<p>I am a sophomore at the University of Maryland. I'm in the Honors college, Gemstone (research) program, and Writer's House (creative writing program) I'm an English Major with a minor in creative writing.
I am also a Banneker Key Full Tuition Scholar (the only full ride offered by the school to about 200 students of 30,000 applications a year)
So here's my question:
I came in as a General Biology major during my first semester. I came from a very poor high school in New York (usually on the countries "Needs Improvement" list for No Child Left Behind) with a 39% four year graduation rate.
I did well in high school, and even though I was extremely sick from sophomore to senior year, I graduated with a 4.0. (I am technically physically disabled, but it doesn't tend to show and I'm used to working through symptoms) However, when I got to campus last year, my grades suffered. I had to teach myself how to study, as I'd never need to work very much in my high school and study skills were never taught.
I ended up with a 3.0 first semester of freshman year. I had a C- in ecology and evolutionary biology, a B in General Chemistry and Lab, a B in Calc I for life sciences mostly due to having an eight AM discussion with twice weekly ten point assignments. My illness acts up badly in the early morning due to the campus food, but I can control it if I cook for myself. I also had an A in a writing course I took.
Three days before second semester started I was admitted to the hospital and put on medication that left me in a drowsy unmotivated stupor for most of second semester. Nevertheless, my study skills had improved and I pulled a 3.5 GPA. (With a B in intro to cell biology the only premed requirement I took that semester). I also switched my major to English.
During this time, I was selected for my team in Gemstone which is a program in which teams of undergrads complete their own original research during their sophomore to senior years at school. My team is currently working on creating and testing a new drug delivery system that is able to permeate the blood-brain barrier. Administrators from the program and several experts in the field have all said this is one of the most promising projects they've ever seen come through the program.
Now this semester, my grades have been decent. I'm getting an A in orgo with the hardest professor in the school, but a B in the lab (which has almost nothing to do with the course itself). I'm also taking Calc 2, and while it's possible for me to still get an A, it is could go either way, mostly due to a few stupid mistakes made on tests. (My schools math classes have zero curve and no opportunities for extra credit). I might also receive a B or B+ in a seminar for the research program (due to a single missed class).
I'm also part of the school's neuroscience society and work on the literary journal.
This summer I'm hoping to get a research internship or technical writing internship. If not I will spend my entire summer working on my team's research project.(I will work on it anyway, just not full time) I will be shadowing doctor's at Columbia Presbyterian this winter break. (I know them from care both me and my brother have received there)</p>
<p>So what I'm asking is, do I still stand a chance? Especially if I get a B in both Calc 1 and 2? I'm hoping to go to either a med school in New York city (with Columbia being my dream, but I realize unrealistic, SUNY Downstate is probably a better bet) or University of Maryland Med School.
I'm also Hispanic (queue the Afirmative Action bashers) and female.</p>
<p>The national average for premeds who are eventually accepted is roughly a 3.6 GPA with something like a 31 MCAT. If you can approach those totals (maybe ~3.3, 29), then affirmative action kicks in and you should be able to get in somewhere.</p>
<p>If anything I think that’s a little too cautious, but there it is.</p>
<p>Yes. My Professor wanted to the have this last exam the DAY AFTER the last day to drop to “give us more time to study”. I literally studied 2 weeks in advance for this exam and thought I could manage to at least get a B, but I still got a 50% haha. Good thing I can laugh at myself… Math is soooo not my strong-suit. I guess I’m studying wrong or something. I do tons of practice problems but I always do the wrong stuff on the exams and quizzes. </p>
<p>I know calculus is not a req for most med schools, but I have to take it because 1 semester is required for the state school. If I fail do I just retake it and try even harder?</p>
<p>It’s a good question. The AAMC charts online should be helpful. I know in law school admissions, they officially say that it’s only MA and PR – but the best question is what do they actually <em>do</em>. I might look up some charts later if I have time.</p>
<p>I would assume that even though I’d have to score almost thirty to be ahead of the average (Ecuadorian), the fact that there is a much lower number of other Hispanic’s applying than white and Asian students (the huge bulk of my school’s population, who I am pretty comfortably ahead of in most aspects) will make getting the average give me a better chance of getting in than an Asian or white girl scoring average. </p>
<p>MCAT scores really aren’t my concern. Standardized tests are a strong area of mine. I know the material being taught, I just lose points on my GPA due to insignificant things that don’t impact my education. (For example last year solving a problem using a different method than the teacher meant lost me twenty points on a test) </p>
<p>Is there a chart like that for GPA? That’s really what I’m more concerned with.</p>
<p>Tespie-I would honestly withdraw before I fail. Even if you don’t go to medical school a W looks better than a D or F (honestly almost no courses in my school even have to give out F’s because you’re expected to drop if you’re that low)</p>
<p>If everyone new to the forum actually read the stickies, there would be hardly any need for new threads asking: which UG college is better, what classes do I need to take, etc. While I think stickies are important and helpful, I’m convinced that a relatively small percentage of posters actually make use of them.</p>
<p>I know I tend to use them, but they’re usually so overrun with people disagreeing and arguing with the original posts that you lose the point.
I know a lot of forums sticky then lock the threads to keep this from happening.</p>
<p>It is interesting to learn that Asian is lower than White on GPA, but is higher than White on MCAT.</p>
<p>Why is that? More prep? Their parents, if they were new immigrants and went though a different education system while they themselves were students, were quite used to preparing for a big test extensively. Whether their offprings will follow their way to prepare for this test is another story.</p>
<p>I remember shemarty at SDN once said MCAT (likely the science sections) is coachable to some extent.</p>
<p>Some people said rigorous trainings on a classical music instrument since very young (like 5 yo) could help with this kind of test. I have no proof for whether this Mozart effect is true, but I did notice that many classical music trained kids (those who were into this for, say, 12 years before college) tend to do well on this kind of standard test for some reason, even when their GPAs are not very high.</p>
<p>On my kid’s interview trail, he met several members in his high school orchestra (esp. those who got to the all-state orchestra level. Boy…talking about state orchestra, it is often the case that more than 50 percents of top 10 chairs in a state orchestra are asian americans.)</p>
<p>Seeing the closeness between Hispanic groups for GPA and MCAT (except for PRs) actually gives me the answer to my original question since the AAMC is vague about their definition of who is considered a URM these days.</p>
<p>entomom, I am kind of slow here. What is the answer to your original question?</p>
<p>As more and more very qualified Hispanics apply to the professional schools, isn’t it likely that less favorite treatment this group of applicants will receive in the future? I heard in the past decades or so, the only URM group that improves (on academics as measured by the tests) significantly is Hispanic.</p>
<p>Another related question: If an african american is a new immigrant (e.g., her parent brought her here while she was very young), is she considered as an african american and gets a favorable treatment? DS happens to know some of these who are actually academically pretty good (It is likely that their parents may be already either quite educated or wealthy so that their family could immigrate to US.)</p>
<p>While Hispanic scores have improved greatly (to within 3 points of White average) if you look at the numbers of students they are in no way representative of the percent of the population hispanics make up. So Afirmative Action would probably continue, until if possible we became ORM’s like Asian’s.
The opposite is actually true (from those stats) of African American students. Because Hispanics make up more of the population as a whole, but are less represented in med schools than black students. The higher acceptance rates indicate that schools are either trying to correct this, or saying that diversity is diversity and they might as well take the higher test scores.</p>
<p>mcat2,
My question was about how various groups of Hispanics are viewed for Med School applications. While certain Hispanics are more underrepresented than others, it seems like in UG admissions, all Hispanics are recognized to some degree, while in Med School the AAMC changed their definition and it sounds like only MA & PR groups are considered URMs. So, when bdm cited a baseline MCAT & GPA for Hispanics, I wasn’t sure which groups he was referring to. Looking at the averages, it seems contrary to what I’d heard, GPA & MCAT scores are very close for all Hispanics (except the MCAT for PRs). So it would seem that Hispanics may be treated similarly in Med School and UG admissions, with some groups being sought after more, but all being desired to some degree when compared to Asian and white applicants.</p>
<p>While I don’t know how much change has occurred over time, your observation about Hispanics improving looks like it’s true based on the numbers (with the exception again of PRs on the MCAT).</p>