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My final year will consist of a 3.7 science GPA, but I made a lot of dumb decisions earlier on in undergrad that have held back both my cumulative and science GPAs.
I was looking into taking some level 100 courses at a local CC (my university is exponentially more expensive, especially because I'm graduating). Would an increase to a 3.28 even be worth it?
Aim for an MCAT around 500-505 for the newer D.O. schools and 505+ for all D.O. schools.
If you don't have an upward trend in your last 60 hours, then I might suggest doing another semester/year or applying to an SMP.
Rising GPA trends are always good.Yeah, I did some digging earlier and came up with 508+ as well. A 508 would be about a standard deviation above the mean for mean for my sex and ethnicity, while my GPA is about a standard deviation below the mean.
My last 90 quarter units puts me at a 3.39 science and ~3.5 cumulative, but I don't know if many schools actually care about that metric.
That's extremely encouraging. Which school do you attend (if you don't mind me asking)?
That sounds like a case of horrible luck. A 34 MCAT should be more than enough to prove your capabilities. You also received two interviews, so it sounded like they were willing to look past your GPA.
Were your interviews at the newer schools? If so, would you recommend applying to primarily newer schools to up the odds?
I had a 3.1-3.2 gpa and a 34 mcat (equivalent to a 514-515 the year I took it). I applied to 11 DOs (new and old) and got 2 interviews and no acceptances.
Now granted, this is just me. There are definitely a handful of SDNers who had lower MCATs and GPAs than me who got accepted, but the fact is that DO schools are much more willing to overlook a low mcat, than a low GPA.
I'm at Touro. Touro is one of the few schools that will give a real hard look at students with the low GPA/high mcat combo. But even I didn't get accepted until I did a masters.
Did you have any upward trend or post-bacc work?
I had a moderate, but not a particularly impressive upward trend. Think something like 2.5, 3.0, 3.3, 3.4.
I applied with that, got 2 interviews, and 2 waitlists. Then I did a Masters of Biomedical Sciences, got a 4.0, and got 6 interviews and 1 acceptance.
The reason I did not apply MD with a 4.0 is because I was only halfway through my Masters when I applied. So the only thing that changed from cycle 1 to cycle 2, for me, was one semester of straight As. If I had waited a year I could probably have gone MD. Sometimes I wonder if I made the right choice.
Freshman: 1.86 (21)
Sophomore: 3.51 (38)
Junior: 2.764 (36)
Senior: 3.75 (56)
Those are my science GPAs and the quarter units I took each year. I don't have a trend, so much as a couple awful/decent years strung together. Of course, there were some circumstances I was in that led to those grades, but I'm hesitant to bring up excuses during the application process.
I got my score this morning and it's a 514 (C/P: 129, CARS: 129, Bio: 127 and P/S: 129).
Should I just apply broadly at this point, or are there schools that my GPA is prohibitive for?