What is my chance with the low gpa I have now...

[sunday249]

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Hey,
I have a cGPA of 3.3 and sGPA of 3.25 right now. I took MCAT once and got 33R. 13 on PS, 12 on BS but only 8 on VR. I know I need to retake the MCAT to boost my VR score. I usually got 10 on my practice exams and I do not know what happened on the test date.
So I am graduating this May and I will take post-bac courses for a year before I apply next year. But given the number of credits I have taken, The best I can do to raise my sGPA is upto 3.5 with 6 additional courses from now on...
The only comforting part of my GPA is that I started my year with 2.5 in freshman year. And still did pretty badly on first semester of my sophomore year. Then I finally realize I wanted to study so my GPA definitely has a high slope trend. But since I started almost from the bottom, high slope is not really helping me...

For EC stuff, I was on a varsity soccer team (why I got 2.5...) my freshman year then quit due to gpa and have been a captain of my intramural soccer team since. I won some awards in small tournaments my team participated in local area.
I have been part of YMCA tutoring for last 2~3 years but its only an hour per week so total number of hours is probably not that substantial.
I have been part of a international student society but no leading role other being a senior advisory member.
I also tutored a high school student from my church for about 10 hours / week for half a year (yea 10 freaking hours / week!)
I have shadowed a doctor in the ER for 3 months for about 20~30 hours. And shadowed a private practitioner time to time for about 30 hours.
I have volunteered in a physical therapy for children (run by a hospital) with brain disease for about 20 hours.
I am in a clinical research and spend about 10 hours / wk.

At this point, I know I will take a year off. So I am doing some research position interviewing. Problem is that I need to take some courses during my year off but in this economy, everybody is only looking for a full-time employee...
So assuming I will be a full-time employee, I am planning to take 6 more additional courses (2 summer, 2 fall, 2 spring), volunteer at a hospital, and hopefully retake MCAT although I cannot find a time to take a MCAT course since the PIs have been wanting me to join the laboratory from June 1...

My choices for Med schools are... (its only my hope list so I have included places where it may appear 'impossible' to some according to the stats)

Brown
Boston U
Dartmouth
Emory
NYU
UVA
Albert Einstein
Georgetown
Tufts
Rochester
UMD (i am from MD)
Wake Forest
George Washington
Penn State
Loyola
Thomas Jefferson
Temple
Drexel

I am trying to stick around home for a med school (MD, DC, VA maybe PA) unless I get lucky and get accepted to schools better than GT and UMD.

What are my chances?

Thanks a lot in advance.

 

[Catalystik]

Congrats on turning around a dismal first year at college and putting your priorities where they needed to be. If you apply with a 3.4/33, then your list is way too top heavy, as you know. Don't be thinking that the name of your school would give you more than a tiny boost, if anything. I think a list is premature, since we don't yet know your application stats. You would be lucky to get into UMD. To improve your chances, adding some DO schools to the list should be considered.

A high MCAT score can compensate for a lower cGPA, but it's good you're planning additional postbac work to bring up that low BCPM GPA, as that's how you prove to adcomms you can handle a science-heavy curriculum. A 3.5 there would be good to see. Overall, your steep upward grade trend should serve you well.

The shadowing looks fine. You are strong in teaching, and your sport also gives you a leadership opportunity. It isn't clear how much clinical experience you have between the research and the PT, but you have another year to improve on that (and you should keep your hand in, clinically-speaking, during the next year, even if it's only 2 hours per week). It also isn't clear how much research you already have, but if you aspire to the research giants, then 2+ years on the application, with pubs if possible, would be advisable.

 

[Drrrrrr. Celty]

Add VCOM, PCOM to your list if your looking to stay within the area of maryland. Your scores are decent, but I'd still apply to 3-5 DO schools.

 

[mynamehere]

i peersonally think you have a shot in many schools.. you should just look up the stats.. people are constantly saying an uptrend is good.. and that's exactly what you did! if the ad com are really true to their words about uptrends.. and you justify it well.. why not?
but then again, you're already set on post-bacc.. doesn't that already give you a semi fresh plate (given that you do amazing in this) ?

 

[dherman67]

Your profile sounds quite similar to mine. Graduated undergrad with cGPA 3.2; sGPA 3.0... took several years off... got 36 on MCAT and raised sGPA to 3.15ish. Applied this cycle, got 7 interviews, rejected from 1, withdrew from 2, waitlisted at 2, accepted at 2, including my first choice. Remember that your application is more than just numbers. You sound like a really interesting person who will have a lot to talk about and a lot to show people. Be confident in what you've accomplished... continue to work hard to improve your stats... and you will be fine. You'll be a doc in no time. GOOD LUCK.