<p>Hey guys I have a question:
After 2 years of college I have a 2.6 gpa and my chances at med school are looking extremely bleak. This was mainly due to underachievement and I'm confident that I can do better. I'm trying to figure out some options to help out my gpa, and heres what I came up with..
-finish the last 2 years strong and maybe get my gpa to a 3.5
-transfer schools as a change of pace, do well in my new classes in my new school and have that gpa cover up my other university's gpa
-try to get in an smp in my current university but im not sure how competitive those are and if i can raise my gpa in time.</p>
<p>does anyone have any advice or ideas? I'm really not sure how I should proceed. Theres no way I'm the only one to ever have this problem, though, and I'm sure people have done it. There has to still be a way</p>
<p>^How is 3.5 attainable mathematically? Roughly estiamting, having all A’s for the rest of your college will make it to 3.3. What is your plan for having all A’s in much harder classes than you had for first 2 years? I do not believe that tranferring to another school is a good idea. If you are URM, you are fine, otherwise, you probably will need to work for awhile before you can apply to Med. School. Pre-med advisor at your UG will have much better ideas than any of us here.</p>
<p>I can still retake some classes so itd theoretically allow me to reach that point. And does being a urm really make that much of a difference?</p>
<p>^I believe that when you retake, both grades are showing and included in GPA calculation. I might be wrong, do not have experience with that. And, yes, URM status makes a huge diff., all pre-meds are aware of that. However, again I do not know the low cut off for URMs, although it is much lower than non-URMs.</p>
<p>There is no grade forgiveness for allopathic med schools. Both your old and new grades will be counted in your GPA. And retaking several classes just has the effect of making your overall preparation look weak/non-competitive.</p>
<p>Transferring to new school simply in hopes of getting better grades is a fool’s bet. Transferring won’t make you a better or stronger student. You have to do that yourself. Besides, you will still have to report ALL your grades from every school you ever attended on your med school applications. You can’t escape them.</p>
<p>Osteopathic schools do have grade forgiveness. Only your retake grade counts in your GPA. If you can raise your GPA into the 3.3 range and get a 28+ on your MCAT, then that’s a possibility. But right now that’s still a very long shot. You’ll need perfect As from here until graduation–and you cannot apply until after you do graduate since it will take at least 2 more years to raise your GPA sufficiently.</p>
<p>SMP are competitive, but not as competitive as med admissions. You’ll need to get your GPA into 3.0+ range and score 25-26 on your MCAT to have a decent shot at admission. (You’ll need a higher GPA and MCAT for some programs.) </p>
<p>Honestly, your best bet is to graduate, work while still doing your medically-related volunteering for a couple of years, then enroll in a GPA-enhancing post-bacc. Most med schools are open to older applicants. D1 says that the bulk of her MS1 class is between 24-26. (With about 15% being 30-45 and about 15% being 21-22/fresh out of undergrad.)</p>
<p>And yes, being URM can make a difference–but it has to be the right kind of URM…</p>