Another 3.0 GPA here but with loads of experience. What are my chances?

Hey, so yea my GPA is pretty bad. I haven’t yet taken the MCATs but plan to do so next year.
Currently, I have two years of research experience. I have three publications, one of which I am a co-author of. One of my years of research experience dealt with three different cancer research labs. I am also EMT-I certified and am working as a medical scribe. I’m part of three other clubs on campus. Have worked for a health related nonprofit. Used to do crew but quit since just didn’t have enough time for it. I’m really good at interviews so I’m fine for that. But do you think my ECs will help me get into a middle tier med school even with my crappy GPA?

No. ECs will not make up for a poor GPA.

Overall, your chances are fair at best, and only fair if you live in a “lucky” state (strong in-state bias with several med schools) or are from a UIM (under-represented in medicine) group.

Here’s the applicant/matriculants grids for various GPA/MCAT score by ethnicity/race.
https://www.aamc.org/data/facts/applicantmatriculant/157998/factstablea24.html

Even with a MCAT score in the 35-45 range (518+ new MCAT), your chances are less than 50-50 with your GPA.
Most of the successful low GPA applicants are non-trads who have reinvented themselves after distancing themselves for a number of years from their earlier poor academic performance.

The problem is that with your GPA, you’re going to get auto-screened out at many schools so the adcomm will never even see your ECs.

You have 2 options going forward:

  1. grade replacement and a DO application

  2. SMP if you want to go MD

@WayOutWestMom Yea, I go to UCI.
what is SMP?
What if i went for a masters and then applied for MD programs?
50/50 Chance doesn’t really sound all that bad either.

That’s only about 40% IF you score in the top 1% nationally on the MCAT. That’s awfully hard to do. Much, much poorer if you score anywhere below that. And even a great MCAT does not solve the auto-screen problem. You will be automatically DQed at many schools because of your GPA.

And you’re totally ignoring my statement that most of these mismatched applicants (low GPA/high MCAT) applicants have special circumstances and really compelling to hang their app on. Your story just isn t all that exceptional.

SMP= special masters program. A specialized masters degree that essentially is the first year of med school taken at a med school site. Students with top GPAs (3.8+) may have some success in getting into med school.

Because med schools screen using undergrad GPA, a regular masters degree really won’t help with a med school application. You need to boost your uGPA.

It’s possible to make up in Smp with your Gpa. But you have to be in the top 25% of the class and with a very good MCAT. I know a kid did that in Georgetown Smp and was able to get in to Florida International, the most expensive MD school in the USA, about 100k per year.

The risk of Smp is that if you cannot make it to the 25% of the class you just wasted one year and 70k tuition.

California is probably the very worst state to be a resident of for med school applications. You have essentially zero chance in-state for CA. (The land of sky-high stats and a major exporter of med school applicants.) Cali residents need to apply widely OOS–which makes your low GPA an even bigger problem.

Your uGPA is low enough that you may have problems even getting accepted into a SMP.

And degree granting SMPs are usually 2 years long. They are expensive!

In 2011 you posted that you had an 1800 SAT score. SAT and MCAT are definitely correlated, and the test pool for the MCAT is much stronger meaning your percentile is more likely to decrease than increase (For example my SAT score was the 99.9th percentile, my MCAT was 97th). WOWMom was giving you numbers if you score in the 99+ percentile of MCAT test takers (your 1800 probably put you at about the 80th percentile of SAT takers - http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/SAT-Percentile_Ranks_2011.pdf). Let’s give you a 30 MCAT since that’s the 79th percentile. 3.0/30 puts you right at the bottom of the GPA and MCAT ranges on WOWmom’s chart where you fir it (I’m going to use the race aggregated one https://www.aamc.org/download/321508/data/factstablea23.pdf) The chances of medical school acceptance are not 50/50. 28% of applicants with GPAs between 3.0 and 3.2 and MCAT 30-32 were admitted to a medical school. Over 70% of them didn’t get in anywhere. If your MCAT is in the 27-29 range only 19.2% were admitted somewhere. Over 80% of them didn’t get in anywhere.

A very good friend’s DD, also a Calif resident, had a better GPA, but still not quite med school worthy. She did a pricey SMP at a private, and still didn’t get into any med schools. This year, she’ll apply to DO schools. It’s been a long haul. She turned 27 this week, so if she succeeds, she’ll begin a DO school at age 28. Not too horribly old, but I don’t think the OP wants to wait THAT long. A drawn-out process can put your life on hold.


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ave worked for a health related nonprofit. Used to do crew but quit since just didn't have enough time for it. I'm really good at interviews so I'm fine for that. But do you think my ECs will help me get into a middle tier med school even with my crappy GPA? <<<

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You’re not likely going to get interviews. Your app won’t likely make it thru the first down-selection…which is before human eyes see the apps.

ECs do not make up for a GPA that is too low for med schools unless maybe they are spectacular and the low GPA is from bad grades from YEARS ago…and the grades from recent years have been high.

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Even with a MCAT score in the 35-45 range (518+ new MCAT), your chances are less than 50-50 with your GPA.
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For a Calif applicant, I imagine that the chances are much lower than that.

Nationally, it’s about 35%…for a Calif resident, I’d wager it’s about 20%.

These days, it is very easy to use an automatic filter to narrow down the applicant pool. Thus, they can very easily set up an algorithm to immediately screen out those with GPA’s and test scores below a certain undisclosed threshold they wish to use. If either your overall or science GPA is below a 3.0, many med schools will very likely not even look at the remainder of your application. For more competitive ones, that threshold may be as high as 3.5 or 3.6.

^you’re absolutely right about the concept, but I think you are overestimating the cutoffs (unless you’re speaking from experience). If my memory serves me right, the top schools still often have 25% of the class with GPAs <3.7. You simply can’t get that kind of profile if you won’t even look at a 3.5 or 3.6. I know my MD/PhD program, which has a higher GPA average than my top 20 medical school, will definitely look at applicants with 3.3 and 3.4. (also possible we are more lenient due to extra weight on research but like I said, we still end up with a higher average GPA so we can’t be that lenient). We have an automated screen and a human screen prior to the admissions committee. Someone with a 3.3/3.4 and nothing compelling will pass the auto screen but won’t make it to the full ad com because the human screen will toss them. A super compelling app with a 3.4 might make it to the ad com but still not get an interview, etc. My guess is the cutoff is at the highest, 3SDs below the typical class average (my thinking being that the most stringent you would want to be is to throw out anyone who would typically be in the bottom 0.5%).

Every single med school is going to say that the range of GPAs of their students is 2.something to 4.0, probably to convince students with lower GPAs that they still have hope. Sure, there will be some students below 3.5 and even below 3.0 at every med school, but the typical person should know that realistically, the probability of admission significantly decreases with such GPAs. I often heard that if you are below the 10th percentile GPA or MCAT score in MSAR, unless there is a very compelling reason, you shouldn’t expect to make it very far in the admissions process.

If there are special circumstances, for example somebody had to work 30 hours per week to pay their tuition, that’s probably when a lower GPA may still pass through the filter. The filter will likely know if somebody is explaining such circumstances in their application and then use a different GPA cutoff.

Essentially, if your current GPA or sGPA are below 3.5, it’s time for plan B.
What about PA school?

@iwannabe_Brown
I think @umcoe16 is right.

25% may have GPA sub 3.7…but those aren’t likely many non-URM, non-hooked trad applicants.

Med schools are accepting a good number of non-trads these days and many of them had inferior GPA’s from their early years when they weren’t premed.

That said, there seems to be a difference between a 3.5 and 3.6/7 when the applicant is unhooked and traditional.

IMHO, an unhooked, trad applicant with a 3.5 GPA with an (old) MCAT in the 30-35 range, needs to be from a state that has a heavy bias to instate and doesn’t have crazy applicants/seat ratios like Calif.

^ that’s another way of saying that someone with a 3.0 from California isn’t going to med school regardless of mcat score.
You have tremendous experience in the health field - what about helh policy - beside all the other pathways (Master’s in nursing, PA school, OT, PT, DO…)

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Every single med school is going to say that the range of GPAs of their students is 2.something to 4.0, probably to convince students with lower GPAs that they still have hope.
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Likely!

Med schools have a vested interest in wanting to receive as many apps a possible. Plus, some are desperate for more male URMs particularly, so they’ll accept some with more modest GPAs.

Also…there are former military medics, etc, who have lousy old GPAs who went back and did the premed prereqs.

I find that GPA/MCAT chart a bit misleading to the average trad un-hooked applicant.

I’m not talking about getting in, getting an interview or even being discussed by the ad com. I’m talking about getting looked at by a person. I find it very hard to believe that even the Harvard, Hopkins, Stanfords of the world automatically screen out sub 3.5 or 3.6 GPAs without a single set of human eyes ever seeing the application.

To my knowledge, this is not a capability of the automated filters. The human screeners yes, but the auto filters no. If you have experience working with these filters and I am mistaken as to their complexity, please correct me.

This OP has a 3.0 though.

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not talking about getting in, getting an interview or even being discussed by the ad com. I’m talking about getting looked at by a person. I find it very hard to believe that even the Harvard, Hopkins, Stanfords of the world automatically screen out sub 3.5 or 3.6 GPAs without a single set of human eyes ever seeing the application.
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Exactly. The OP doesn’t seem to understand that his app won’t get seen by human eyes…

Again, that chart sometimes gives false hope because it shows a few low stats students getting admitted…but there’s always a back-story. Those aren’t likely traditional, unhooked, white or Asian applicants.

Those filters are customized. I’m “making up” the following, but to give you an idea…

Traditional applicants:

White male GPA 3.7+. (Old) MCAT 30+ …or…3.5+ MCAT 35+
Asian Male GPA 3.7+ (old) MCAT 30+…or 3.5+ MCAT 36+
White Female GPA 3.7+ (old) MCAT 29+…or 3.4+ MCAT 34+
Hispanic Female 3.5+ (old) MCAT 27+
Black Male 3.2+ (old) MCAT 25+
And for publics SOMs, there may be some differences for IS or OOS applicants.

So the apps that don’t meet the above are weeded out electronically…before human eyes see them.

Logically, this is because med schools receive thousands of apps and don’t have the time/manpower to give 5000+ apps a thorough look-over. I have no idea what % these filters weed-out, but if the Adcoms are then left with - say 2000 apps to read/review, from which they’ll choose 400-800 to interview…it makes their very difficult job a little easier.

Too late to edit the above…

I shouldn’t have written… Exactly

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find it very hard to believe that even the Harvard, Hopkins, Stanfords of the world automatically screen out sub 3.5 or 3.6 GPAs without a single set of human eyes ever seeing the application.
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The filters aren’t that simple. They’re more sophisticated than that…

filters may differentiate between a non-trad and trad applicant by age.

…or diffentiate White Male with a <3.5 GPA that ALSO has an (old) MCAT 35+ from a <3.5 that only has an MCAT 30.

I can almost bet that many/most med schools are looking at every black male applicant that has at least an MCAT 30 and a 3.3 GPA. We learned a few years ago that a number of med schools were lamenting that they just didn’t have enough black males. Male URMs are very much wanted.