GPA and MCAT Question for Top Medical Schools.

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
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<p>So I am a sophomore at Vandy, and I was recently in a meeting with a pre-med advisor and she told me that typically Vandy students with at least a 3.5 and a 30 mcat score stand anywhere from a 80-90 percent of getting into A medical school. Then she went on to say that if you plan on applying to top 25 medical schools, you will need around a 3.7 and a 35 on your mcats---she did not mention science gpa at all----. Does this make sense to you guys? In other words, a .2 difference in gpa is the difference between getting into 1 medical school verus being competitive for top 25 medical schools. The MCAT scores made sense, because just from looking at the MSAR, top 25 medical schools tend to have an average of 35 on the mcats, but looking at the averages at top 25 medical schools, they have around a 3.8 overall gpa. But lets say I have a 3.7 overall gpa and around a 3.6 science gpa with a 35 on the mcats, will I be competitive for top 25 medical schools, given the fact that I have done 2 years of research, and other EC's are adequate? (I guess I am concerned, because a 3.7 is under the average for top medical schools, and the pre-med advisor told me that when figuring out what kind of medical schools you can apply to, you have to be in the top 50 percent of the kids who go there, and it would be best to be in the top 25 percent of the kids that go there. )</p>

<p>A 3.7 gpa would put me in the bottom 50 percent of top 25 medical schools, so why would she tell me to shoot for at least a 3.7, if its in the bottom half?</p>

<p>In case you can't tell, I am trying to gauge what kind of gpa I need to be competitive for top 25 medical schools.</p>

<p>I regret not going to a less selective school and getting that 3.85+ gpa, at least then I would be in the top half for top 25 medical schools gpa wise and it would have been A LOT cheaper for me to go to a less selective school.</p>

<p>I feel like the biggest idiot out there, because I am spending 50k a year, working my ass off to keep my 3.7, only to get screwed over by the hard classes here, and therefore losing all hope of getting into a top 25 medical school.</p>

<p>Should I just transfer to a less selective/easier school?</p>

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<p>Let’s do a reality check here:</p>

<p>Most of the students at top med schools went to top colleges AND still got their 3.8+ GPA’s. They didn’t go to their local CC or state school. They attended Harvard, Yale, etc. and still managed to be at the top of their class.</p>

<p>Secondly, your advisor is right that a 3.7/35 would be “good enough” for top med schools. Obviously a 3.9/37 would be better but 3.7/35 is still good. What most people fail to understand is that GPA/MCAT is usually not the limiting factor in getting into good medical schools. There are plenty of excellent students with great GPA’s and awesome MCAT scores. Yet, most of them will only get into 1-2 top med schools at most. That’s because it’s hard to stand out in the subjective portions of the application like your essays, recs, extracuriculars, interviews. Everyone feels like they had a “good” essay and “excellent” recs or interview. The point is not the be good or excellent. The point is to be BETTER than everyone else. If you have a profile of 200 hours volunteering, an intramural sport, 2 years of research, 1-2 interesting hobbies, a couple of clubs, and a minor award or two, that’s a pretty good profile. But, not one that’ll get you into Hopkins. Now, if you had a publication, started a campus organization, played a D1 sport, won a Fullbright/Marshall/Rhodes Scholarship, worked as a nurse or transplant tech instead of a paper stapler/patient transporter, now you’re taking about the kind of application that gets into prestigious medical schools. </p>

<p>In the end, 3.8/35 with merely good EC’s will not get you into most top medical schools. Many people become so preoccupied with their stats that they fail to stand out in the other facets of their application.</p>

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<p>Hey VandyFB,</p>

<p>I’m in the process of applying/interviewing right now. Like norcalguy pointed out, there’s much more to your application than your numbers. It seems like your numbers are just a starting point–“can this applicant make the cut?” Some say that a high GPA from competitive classes shows you at least have the potential to succeed in the academic setting of med school, and a high MCAT shows that you can study your butt off and do well on a standardized test, ala USMLE Step 1.</p>

<p>But no one really cares about your scores once they’re “good enough” to make the cut. Do you really think you can talk about what you did to get a 35 for the hour-long interviews you’ll have? I guarantee you (from very recent experience, ie, yesterday) that about 2 minutes will be spent on your MCAT and GPA and the rest will be spent on a combination of: your clinical experience, your volunteer experience, your work experience, the research you’ve done, what leadership positions you’ve held, what you like to do for fun, and if you have one–what your “hook” might be.</p>

<p>Personally: I have a 3.8 and a 30 from a big state school. I also have lots of unique clinical experience, tons of volunteer experience here and abroad, have had a job for all of college, have done research in 2 different labs for multiple years each, hold multiple high-quality leadership positions, have hobbies outside of medicine, and last year I started a nonprofit organization that’s absolutely taken off. </p>

<p>During the 2 total hours of interviews yesterday, one guy mentioned in passing one time what my stats were. The rest was spent on all the rest of that stuff.</p>

<p>For what it’s worth: I’m interviewing at my school, Northwestern, Mayo, and Duke</p>

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<p>^^^^Thanks for the help, Norcal guy and Kristen. BTW Congrats Kristen, thats impressive. Can you guys help answer my other questions below, and take a look at my EC’s, and tell me areas where I need to improve? </p>

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<p>^^^ Does this hold for students who go to slightly lower ranked medical schools like Emory, Vanderbilt, Baylor----I know Baylor should be ranked higher, but they screwed with the way they report total funding so they fell a little bit in the U.S. News and rankings, what about schools like Brown, Dartmouth, UT Southwestern (I am a Texas resident). I know I clearly don’t have what it takes to even apply to schools JHU/Harvard/Yale/Stanford (or any of the schools ranked 1-15) not only because of my numbers are weak, but because I think my EC’s are weak. I guess I want to shoot for medical schools that are ranked 15-25 + Brown + Dartmouth.</p>

<p>These are my EC’s so far…</p>

<p>Freshman Year-

  1. Was one of the founding members of a Youth Club on campus.
  2. Joined a Pre-Med club on campus
  3. Played intramural football for 1 semester
  4. shadowed cancer researchers at Vandy’s medical school for 3 weeks—they taught me basic lab procedures,
  5. Voluntered for 50 hours,
  6. Shadowed a doctor for 168 hours.</p>

<p>Sophomore Year- I am only halfway through with sophomore year but heres what I have done:</p>

<ol>
<li>Became president of the youth club.</li>
<li>Still a member in the pre-med club</li>
<li>Started doing research in a biology lab on campus.</li>
<li>shadowed a neurologist—I thought it was kind of a cool field—for 100 hours.</li>
</ol>

<p>Next semester I plan on doing:

  1. independent research in political science—I am a political science major and I will get course credit for doing this, its all empirical research--------
  2. Continue on as the president of the Youth Club
  3. Continue on as a member of the Pre-Med Club
  4. Join an Honor society for political science majors—hopefully get more involved in that.
  5. Continue doing research in the biology lab that I am in
  6. Continue voluterring
  7. Continue shadowing.</p>

<p>Maybe become a Poli Sci TA, maybe continue on with karate/kickboxing----I did this extensively in high school, but I dropped it in college, maybe I might take that up again.</p>

<p>Junior Year I am studying abroad at Oxford for a semester and will probably continue on with my ECs.</p>

<p>Where do I stand EC wise? Where do I need to improve? Any suggestions/thoughts/comments will be greatly appreciated.</p>

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<p>Here’s what I’d do:</p>

<p>1) Figure out precisely why you want to go to a top-25 med school. I have a hunch that you haven’t started researching individual schools all that much yet (I mean, you are “just” a sophomore) and that once you start, you’ll change your mind. I know I certainly did. You’ll realize that all of the programs out there are much more similar to each other than they are different. </p>

<p>2) Realize that you have plenty of time to do whatever you can do to get into a top-25 if you’re really dead set on it. </p>

<p>3) Realize that when you’re getting advice from people on this forum, you’ll probably run into a combo of parents whose kids have been successful, former med students themselves, and people going through it now (like me). I have an extensive list of extracurriculars and I am quite proud of them. I’ve also had 2+ years longer than you have had to develop mine. Comparing yourself to people who are applying now–people you may know who are applying to Hopkins/Yale/Stanford–is just not worth it because it’s impossible to know where you’ll be in 2 years’ time when you’re applying. Same goes for comparing yourself to former applicants or kids of parents here. Definitely take our advice if you want to, but don’t give up just because you think you don’t “live up to” what you see here, or what you think med schools want to see. </p>

<p>All that said, I think you’re off to a great start. You don’t seem overwhelmed. It seems like you’re involved with a range of activities and have some that are unique to you. What I’d focus on next is figuring out if there’s any theme there that you can work on developing. For me, my theme was service to the medically underserved. I started out by going on a mission trip. Then, since I liked what I did there, I wanted to find a way to get involved with similar populations in my town. So I started volunteering at a local agency. I found a problem–low health literacy–and decided I wanted to do something to fix it–start a nonprofit. Since then, I’ve worked on developing and growing my organization, and it’s been wildly successful. This has given me plenty of purpose for doing all the things I do and has had the additional benefit of providing lots of topics for essays, rec letters, and interviews. </p>

<p>Basically: I think it’s best to do things purposely, and not just randomly to fill space in your resume. If you liked neurology, maybe a neurosurgeon would be a good one to shadow. If you like science, it makes sense to explore research too–that way, you can find out if you like medicine or science better. If you like helping people, learn about local agencies and social work and psychology etc to figure out if something other than medicine really speaks to you. I know I like both the science and the art/human aspect of medicine specifically–I’ve worked on pure science in research labs (not my thing) and have volunteered extensively in the community (to explore whether a different field would be better). Nothing satisfies both my curiosity and my desire to work closely with people the way medicine does. The only way I could find that out is to have a broad base of high-quality extracurriculars.</p>

<p>I think you’re on the right track. Just keep going and see where you end up. Joy is in the journey, that’s for sure. Good luck!</p>

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<p>Lately the only thing thats keeping me going is dilata gratum.</p>

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<p>Looking at your list of EC’s, I would try not being so dependent on campus clubs. Most premed organizations meet twice a semester and go out to a soup kitchen for 3 hours of volunteering. Adcoms know this. </p>

<p>Try to find and explore EC’s that you are interested in. The key is to develop your EC’s and show depth, rather than quantity.</p>

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<p>^^^ I like Poli Sci, so I guess I can combine my interest in medicine and poli sci, and concentrate my EC’s around Health care policy.</p>

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<p>this kind of situation further supports my thinking of going to a school thats not very competitive because the only thing holding you back is your gpa b/c of the competitiveness of vandy. and having a good gpa > prestige of a school i think from what i’ve read on here. if you had the chance to go back in time, would you still have chosen vandy?</p>

<p>also i realize this post doesnt help you but it might help others like myself who are deciding where to go for premed.</p>

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<p>That’s fine.</p>

<p>My point is that you need to show initiative if you want to get into top med schools. A lot of my classmates are interested in health care policy. Last year, during the time of the debate over US healthcare, a few of my classmates organized a rally complete with a state representative. Keep in mind, EC’s in med school don’t even count for anything. They simply did this because it was something they were interested in and were passionate about.</p>

<p>That’s what med students do. Even being super busy with schoolwork, they can still put something like that together. So, organizing a rally or getting an internship in washington DC is going to be a lot more impressive than simply joining the political science club. </p>

<p>I really think way too much attention is given to GPA and MCAT on this board. People need to understand that just as a 3.8 GPA is not equal to a 3.3 GPA, there are gradations in extracurriculars as well.</p>

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<p>To echo ncg, folks seriously do need to get away from questions like “How many hours of non-medical volunteering do I need?” and start thinking like a current applicant poster here (who I won’t name - but it rhymes with Tristin ;)): “See a problem, fix a problem”. Checking a box just won’t separate you from the rest of the ho-hum pre-med lemmings.</p>

<p>Yeah. I know you’re a college kid with a limited budget and limited time. That’s what makes it so special when you:</p>

<p>1) Recognize the problem,
2) come up with a viable solution within your budget and time constraints
3) Actually do something that shows you give a damn about someone other than yourself.</p>

<p>[end rant/cue emo music/run ending credits]</p>

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<p>Thanks curm :slight_smile: it’s been a great ride and I’m looking forward to how all of this pans out!</p>

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<p>The best prep. is to work hardest in every class and choose activities in your area of interest, which are available for you and participate as much as your time allow you. Spending your time here and fittiong youself into requirments of specific Med. Schools is not the best approach at all. Med. Schools are looking for passionate people who are pursuing their dreams for being MD as well as their personal interests outside of medicine, if any. Being yourself and pushing the hardest is not a cliche here, it is the only way to be successful. Do not focus on numbers, work hard and have fun learning and spending time with your friends and pursuing other goals and you will be just fine.<br>
On the other hand, top 25 is not the only successful route, acceptance to ANY American Medical School will be a very ambitious goal.<br>
This is based on my D’s experience who has been accepted to few Med. Schools (top 20 and others) and who is NOT taking ranking into consideration while making her decision (has not decided yet).</p>

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<p>4.0 GPA in a guaranteed medical program but wants to transfer out, Goldwater Research Scholar, Truman Finalist, started a medical volunteering related organization, tons of volunteering, domestic and international, officer in 3 to 4 clubs, no sports, what are the chances of getting into the top 25 med schools?</p>

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<p>During the 2 total hours of interviews yesterday, one guy mentioned in passing one time what my stats were. The rest was spent on all the rest of that stuff.</p>

<p>Makes you wonder if once a person gets the interview…stats aren’t the issue anymore. I wonder if at the point of interview, everyone starts at the same place.</p>

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<p>Our med school does “blind interviews”–that is the interviewers do not get to see the applicant’s GPA or MCAT scores before the interview–only their PS and secondaries.</p>

<p>And furthermore interviewers are not allowed to ask about GPA or MCAT.</p>

<p>Of course one of D1’s interviewers did ask the forbidden questions…</p>

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<p>Varies from school to school. Some schools explicitly say this. (Can’t think of any at the moment – Baylor, maybe?.) UCSF says that while this is not their official policy, if you break down their statistics afterwards it seems to be basically what they do. Penn, by contrast, told us that the interview was basically just a crazy check. They mostly made their decisions off of paper materials, and the interview was to make sure that those decisions weren’t really insane. (And because they’re required by AAMC.)</p>

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<p>Penn, by contrast, told us that the interview was basically just a crazy check.</p>

<p>LOL</p>

<p><a href=“And%20because%20they’re%20required%20by%20AAMC.”>I</a> *</p>

<p>So, med schools are REQUIRED to interview applicants that they are considering?</p>

<p>I totally understand the “blind interview” stance…it lessens a possible bias when interviewing applicants…“ahh, this next gal has super stats, therefore I’m sure she’ll have awesome things to say.”</p>

<p>Reminds me of what I used to tell my kids every time they had a new English teacher. I insisted that they make sure that first few essays assigned were written perfectly, so that from then on, whenever the teacher would pick up their papers to grade, she would think, “now, I get to grade an A student’s paper.”</p>

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<p>They must see it at UT-Houston.</p>

<p>When my son interviewed at UT-H both interviewers actually asked if he was serious about attending because they “normally didn’t have people with his profile actually matriculate” and they essentially didn’t want to “waste” an offer…they both said they would “enthusiastically” recommend him for admission if he was serious. He was still undecided as to which program he preferred between Baylor, UT-H and UTSW because at the time, they were so different.</p>

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<p>Add Mayo and Northwestern to that list. Mayo told us that once you’ve been invited to an interview, your GPA and MCAT are no longer associated with your file–the interview invitation means you’ve proved yourself enough. Northwestern told us during the intro talk that GPA and MCAT “no longer contribute” (whatever that means). And Duke told us that while the interviewers don’t have access to GPA/MCAT info (unless you’re interviewed by a certain few people), when they’re making their final offers, they take into account “the whole package.” </p>

<p>Just my two cents.</p>