
Work: Coffee cart barista/cashier, CBEST (state-exams for future teachers) Instructor, SAT tutor, Supervisor for UCSB Dining Services, Proctor (for CBEST exams), founder of Amazon and eBay businesses (to support family), assistant manager for video store business (my mom's current business. Yes, video rental stores do still exist lol).
All the above mentioned is during and post-undergrad btw ^
Anyway, I understand GPA is crucial to pretty much every MD/DO school, which is the one significant thing I'm highly lacking in.
So everyone, what steps can I take to transform my below-average application into a great one?
Currently I am considering a DIY post-bac such as UCLA Extension's Pre-med/General Science Certificate program since I live closest to its campus and it's relatively cheap, but would a formal program serve me better? What do med schools think of extension schools? One worry for me is not having a chance of getting accepted into formal post-bacs anyway due to my tear-inducing GPA right now. At least informal routes usually don't require being accepted based on GPA.
Any other tips out there? Any success stories of post-bacs/If so, did you go for the DIY route or formal? How much does your socioeconomic background impact your chances of being admitted? How much does your ethnicity matter? (I've heard some horror stories of really high-stat Asian-Americans/ORM getting rejected to most or every school applied to because of their ethnic background/race...)
Or anyone who got accepted to med school who formerly had a sub-par undergrad cGPA... What did you do to get to where you are now?
Any advice or stories would be greatly appreciated Thank you very much
I wanted to know (I've heard the SDN community was the place to go for these sorts of questions), with my specific situation, what exactly should I do to increase my chances (as much as possible) of getting into a great school (hopefully a UC/public MD/DO)? Open to everyone's opinions and ideas.
Stats:
cGPA: 3.14 BA English Major (switched from Economics, which was one of several reasons for my abysmal GPA from first two years), 3.67 Education Minor, UC Santa Barbara (strong upward trends)
Background: Raised in Compton with no access to healthcare most of my life, was too busy trying to make money at home to support family, neglected school and solely went to college for a degree with the plan of helping my family's business post-college. Also, I'm "ORM" (Korean-American) but definitely wouldn't say I grew up in a "traditional Asian-American" background. Parents weren't necessarily employed while I was in high school (although they worked really hard to find stable employment), so I had to find ways to support a family of five as the youngest daughter. One reason why I was pushed into the "money-making" business realm instead of focusing on what I really wanted to do at heart (medicine).
Volunteer: ~60 hours of TAing in under-served schools, ~1,000 hours of AmeriCorps service for aiding homeless children and families in Title 1 (homeless/unstable residence-based) elementary schools, ~30 hours nursing home volunteer, wrote an SAT prep book for impoverished teenagers who wanted to do well on their SATs, and finally going to be shadowing family physicians in two weeks.
Work: Coffee cart barista/cashier, CBEST (state-exams for future teachers) Instructor, SAT tutor, Supervisor for UCSB Dining Services, Proctor (for CBEST exams), founder of Amazon and eBay businesses (to support family), assistant manager for video store business (my mom's current business. Yes, video rental stores do still exist lol).
All the above mentioned is during and post-undergrad btw ^
Anyway, I understand GPA is crucial to pretty much every MD/DO school, which is the one significant thing I'm highly lacking in.
So everyone, what steps can I take to transform my below-average application into a great one?
Currently I am considering a DIY post-bac such as UCLA Extension's Pre-med/General Science Certificate program since I live closest to its campus and it's relatively cheap, but would a formal program serve me better? What do med schools think of extension schools? One worry for me is not having a chance of getting accepted into formal post-bacs anyway due to my tear-inducing GPA right now. At least informal routes usually don't require being accepted based on GPA.
Any other tips out there? Any success stories of post-bacs/If so, did you go for the DIY route or formal? How much does your socioeconomic background impact your chances of being admitted? How much does your ethnicity matter? (I've heard some horror stories of really high-stat Asian-Americans/ORM getting rejected to most or every school applied to because of their ethnic background/race...)
Or anyone who got accepted to med school who formerly had a sub-par undergrad cGPA... What did you do to get to where you are now?
Any advice or stories would be greatly appreciated Thank you very much