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What would improve a low stat application?
Do you have an upward trend in your grades? If not, look into doing a DIY post-bacc where you take upper-level science courses. There's no need to retake classes you've passed. Your GPA is too high to need to do an SMP imo. Your MCAT is also fine.
^ Definitely take and get As in a few upper level science courses. MCAT is fine.
Get involved in some interesting and meaningful extracurriculars. If you have the same cookie cutter ECs that most candidates have, you will blend in to the crowd when your goal is to stand out (in a positive way). More and more applicants are taking gap years to bolster their applications, you might have to do the same. Just remember to be productive during that year. Pair this with high quality writing on your essays (start early and get a friend who is a very strong writer to review with you) and you'll have a good shot.
Get involved in some interesting and meaningful extracurriculars. If you have the same cookie cutter ECs that most candidates have, you will blend in to the crowd when your goal is to stand out (in a positive way). More and more applicants are taking gap years to bolster their applications, you might have to do the same. Just remember to be productive during that year. Pair this with high quality writing on your essays (start early and get a friend who is a very strong writer to review with you) and you'll have a good shot.
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OP: we are missing a ton of information and making a lot of assumptions. Are you a senior or a sophomore? Are you a postbac? Was your major in a science or conscience field? How many biomedical science classes are included in your GPA calculations, and are you calculating them properly or just reading off your institutional transcript? How many B/C courses are we talking about? What about your clinical exposure? Community service? Research? Outreach to schools and students? What about your background and distance traveled? As far as I can tell, there is no WAMC nor any information that can help us figure out if you are really cut from a cloth that can get you to be a successful healthcare professional.
A high MCAT doesn't remediate a low GPA (for MD schools); it merely accentuates the disparities.
You're fine right now for any DO school.
Rising GPA trends are always good.
Don't retake classes that you got B/C's in, nobody is going to be impressed if you get an A the second time through. Instead you need to take new upper level science courses and get A's.
Or just apply DO.
Or just apply DO.
I think you have competitive stats for DO schools. For MD schools they look for about 510 and above 3.7. I wouldn't redo courses. Instead maybe consider an MPH at a place where if you excel you would get admission to the MD school.
According to Table A-23, your stats put you in the bucket with a 46.3% acceptance rate, which is slightly above the mean overall acceptance rate.
It would be helpful to have more information about your academic history/transcripts and state of residence but I would not describe you as a low stat applicant. There are people coming into this process with a 500 MCAT or cGPA below 3.0, and they'd kill to have your numbers.
thincrustpizza
New Member
Thank you everyone! I really appreciate your advice, and I'm now signing up to do some upper level biology courses at my local college. I really am thankful to have this forum and good luck to everyone else applying!
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Do you know of such a school? This wouldn't work at mine.
Everybody gets A's...
Maybe post that question here in a separate topic and see if anyone can give you that information.
I was hoping to discover which MD school you might be referring to as my experience with MD schools would indicate that an MPH does little to enhance a modest application.
Graduate school grades apparently help at DO schools, but OP is already good to go for DO without an MPH.
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Yeah... were you aware that you were responding to one of the more experienced adcom members on SDN? The conventional wisdom has always been that doing well in an SMP can help lead to admission as they tend to be quite academically rigorous, but an MPH is more or less useless for med school admissions because as @gyngyn said everyone gets A's. I don't dismiss out of hand that such a school might exist... but if it does, maybe you could share with the group 🙂
