“The medical school admissions process is extraordinarily competitive. Premed undergraduates must work hard and strive to achieve a GPA of 3.5 or higher to get accepted into a top-tier program, admissions officials say. Premed students should aim to earn A’s and B’s in science courses, since grades in those classes will be closely scrutinized to gauge whether students are academically prepared for medical school, according to admissions officials.” …
The medical school admissions process is extraordinarily competitive. Premed undergraduates must work hard and strive to achieve a GPA of 3.5 or higher to get accepted into a top-tier program, admissions officials say. Premed students should aim to earn A’s and B’s in science courses, since grades in those classes will be closely scrutinized to gauge whether students are academically prepared for medical school, according to admissions officials.
I’d say that a GPA of 3.5 or higher coupled with a competitive MCAT may get one’s entire application looked at by a human being. Whether they get accepted after that depends on rest of application and interview.
FTFY (in addition to reply #1).
3.5 GPA is not competitive enough these days to get II (Interview Invite), but they do get your app to pass the automatic screen-out when coupled with a good MCAT score (510+?).
3.7 or higher is more the norm now while 3.5 might be the norm 10 years ago?
One can always look at this table for facts/odds:
https://www.aamc.org/download/321508/data/factstablea23.pdf
Or this table has it all averaged:
https://www.aamc.org/download/321494/data/factstablea16.pdf
From the first table the lowest GPA I see with an acceptance is in the 2.20-2.39 category, but it’s hardly terrific odds. Still, with the right application and school, it can happen (x9 - 4.7% odds, but that, of course, doesn’t include those weeded out for not having some sort of decent application with that GPA).
From the second table, the average GPA of successful applicants was 3.64 (SD 0.31) for science classes and 3.71 (SD 0.25) overall.
It could be sobering to note that the acceptance rate for those with a GPA > 3.8 is just 67.1%… and of those in the top category for both GPA and MCAT it’s just 89.2%. Over 10% do not get in.
All applicants really need a Plan B.