Pre-med advice/chances?

DO schools --[College Information Book 2018-19](https://www.aacom.org/news-and-events/publications/2018-2019_cib/admissions-offices)

MD Schools --[Medical School Admission Requirements]( Mec-Msar-rw)

The CIB is free; you’ll need to pay AMCAS $30 to see the full MSAR information for each school.

I strongly recommend you skip applying to any med school where your stats (MCAT or GPA) are at or below the 25th percentile for admitted students; and absolutely do not apply anywhere your stats are below the 10th percentile. Those application fees will be merely donations. Also read the admissions webpages of each & every school you are thinking to applying to to see if there are any other restrictions/requirements on applicants.

Don’t bother applying to any state med schools unless it’ s your home state.

How should I treat schools that have lower than around 20% out of state acceptance rate? Are those impossible for anyone to get into except for out of state kids with the highest grades and scores?

Do not apply to OOS publics unless you meet one of these situations:

  1. your stats are significantly above the average in-state accepted student’s

  2. you have a strong tie to the state (graduated from high school there, have immediate family members living in the state) AND your stats are at or above the average in-state accepted student’s

In case 1, your stats help to tfluff up the school’s ranking.

In case 2, the med school hopes that you will stay and practice medicine there after you graduate

@purplerocketman

You keep emphasizing “top MD”or “top DO” schools.

You need to understand…the person who graduates at the bottom of the MD or DO program will still be called doctor.

From what I understand…your actual specialty isn’t based on your MCAT score or the MD or DO School from which you graduate. It’s based on your Step tests, LOR and marks during rotations, and your interviews.

You have to figure out your end game. What specialties are you interested in? If it’s something
Ike surgery or dermatology…you will need to be at the top of your game all the way through MD or DO school.

I’m not understanding your comments about top this and top that.

I thought of a couple of other things.

There are some DO schools (and highly regarded ones) where the mission of the school is primarily to help train primary care doctors for the region in which the school is located…or in other underserved areas. So…if you interview…be honest…if you don’t plan to do that, tell them. And yes, this might mean you won’t get accepted.

Another important question…you are on a six year plan to finish undergrad. Any loans in the mix already. MD and DO schools have precious little aid beside Loans, loans and more loans…with tuition and living expenses and expensive books, and expensive tests, you can look at $75,000 a year or MORE for the years of training to become a doctor.

And you won’t be able to work…At. All. while you are in MD or DO school.

You need your experiences BEFORE you send in your applications…although shadowing can continue during your gap year.

So…adding ECs during your gap year isn’t going to help if you apply before the gap year even starts.

As suggested…get certification as a CNA or medical assistant…or scribe…and find work doing that.

And one more thing…why are you on a 5 year plan to get your undergrad degree?

You will have required classes the first two years of medical school…no choices about taking a “lighter load” for any reason.

@thumper1
To you’re first post, I was mentioning top schools because I had the assumption from other postings that residency programs care about the rank of the medical school, but now that is clear thank you. I understand it would take 6 years to finish all undergrad, and money isn’t really an issue. The biggest reason for doing a fifth year is because I couldn’t quite get the hang of school my freshman year, even though I worked extremely hard, nothing was coming easy to me. So, I figured that the biggest thing I need to concentrate on is my GPA, and I figured the best way I could do that was to spread out my units and make sure that I was able get a lot of hours in for my extracurriculars while maintaining stellar grades.

My other option was to graduate in four years then spend 2 years on gap years to add hours to my extracurriculars and possibly work as a CNA or scribe. I think the biggest obstacle for 4 years of school and a gap year is when I would take the MCAT. I feel that I would possibly need to dedicate an entire summer or at least half a summer to studying for it.

@purplerocketman

The MCAT requires substantial individual preparation even if the material is fresh in your mind. Everyone needs several weeks to several months of dedicated preparation. The MCAT really isn’t like any other standardized exam you’ve ever taken before.

RE: your GPA and course loads

What is your year-by-year GPA/sGPA breakdown? Have you demonstrated a significant upward GPA trend?

Are you taking a full courseload each term? (4 academic classes/semester or 3 academic classes/trimester) Underloading will hurt your med school application. Adcomms will want to see you are capable of handling a challenging schedule that simulates the difficulty of med school.

Some students whose GPAs are not quite high enough for acceptance to medical school get either a Masters degree in Public Health or a Masters in Biomedical Science for the purpose of getting higher grades and showing medical schools that they have improved in their studies and would succeed in medical school. As part of this, they try to do research and publish a paper. One would have to get a high MCAT score as well.

@BunnyBlue

Master in Biomedical Sciences = SMP. This has already been discussed earlier in this thread.

Allopathic med schools really aren’t impressed by a MPH since too many MPH programs lack rigor. Graduate degrees are not considered by allopathic med schools when calculating GPAs or making interview decisions. (Osteopathic schools will include any graduate science credits when computing sGPAs, but most PH credits are not hard science credits.)

@WayOutWestMom
My GPA probably has the most signifanct upward trend of anyone I know. I’ve taken a full course load of at least 3 classes per quarter (~12 units never under). I’ve never failed a class, but received C’s in each quarter of the gen chem series.
That’s also interesting what you say about adcomms caring about courseload. Because I’ve done research several times on several websites and it says to not over load yourself with work because they don’t care about the rigor of your quarter such as taking honors courses and/or taking a crazy (~17+) amount of units?
And as far as the MCAT goes, that is just another reason why I would want to do a fifth year or 2 gap years… to allow myself an entire summer to study for it.

@WayOutWestMom
I forgot to mention.
I have also spoken with a surgeon who was recently part of the UCLA med school admissions committee. He was the one who gave me the idea of taking a fifth year, he even recommended I change my major. He said the most important things I can do is to get volunteer hours, do research, emphasized getting my gpa up, and do very well on the MCAT.

Underloading means taking few units per semester/quarter than what is considered full time. If you only taking 1 science/math per quarter as hard science major–that is underloading.

As long as you are carrying a full load of academic classes each term, that is sufficient rigor.

GPA and MCAT are the first screen pre-med face, after that everything is fair game. Med school admission is a negative process. Adcomms, who get as many as 15,000 applications for 150 seats, are actively looking for reasons to reject applicants. You want as few dings on your record as possible.

Last year I only took the ochem series. In addition, I took 2 elective science courses, one during the 1st and one during the 3rd quarter. This upcoming year I’ll be taking the bio series along with two upper divs at the end of the year.
Say I were to get an exceptional score on my MCAT… besides my GPA, what are some weak points about my application?

@purplerocketman

@WayOutWestMom can probably provide the exact statistics…but I believe something like 60% of medical school applicants don’t get accepted to ANY of the places to which they apply. Many apply to 20 schools.

Oh…and the application costs are…high.

So…it’s hard to identify a weakness in your profile. It could be anything. From my backseat…I see a lot of activities…but very little strong commitment. Lots of different things.

Preparing for the MCAT will be your main challenge. Your ACT score wasn’t exactly tippy top…but your MCAT score will need to reach a certain bar for consideration.

I am not a med school adcom, but I also think doing something medically related…with commitment, would be good. Like I suggested…maybe next summer, take a CNA or medical assistant course. Then get a job doing that work.

You might also want to look into what it takes to become a physician assistant or APRN. Those folks specialize as well. Many do primary care, but not all. We know three…two dermatology, and one EM.

@thumper1
I appreciate the constructive criticism.
But, what are you thinking when you say strong commitment? Is being a competitive triathlete for 6 years, doing 1,000+ Hours of research, committing to one non-clinical organization for over 400 hours not enough dedication? (I’m not saying that sarcastically I’m just genuinely curious). What is considered a strong commitment? I obviously can’t make every extracurricular have over 500 hours because that would be impossible, but I do need clinical volunteering and shadowing. I guess the answer to this question is kind of biased, but is it better to just not have any shadowing or clinical volunteer hours but around 2000 hours of very few things or wind down a bit on the 2000 hours and have a little of other things to like the way I have it?

Short answer–without shadowing and clinical volunteering, your application will be DOA.

I wouldn’t lean too hard on the triathletics to show dedication/commitment. Both D1 and D2 are marathon runners. (Both still compete several times each year, even now during residency when free time is all but non-existent.) D1 was a competitive climber in college. D2 solo hiked the John Muir Trail, large swaths of the Appalachian Trail, and the Torres del Paines. None of that even made it into their med school applications. Athletics (and other hobbies) are a grace note on your application; they shouldn’t be one of the main pillars.

That helps a lot! Would it look bad if I had two things that I dedicated a lot of time to, instead of one?

My point…you have a LOT of different activities…not showing a real passion for one…or even two.

And think carefully because in med School of any type, you won’t have the option of taking a lighter load to keep GPA up.