<p>To tk21769, Undergrad GPA means absolutely nothing about your doctor’s ability, althought such a tattoo might result in a rather interesting set of stitches from your physician. If he/she got into med school and survived it, matched into a residency, is licensed, and not currently in jail for malpractice, I fail to see any reason to have a second thought about your physician’s undergraduate GPA. To have been accepted to medical school, made it through, and gone through the subsequent residency and any additional training, I just don’t see any way you can be concerned about their intelligence or dedication. Brilliant people can be clumsy too though, so I’ll take the guy with steady hands over the 4.0 GPA any day, haha.</p>
<p>That said glam, my advice/opinion here comes in a multitude of forms, mostly personal, partly professional. For a quick snippet of background- 1. I was an engineering student who switched to pre-med and biology after having dropped to what was considered a “good” engineering GPA in my program, but was far from what was “good” for a pre-med biology student. 2. I am currently a counselor specifically working with the arts and sciences and pre-medical advising on a day to day basis, and 3. Although I am a bit of an unusual med school admissions success story, but I did get accepted in spite of my lower than average undergraduate GPA, but it was not easy.</p>
<p>Do not decide where to go to school based on how “easy” you think it will be to get a 4.0 GPA. A strong GPA will not get you in to med school on its own. A great MCAT will not get you into med school on its own. Med schools have a lot of applicants to pick from and are looking for the whole package (largely, because they can, and because they want to produce excellent physicians with the small number of students they can accept). If your GPA is slightly lower because you went to a more challenging undergraduate school or took a more rigorous course of study, medical schools can recognize that and it will be considered. If you went to a less challenging school/course of study where a much greater percentage of students have 4.0 GPAs, they will recognize that too, and it will be considered. Your undergraduate GPA is very important for medical school admissions, but it is just one of several critical factors med schools will consider. A 4.0 student with a 39-40 MCAT looks great on paper, but if they have no people skills or involvement in their undergraduate college, there are a great many reputable medical schools that want will not accept them, since it takes more than just good grades and test scores to become a good physician in the long run, and more and more medical schools are saying exactly that when top students call them to ask why they were denied admission. Simply put, there’s very little you can get by a medical school admissions committee- they evaluate thousands of applicants each year for 80-200 spots depending on the size of the medical school, and odds are good they’ve seen it all. Go somewhere you want to go for undergrad, work hard, get involved, and show them who you are as a student and a pre-med, rather than what you think they want to see, and most of the time you’ll be far better off. (Been there, done that. If you have any questions, feel free to message me.)</p>