Will I ever stand a chance? I really need advice.

[Ambrofthemoment]

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I really need some help. I'm sitting here, about a week before I'm to completely finish my undergraduate degree in Biochemistry (from a UC), and I'm completely lost with what I'm going to do concerning medical school or with life in general. I have calculated the units that I need to raise my GPA high enough to even be considered for an Osteopathic or Allopathic (maybe) seat.

Essentially I need 67 units of A work to push my BCMP GPA to 2.81, and my overall to 2.92. I may do a formal postbac after this to enhance it further. This will take me around 2 years depending on how many classes I fill my schedule with and on where I take the classes.

While in college, I put down about 125 hours of ER volunteering and I did research during one of my summers at a hospital. I have 3 LORs, one from an MD/PhD and 2 from Upper div bio professors. Honestly, the majority of my grades are C's and B-'s, due entirely to a lack of focus in my earlier years. "Lack of focus" being one of the biggest understatements of my life.

The only reason I am still attempting to attend medical school is because I have been scoring very well (A's) in difficult upper division biology classes. After overcoming my depression, I have found that I am actually a decent student when I fully apply myself. This is the reason why I persist with my ambitions.

My questions for you,

- If my MCAT score lands somewhere in the 30-35 range, do I have a chance at any medical school with the assumption that during my time pushing those 67 units I've done other EC's like shadowing, additional clinical work, more Research, tutoring, etc.?

- Is it wise to do those units OpenU at universities like CSU Eastbay or SFstate?

- Should I do 49 units to get my GPA to 2.7 and then try and apply for the Davis Post bac?

- Is there any possible chance this could work, for either DO or MD schools? As stupid as this sounds, I'm very committed to doing anything at all to get myself a seat at any medical school. I feel confident that I am capable of handling the workload and am intelligent enough to deal with the cognitive difficulties that will present themselves.

 

[Drrrrrr. Celty]

Your best chance is DO and grade replacement; any retake grades will be replaced. So basically you can have a lot of D's or even F's replaced completely which could boost your gpa by a lot and quickly. By quickly I mean usually around a year of retakes boosting your gpa by likely over .3 ( presuming you get A's or B+'s in your retakes).
However for MD you can always get your gpa up to around a 3.0, get a high mcat and apply for SMP's.

* I'd personally say that the former is a better option as SMP's cost a lot.

Good Luck

 

[Drrrrrr. Celty]

Double post.

 

[Lokhtar]

I really need some help. I'm sitting here, about a week before I'm to completely finish my undergraduate degree in Biochemistry (from a UC), and I'm completely lost with what I'm going to do concerning medical school or with life in general. I have calculated the units that I need to raise my GPA high enough to even be considered for an Osteopathic or Allopathic (maybe) seat.

Essentially I need 67 units of A work to push my BCMP GPA to 2.81, and my overall to 2.92. I may do a formal postbac after this to enhance it further. This will take me around 2 years depending on how many classes I fill my schedule with and on where I take the classes.

While in college, I put down about 125 hours of ER volunteering and I did research during one of my summers at a hospital. I have 3 LORs, one from an MD/PhD and 2 from Upper div bio professors. Honestly, the majority of my grades are C's and B-'s, due entirely to a lack of focus in my earlier years. "Lack of focus" being one of the biggest understatements of my life.

The only reason I am still attempting to attend medical school is because I have been scoring very well (A's) in difficult upper division biology classes. After overcoming my depression, I have found that I am actually a decent student when I fully apply myself. This is the reason why I persist with my ambitions.

My questions for you,

- If my MCAT score lands somewhere in the 30-35 range, do I have a chance at any medical school with the assumption that during my time pushing those 67 units I've done other EC's like shadowing, additional clinical work, more Research, tutoring, etc.?

- Is it wise to do those units OpenU at universities like CSU Eastbay or SFstate?

- Should I do 49 units to get my GPA to 2.7 and then try and apply for the Davis Post bac?

- Is there any possible chance this could work, for either DO or MD schools? As stupid as this sounds, I'm very committed to doing anything at all to get myself a seat at any medical school. I feel confident that I am capable of handling the workload and am intelligent enough to deal with the cognitive difficulties that will present themselves.

Pick out every class you did C or below in, and retake it, starting with the science classes first. Start with the ones you got Fs in, then Ds, then C-, etc. In two years, you could easily have a 3.5+ overall and science GPA for DO schools since they replace grades.

 

[Catalystik]

I'd agree that taking advantage of the AACOMAS (DO application service) grade forgiveness policy is your best bet as far as time and cost efficiency for getting into med school.

 

[Ambrofthemoment]

Thank you for the information. My primary concern with retaking the classes that I received C's in is class availability. My C's are almost exclusively in the introductory courses (C+'s in Ochem). However, if DO schools look at replaced grades I agree that retaking is probably my best bet.