Hi all!
I just graduated with my BS in Chemistry in May and am trying to figure out my next steps for applying to medical school in the next few years. I am currently working full time as a clinical and lab assistant at a fertility clinic. My cGPA was 3.56 while my BCPGPA is 3.43 (physical chemistry and physics killed me) but I was involved in an activist group, Greek life, on campus employment, TAing for the microbiology labs, and volunteering in a genomics research lab. My GPA the last three semesters of my undergrad were significantly higher than the start of my undergrad as well. I’ve also started volunteering baking birthday cakes for foster kids as well while the pandemic still goes on and hospitals aren’t taking/using volunteers.
While I have started thinking about applying in 2021 or 2022 for medical school, I am not sure whether I should do a masters first just to get a higher GPA or to just keep working and volunteering for more experience and build more rapport with the doctors I work with for LORs along with the PI and supervisors I had during my undergrad that I still have a good relationship with. And with Mayo Clinic down the street from my job I’m not sure if I should email on of the PIs/faculty about potentially volunteering with their lab with the pandemic going on. I would really appreciate any advice as I don’t know how to move forward now before I decided when/if I should take my MCAT within the next year or not.
- You need more clinical exposure.
---keep working at current job
---add some additional volunteering that puts into direct contact with patients. Volunteering/employment needs to be **in direct patient contact positions**---not research labs. Some people work/volunteer as scribes, CNAs, MAs, EMTs etc. to get their clinical exposure hours.
- You need physician shadowing
---find shadowing opportunities with **primary care physicians/b
- You need community service with the disadvantaged
---service is expected of all med school applicants. It needs to be recent and continuing.
The baking is fine, but it doesn't allow you to interact with the individuals you are serving. Try your local food pantry or Meals on Wheels or other similar programs. You could also try volunteering with a Suicide/ Rape/Crisis hotline during the pandemic while face-to-face contact is limited.
- prepare for and take the MCAT. Without a MCAT score, it's really impossible to say whether you will be a competitive candidate for medical school.
**GPA **
Your GPA is fine for osteopathic schools. You could apply next cycle without doing anything other than improving your ECs and taking the MCAT.
If you want an MD, then you need to improve your GPA/sGPA by taking upper level undergrad bio electives--things like genetics, human anatomy & physiology, immunology, virology, advanced biochemistry, etc
Take enough UL electives until your sGPA is in the in the 3.6+ range. (That requires earning As in 6 or more 4-credit science classes)
MD programs do not consider graduate degrees --except for SMPs-- when making admission decisions and graduate coursework is NOT included in GPA/sGPA calculations.
Special Master’s Programs. These are 1-2 year degree granting programs that simulate the difficulty of the first year of medical school. At many programs, you will take the same classes side by side with actual first year med students. Some programs offer guaranteed admission or interviews to the associated medical school for top students in their SMP programs.
SMPs are a high risk-high reward option. If you do well, you have an excellent chance for a med school admission. However, if you don’t earn a 3.75 or better in the program or finish outside the top 15-25% of the class, then any hope for a future med school admission are gone.
Applying to a SMP is very similar to applying to med school, you will need a MCAT scores, LORs from your science professors, and the expected ECs.
**A Note about LORs**. Medical school ask for LORs from individuals who have taught you in a classroom setting.* This is because they want evaluations of your performance as a student.* Letters from PIs, employers and physicians you have shadowed are usually not an acceptable substitute.
It may be wise to contact professors that you have had classes with now and ask for a LOR. Have those LORs stored at a secure letter holding service like Interfolio, then when you go to actually apply, ask your recommenders to "freshen" your LOR. (This means they will send another letter with a new date and any new details you have conveyed to the writer when you asked them to update their letter.)
“but I was involved in an activist group, Greek life, on-campus employment, TAing for the microbiology labs, and volunteering in a genomics research lab.”
From the reported activities above, the ECs you have are nothing worthwhile to any medical school adcomms, DO, or MD. Yes, as WOWM stated above, your GPA does reach the minimum acceptable range for DO schools, but you are far from acceptance, even in DO school. Of course, you need to take Mcat and hopefully, the results are positive. Scores aside, if you are interested in DO schools, you need to have at least 100 hours shadowing with various medical doctors, of the shadowing, at least 40% of them has to be DO to be accepted by a DO school. The more shadowing hours the better and you need to shadow in a variety of medical disciplines.
Aside from shadowing, what WOWM posted “direct patient contacts” above are important as well. Some of the areas you can explore are:
EMT ambulance attendant
Convalescent Homes
Patient recovery facilities
Hospices
Skill nurse facilities
Various clinics
Various hospitals
One of the area that most students neglect is Home Care, you can call some home care operators and find out if they will let you shadow/help some of their “sick person” care teams.