Hi! A friend just directed me to this site and I've been lurking for a bit and decided to see if you guys might have any good advice for me. Sorry in advance if this is a little long.
I'm in a bit of a situation right now. I'll start from the beginning; I'm afro latina, I graduated from a top 10 school in 2015 and due to some stressful family events in my last year and a half of school, my gpa tanked and I graduated with a 2.2.
I knew I couldn't even get into any post bacs with those grades and I was pretty burned out anyway so I decided to go into the lab for a bit to do something productive while I got my nerve to even touch academics back again. Eventually I did and in fall 2016 I took biochem at the university associated with the lab I was in. I did...alright I guess. The class was split in half and the first half I got a C and the second half I got a B+.
I had failed orgo during undergrad and didn't do so well in physics so continuing on my path to grade redemption I retook those classes spring 2017. Again I did only okay, with a B in orgo and B+ in physics.
So I decided to take a chance and apply to a few post bacs and see what happened. I've been rejected/waitlisted to all of them (5 in total). They were all reach schools (since I had missed the deadline for some of the more...forgiving programs) and now I'm kind of at a loss as to what my next step should be.
I've been "lightly" studying for the mcat and I took my first practice test, no prep or anything just to get a raw sense of where I'm at and got a 500.
I guess I'm just wondering what my next steps should be. I know I really need to get my grades up, but what if no program takes me? I've also since left the lab due to some conflicts with my PI (he wanted me to put off the classes so I can put more time in the lab and I didn't want to do that so I quit...long story) and I've been considering a few things, such as...
- taking a job at this start up that works with surgeons and their patients, eventually take the MCAT and hopefully do really well. Take my woefully low gpa and (hopefully) high mcat and just apply to med school already
or
-take the job, study for/take mcat, apply to another round of post bacs (maybe some that allow for a start in 2nd semester of this academic year) and see what happens
I'm open to advice on some other things I could do, this is just all I've thought of so far. I just want to move forward with my life already, I'm just so mad at myself that my grades are holding me back like this. Please help!
tl;dr I have a ****ty gpa, too ****ty to get into post bacs right away and I'm on a slow academic come up but it's not enough. What do?
