Will a 3.7 GPA ruin my chances at med school? Please help, worried premed.

Assuming you had the same credits hours the 2nd year vs.1st year, your 2nd year GPA is around 4.4, or less than 4.5, which is concerning. Am I understanding this correctly?

@SincererLove Yep, 1st semester is 4.8 and 2nd semester is 4.5. I took a lot more credits this year. Is that bad?

so average sophomore GPA is 4.65 (MIT rounds up to 4.7, idk what med schools do)

edit: sorry, GPA out of 5.0

I’m trying to better understand med school so forgive the basic questions…but why would a college sophomore take the MCAT before he even starts his junior year? (what would be the advantage?) And is a 3.7 (from MIT!) really so low as to already advise the OP to look at lower tier schools?

NY residence is GREAT since NY has 4 state MD schools - Downstate, Upstate, Stony Brook and Buffalo which all have in-state preference.

PM sent to you.

@southerhope For someone to apply at the end of junior year, MCAT is usually taken in summer before or winter of junior year. MCAT requires good bit of preparation and so it is associated with a break period. It is advisable not to attempt the test multiple times.

@SouthernHope

A 3.7 is on the low end for MD/PhD programs which are a good deal more competitive than regular MD admissions.

The median GPA for MD-only matriculants last year was 3.72.

And the MIT (or Princeton or Stanford) name on the diploma doesn’t come with an automatic GPA boost for med school admission

K1 took MCAT during March of 1st of 2 gap years (spent them doing full-time research at your neighbor in Cambridge - so yeah, what WOWM said about doing something like that). Had a 3.71 from a selective LAC. Got into 7 or 8 MD schools, including several T10s. There is some really good advice above. Follow it, and don’t sweat it.

Why does this student need to get into a tippy top medical school?

I think 3.7 is an Excellent score for MIT Neuro Science, you have done an excellent job. My niece was in the same program several years ago, she did not get anywhere near that, as a result, she did not even try med school. If you get a high Mcat, you do have a chance to get into a medium level program such as downstate or a MD/PHD program like Toledo. But to try for NYU or any T10 is really a far stretch. There is nothing wrong going to a state med school, what is important is the ranking and USMLE. If you rank high in the school and with a killer USMLE, you will do well in residency and later on fellowship.

In medical society, what really counts is your residency and fellowship, where you went to medical school does not really matter that much.

@jml234567

There is an important question that you haven’t addressed–and no one on this thread has asked.

You haven’t mentioned if you’re already working in lab. Are you?

If you are interested in MD/PhD programs, more important than your GPA is the strength of your research experience.
MD/PhD applicants have to be dually and independently accepted to both PhD programs and MD program at each school. You need to have the credentials to be accepted by both.The PhD committee interviews you first and decides whether or not to accept you. If you’re found acceptable, then and only then is your application reviewed by the med school adcomm for admission.

Your research experience & productivity will outweigh your GPA when it comes being accepted to MD/PhD programs.

Actually, regarding research, it is the quality of your program more important than quantity.
A friend of ours who is a high ranking administration at Stanford, her son went to a Midwest LAC that is not the top ranking such as Williams, However, due to her position in Stanford, she was able to pull an independent research project for her son’s gap year at Stanford and because of the high visibility of the project her son is able to get into HMS this year. Of course, the kid also has a spotless scores on his back, plus, his Yale MS graduated sister also gave him a lot of guidance.

D had two years(almost full time) of research at a top school, but she is co-authored with a lot of researchers in the program. Basically, what she did was at technician level. When she applied to med school, they did not get much attention.

MSTP programs (the only MD/PhD programs worth doing in my opinion) are forbidden from having state residency requirements since the funding for them is from the NIH.

I don’t think the fact that OP has B+s in genetics and whatever other bio course it was particularly matter. It’s more just what is the sGPA and what is the cGPA.

@thumper1 if this student is aiming for MD/PhD then realistically they have to get into a top 40 medical school as those are the ones with the MSTP grants. If by tippy top you just meant like top 5, 10, or 20, then you are right, but this isn’t like most students where any US medical school is good enough.

@WayOutWestMom I haven’t read the thread to carefully but is anyone suggesting OP do a gap year that doesn’t involve research? I would consider it a given that an MD/PhD hopeful is doing research during a gap year, most likely full time.

@iwannabe_Brown

Yes, most of the suggestions for a gap year have been for clinical positions since the OP has zero clinical exposure, zero community service, zero physician shadowing, zero leadership and is under 18 years old.

@WayOutWestMom correct me if I’m wrong…but research isn’t going to help this student in the absence of the things you mention in the above posts.

I thought MD/PhD programs required all those things AND research.

@thumper1

MD/PhD applicants absolutely to have to have it all–clinical exposure, community service, leadership and research.

It’s much easier for an individual to do full time research while picking up the other pre-med ECs on the side than it for individual who is out of school to work full time at a clinical job while picking up lab research on the side. Many (most? all?) research labs will not permit non-students to volunteer there.

And time away from the lab will hurt, or even kill, a MD/PhD’s applicant’s chances for a admission on the PhD side of the MD/PhD admissions.

@jml234567 -What’s the reason to take more credits? You need to balance credits and ECs to be a successful candidate to medical schools.

@jml234567

Ok…let me ask a different question.

Why do you want to do a MD/PhD program?