What to make stronger? Rising Junior

[younggotti]

Hey fam,

So I'm a black, international rising junior (no permanent residency or anything) at a Cali school. My current cGPA is a 3.168 and my sGPA is a 2.73. The good news about the latter is that it's only for 48 quarter units (32 semester units) and I'm retaking at least 10 of these. The bad news is that it is what it is.

My EC's are as follows:
>500hrs activism (lead organiser around human rights abuses here and abroad)
96 hours Patient Navigator at Free Clinic + Officer role
320 hours research + authorship (not first) on two pubs
Leadership on a ton of things (100 hours organising a youth empowerment conference, 50 on a cultural show, 50 on an education startup, 50 on being journal editor for a public health thing, bunch of other cultural/social student groups)

And the academic trend
Freshman (marked by depression throughout the year/sought counselling)
Q1-2.9 | Q2-3.8 | Q3 - 4.0 (retook a class) | Q4(summer) - 2.4 (a bunch of clerical errors I can't fix now)
Sophomore
Q1-3.4 | Q2-3.4 | Qe - 2.4 (still hurts. B- in an engineering class I retook).

My transcript has 9As (but just 1 in premed), 10 Bs (7 premed), 2Cs (Math and Ochem) and 1D (An ochem lab I made the mistake of not dropping/summer) and 1W (Ochem thing i dropped late in summer)

Basically I'm curious as to what I have to do to make myself competitive. I'm retaking my C's next quarter, along with some easy, essay-based major prereqs and those should bring me up to a 3.4. If I play all my cards right and knock everything out of the park this next year I end junior year with a 3.59.

My main points of interest are - (1) What's the minimum GPA I should have? (2) Which ECs need beefing up? I'm trying to set up a D.O shadowing position (could potentially get 20 hours p. quarter), and I'll be an EMT by the end of this year and will also try to maintain a research position starting the quarter after next. I'm also thinking of taking a quarter off to go to my home country in W. Africa to help with victims of terrorism (which is really the whole reason I'm doing premed).

Help is much appreciated. More scared than I have ever been academically and career-wise. <3

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[AlteredScale]

Hey fam,

So I'm a black, international rising junior (no permanent residency or anything) at a Cali school. My current cGPA is a 3.168 and my sGPA is a 2.73. The good news about the latter is that it's only for 48 quarter units (32 semester units) and I'm retaking at least 10 of these. The bad news is that it is what it is.

My EC's are as follows:
>500hrs activism (lead organiser around human rights abuses here and abroad)
96 hours Patient Navigator at Free Clinic + Officer role
320 hours research + authorship (not first) on two pubs
Leadership on a ton of things (100 hours organising a youth empowerment conference, 50 on a cultural show, 50 on an education startup, 50 on being journal editor for a public health thing, bunch of other cultural/social student groups)

And the academic trend
Freshman (marked by depression throughout the year/sought counselling)
Q1-2.9 | Q2-3.8 | Q3 - 4.0 (retook a class) | Q4(summer) - 2.4 (a bunch of clerical errors I can't fix now)
Sophomore
Q1-3.4 | Q2-3.4 | Qe - 2.4 (still hurts. B- in an engineering class I retook).

My transcript has 9As (but just 1 in premed), 10 Bs (7 premed), 2Cs (Math and Ochem) and 1D (An ochem lab I made the mistake of not dropping/summer) and 1W (Ochem thing i dropped late in summer)

Basically I'm curious as to what I have to do to make myself competitive. I'm retaking my C's next quarter, along with some easy, essay-based major prereqs and those should bring me up to a 3.4. If I play all my cards right and knock everything out of the park this next year I end junior year with a 3.59.

My main points of interest are - (1) What's the minimum GPA I should have? (2) Which ECs need beefing up? I'm trying to set up a D.O shadowing position (could potentially get 20 hours p. quarter), and I'll be an EMT by the end of this year and will also try to maintain a research position starting the quarter after next. I'm also thinking of taking a quarter off to go to my home country in W. Africa to help with victims of terrorism (which is really the whole reason I'm doing premed).

Help is much appreciated. More scared than I have ever been academically and career-wise. <3

I'm going to use my schools requirements (KCU) to help answer your questions
1) Minimum GPA should be above a 3.25 for both the sciences and cumulative. Our class has an avg of 3.56 and 3.65 for the science and cumulative GPA respectively. Which means you need your GPA as high as possible, so be sure to really stick to your word about playing your cards right and knocking it out of the park this year.
2) Volunteering hours are a big thing to have. Participate in community service. Perform reserach only if you can maintain good grades. Grades is your first priority as you are trying to get yourself out of a hole right now.

At this point in time, you may need to consider giving yourself a few more years to repair your grades and shape your application. Remeber that minimum grade and GPA don't cut it for admissions (as show above with my school). Have the best application possible before applying.

 

[younggotti]

I'm going to use my schools requirements (KCU) to help answer your questions
1) Minimum GPA should be above a 3.25 for both the sciences and cumulative. Our class has an avg of 3.56 and 3.65 for the science and cumulative GPA respectively. Which means you need your GPA as high as possible, so be sure to really stick to your word about playing your cards right and knocking it out of the park this year.
2) Volunteering hours are a big thing to have. Participate in community service. Perform reserach only if you can maintain good grades. Grades is your first priority as you are trying to get yourself out of a hole right now.

At this point in time, you may need to consider giving yourself a few more years to repair your grades and shape your application. Remeber that minimum grade and GPA don't cut it for admissions (as show above with my school). Have the best application possible before applying.

I'm already at the point where I'm probably taking a glide year and doing stuff in the meantime. Again I might just go home and do some work there, because it's really really needed and will probably be for the time being. And I think I could be useful with EMT skills but that's to find out.

Do you know of any international students at your school? Did they need to have even better stats than domestic students?

 

[yanks26dmb]

Do you want to be an engineer or a doctor? Why not drop the engineering crap, get into something easy like...health sciences...and boost your GPA while having more time to do retakes?

 

[younggotti]

Do you want to be an engineer or a doctor? Why not drop the engineering crap, get into something easy like...health sciences...and boost your GPA while having more time to do retakes?

Yeah I dropped that a while ago. Messed up last q retaking an engineering class b/c I though it was BCPM and that took away from other endeavours. But no matter. Going to retake those classes anyway.

Update: Figured out I've actually only taken 28 science units (19 on semester system). My sGPA can come up to a max of like 3.8. Just have to make it happen now.

 

[younggotti]

Could I also get some specific responses on what my EC's look like? Want to know what I should beef up.

 

[younggotti]

*bumpity*

 

[jaguar33]

I think everyone gave you good advice concerning the GPA, and you seem to have a plan to fix it. Concerning the EC's, I recommend picking 1 main thing and sticking with it long term. Nothing crazy, but maybe a few hours weekly in something you enjoy doing while doing good in classes. I see you have reasearch already, so you may enjoy it, but bringing the GPA up should be top priority. I would consider not doing research on top of everything. I also recommend studying for the MCAT after you graduate and spend ~3 months of solid dedicated study time while working part time. Pretty much what admissions boils down too is GPA & MCAT with enough EC's/experiences to show you have a reasonable idea of what youre getting yourself into. EMT or scribe is a good way to do the latter. Baisically dont kill yourself as a pre-med, enjoy yourself but be consistent. You dont have to be mother teresa to get into med school so dont burn yourself out too early.