I was wondering if I can get your advice on something. I have a very low GPA (2.5) I am about to complete my 3rd year. My GPA is low due to some personal and family problems, and the dean of my school did not believe that it should have impacted my grades as much as it did. Thus, I am unable to receive any type of academic renewal.
I am currently working on getting my GPA up, I am also retaking the classes that I did poorly on at another university. (The credits won’t transfer over, but I will at least have a transcript there).
I was wondering if you had any advice for me. I am planning on taking a gap year to complete my other courses and possibly study for my MCAT. Do you think I should apply to a Post Bacc, Masters, or straight into Medical School?
Thank you.
I am serious and I am working hard to try and show improvement
I am a Psychology major, and I might be minoring in Chemistry if I have the time.
First of all, research at your school of medicine does not have too much impact on your MD application as med school will consider that is a lab technician “job”, unless you have applied your own grant with your own research subject, if there is a published paper that is even better.
Secondly, you have a real problem with your GPA, it is not very likely your GPA will be med school worthy (3.7 for MD and 3.6 for DO and 3.5 for sGPA), not even close and grade replacement is not possible. You can do your own math, even if you get all As in the next two years, you won’t be able to reach that plateau. So you should forget about the med school and execute your plan B, whatever it is.
In the future, after 5 years out of the school, if med school is still your plan, you will be able to return with Non-traditional status and start over with all your science courses and if you get all As and a high Mcat, good ECs and LOR, you might be considered in med school application.
If you still insist on going to med school, you might have to attend a Caribbean med school, in which you will have more than 50% failure rate to get any residency.
You need to plan for another career. There is no way to improve your GPA in one year or two and you will probably have difficulty in getting into a decent post bac. Five to ten years from now if you have become successful doing something else you can revisit medicine as a possible career.
Your application won’t even be read - an algorithm will automatically set it aside. The path to med school is very narrow and you’re no longer on it.
However there are other professions within healthcare that you can pursue. It’ll take you a while taking more science classes and getting As but if you planned on med school you planned on many more years. Theisse then becomes: at what cost? Do you have scholarships that run out after 8 semesters?
I concur with everyone else. Right now you have a zero chance for a medical school admission. Do not apply. Do not take the MCAT.
Med schools (both MD and DO) do not recognize academic renewal. Every class you’ve ever taken will be used when calculating your GPA–both the original class plus any re-take.
The only med schools that will allow academic amnesty are in TX. But the Academic Fresh Start programs requires that you have been completely out of all schooling/courses of any kind for a minimum of 10 years. After 10 years, you can petition to have all your previous grades removed from your record and you will start your bachelor’s over from scratch.
Successful med school applicants have GPA >3.5. (Median for MD programs was 3.7+; for DO programs 3.6)
Your GPA is too low for most post-baccs and SMPs (which generally want a student to have a GPA>3.2).
Your research experience won’t get you any attention from med school admission committees–not even at the school where you work. You have to first prove you have the academic horsepower for med school–which means a GPA> 3.5.
Graduate coursework will not improve your undergrad GPA and is not considered by med schools when making interview invitation decisions.
If you are able to significantly improve your academics–that means getting only As in science classes from now forward (intro level and more advanced classes) and raising your sGPA above 3.2, you may be eligible for a Special Masters Program (SMP). This is a last ditch, Hail Mary program. Do well, finish in the top 25% of the class and you may get some med school interviews; finish outside the top 25%—no med school will ever consider you for admission.
One reason is that the skills needed in med school are far beyond “love science” or liking to help people. Or dreaming if it since kindergarten. Eg, there’s a lot of reading and then processing. Unfortunately, a low undergrad gpa can show problems with this. It also requires intense focus and time management. Again, a low gpa doesn’t show med school and med career attributes.