Will transferring ruin my chances?

[vonat]

---

Members don't see this ad.

I'm new to this site, and to be honest I had thought that my chances of getting into med school were impossible but yet here I am, trying again.

Long story short: I had to take two years off of my undergraduate studies because my little brother was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and required 24/7 watch. Those two years were some of the hardest of my life; I was his full-time caretaker and was tasked with making sure he attended high school (lol) and took his medication (double lol) on top of other basic daily needs.

When I came back to school, my GPA wasn't the greatest (I had forced myself to attend community college while home with my brother. Big mistake, it completely ruined my GPA). Currently, I have a 3.02 GPA and 2.7 sGPA. Not completely horrible all things considered, but definitely not ideal.

Now I've just found out that my WUE tuition discount is expiring, and my request for an extension was denied due to my leave of absence. Apparently my reasons for absence were not good enough for the powers that be. I cannot afford the out of state tuition and don't really have any choice but to transfer to a college in my state of residency (California) or beg for a scholarship at a private college.

This comes to my question: After this transfer, I'll have 3 different colleges on my transcript, two four-years and a community college. Will my current GPA and all these transfers ruin my chances at an orthopedic medical school?

 

[rufflev]

I'm new to this site, and to be honest I had thought that my chances of getting into med school were impossible but yet here I am, trying again.

Long story short: I had to take two years off of my undergraduate studies because my little brother was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and required 24/7 watch. Those two years were some of the hardest of my life; I was his full-time caretaker and was tasked with making sure he attended high school (lol) and took his medication (double lol) on top of other basic daily needs.

When I came back to school, my GPA wasn't the greatest (I had forced myself to attend community college while home with my brother. Big mistake, it completely ruined my GPA). Currently, I have a 3.02 GPA and 2.7 sGPA. Not completely horrible all things considered, but definitely not ideal.

Now I've just found out that my WUE tuition discount is expiring, and my request for an extension was denied due to my leave of absence. Apparently my reasons for absence were not good enough for the powers that be. I cannot afford the out of state tuition and don't really have any choice but to transfer to a college in my state of residency (California) or beg for a scholarship at a private college.

This comes to my question: After this transfer, I'll have 3 different colleges on my transcript, two four-years and a community college. Will my current GPA and all these transfers ruin my chances at an orthopedic medical school?

First off, you shouldn't put all your eggs into one basket and say that you want to go to orthopedics since that is heavily dependent on the things you accomplish and do throughout medical school.

As for now, your GPA is low and to be competitive for MD schools you'll need to bring it up to a 3.5ish for the lower tier MD-schools, and around a 3.0 for the lower tier DO-schools. Having three colleges on your transcript is questionable, but you have a good backstory to back it up (and when it comes time to write your personal statement, I'm sure you could whip up something interesting.) Just make sure you do well in the remaining of your classes (I'm assuming you still have 1-2 years left), maintain an upward trend, stay involved in your community on a clinical and non-clinical level.

 

[vonat]

First off, you shouldn't put all your eggs into one basket and say that you want to go to orthopedics since that is heavily dependent on the things you accomplish and do throughout medical school.

As for now, your GPA is low and to be competitive for MD schools you'll need to bring it up to a 3.5ish for the lower tier MD-schools, and around a 3.0 for the lower tier DO-schools. Having three colleges on your transcript is questionable, but you have a good backstory to back it up (and when it comes time to write your personal statement, I'm sure you could whip up something interesting.) Just make sure you do well in the remaining of your classes (I'm assuming you still have 1-2 years left), maintain an upward trend, stay involved in your community on a clinical and non-clinical level.

I said orthopedics and meant osteopathic, this is what I get for trying to make a post while at work!!

Okay, I'm glad to know all hope isn't lost at least. So the best thing to do for now is to look into colleges to transfer to, as well as get involved in the community? And of course bring up my GPA, but I'm not particularly worried about that since you guessed correctly and I still have another 1.5-2yrs left. Once I find a college to transfer to I'm going to look into getting more clinical experience as well.

Okay, I have a battle plan now. Thank you so much!

 

[zukunft195]

I'm new to this site, and to be honest I had thought that my chances of getting into med school were impossible but yet here I am, trying again.

Long story short: I had to take two years off of my undergraduate studies because my little brother was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and required 24/7 watch. Those two years were some of the hardest of my life; I was his full-time caretaker and was tasked with making sure he attended high school (lol) and took his medication (double lol) on top of other basic daily needs.

When I came back to school, my GPA wasn't the greatest (I had forced myself to attend community college while home with my brother. Big mistake, it completely ruined my GPA). Currently, I have a 3.02 GPA and 2.7 sGPA. Not completely horrible all things considered, but definitely not ideal.

Now I've just found out that my WUE tuition discount is expiring, and my request for an extension was denied due to my leave of absence. Apparently my reasons for absence were not good enough for the powers that be. I cannot afford the out of state tuition and don't really have any choice but to transfer to a college in my state of residency (California) or beg for a scholarship at a private college.

This comes to my question: After this transfer, I'll have 3 different colleges on my transcript, two four-years and a community college. Will my current GPA and all these transfers ruin my chances at an orthopedic medical school?

With your current cGPA and sGPA, a vast majority of DO schools would instantly screen you out -- and those that wouldn't instantly screen you out would simply reject you later on in the process.

You will need a lot of credits (and a lot of A's) to recover from this. Consider a post-bacc or Master's degree after graduating from undergrad. Good luck.

 

[rufflev]

With your current cGPA and sGPA, a vast majority of DO schools would instantly screen you out -- and those that wouldn't instantly screen you out would simply reject you later on in the process.

You will need a lot of credits (and a lot of A's) to recover from this. Consider a post-bacc or Master's degree after graduating from undergrad. Good luck.

Take this with a grain of salt because you do still have 1.5-2 years left. Assuming that you get all A's in the next 3-4 semesters, you could potentially bring you cGPA and sGPA up to a 3.5/3.2 respectively, which will put you in a decent standing with some DO schools, assuming you do well on your MCAT, etc.

 

[Dr.Kitty]

Your amount of transfers will not affect your chances in getting accepted, your GPA will. Work on that.