Making a jump from psychology to medicine, and I need advice...

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
1

Ok, so here’s the deal: I graduated just last week, but I’m staying an extra semester in the fall to finish out my last bit of degree requirement. I’m majoring in Psychology. Studying this has actually inspired me to want to become a psychiatrist instead of becoming a psychologist for many personal reasons. I was diagnosed with Bipolar II and Panic Disorder just this past semester, which I tanked. My grades have always been consistent, usually around 3.5-4.0, but I was going through such a rough time that I let it get to my school work. I also have a couple of Ws for courses my advisor mistakenly guided me into taking, and I think that’s all. Overall, I have cumulative GPA of 3.5, and major is around 3.5.

I’ve always felt like I held myself back - and this is totally my own issue. But it finally took this long to manage now that I know the symptoms and catch myself if I begin to fall into a bad cycle of habits. I’ve always had a large interest in sciences but I left it all behind after high school to get “creative.” Whatever that meant, I really want to help people in the most direct way I can. I still have fall to kick butt and get that 4.0, so that might bump my GPA a little bit. I’m going to get my pre-reqs in through UCLA Extensions for its location and convenience. Assuming I do well in my prereqs, get at least a 30 on MCAT, I shouldn’t be worried about my shaky undergrad, right?

2

Congratulations on getting illness under control.

If you want to go to med school, you need to understand what’s expected and what’s required of applicants. There are ECs expected of applicants as well academic touchstones. You’ll also need to work on getting research experience, community service, leadership posts, physician shadowing and extensive clinical volunteering.

Nor w/r/t to your academics----

Wrong. Your undergrad record is always going to be with you. It never goes away and will never get overlooked.

Undergrad GPA is one of the screeners medical schools use to determine who will get considered for admission and who won’t.

You had a disastrous semester this spring; it’s going to take more than one “kick butt” semester to convince adcomms that you won’t sink academically under pressure. A GPA of 3.5 is more than one standard deviation below the mean for accepted med students (3.65). You need some GPA repair in addition to finishing your science pre-reqs.

Your major GPA is completely irrelevant to med school admissions. It’s not something that even gets looked at.

If you want to go MD, you’ll probably need to consider a grade-enhancing post-bacc program or SMP after you’ve finished your pre-reqs unless you have a super-compelling “story”, a high MCAT and exceptional ECs.

If you’re willing to consider DO programs, then you need to retake your C/D/F grades and use osteopathic schools’ grade-replacement policy to improve your GPA.

BTW, a MCAT score of 30 is below the mean for accepted MD students. (It’s 31.5.)


So, if you do choose to follow this path, you have a great deal of hard work ahead of you. It's not impossible, but it won't be easy either.
3

It’s not just your cumulative GPA that’s important. To help you clarify your starting point it may help you to know that med school apps get broken down into cumulative GPA (cGPA), science (bio, chem, math, physics) GPA (sGPA), and all other (non science) GPA, with cGPA and sGPA being very important. Did you take any college courses in high school? Are there any bio, chem, math, physics grades buried in your 3.5 cGPA? I’m not sure about whether a statistics courses offered by psych dept is a math or non science course.