- Joined
- Jan 19, 2011
- Messages
- 1,251
- Reaction score
- 419
1. Your age and GPA and MCAT if you have it.
30 years old, 3.1 cGPA, 4.0 postbac GPA, 32P MCAT.
2. Your financial and work situation.
Just before starting my postbac I worked as a carpenter for a few months. Before that I was volunteering for two years in West Africa. I had a few people and churches sponsoring my volunteer work, but I was always broke. After the postbac I bought an old fixer-upper house that I've been remodeling. It will be ready to sell in a few weeks, and I'll make a nice profit.
3. Your family and significant other situation.
I'm single and realistically, I'll stay that way for a long time.
4. Your plan or your path to success.
I graduated from Fort Lewis College, Colorado in 2004 with a European History degree. After that I alternated between construction work and a total of more than three years of volunteer projects in Romania, China, New Orleans, Croatia, Germany, Gambia, Togo, South Africa and Sierra Leone. I returned to school in the summer of 2011 at Oregon State University and University of Alaska Fairbanks to take all the prerequisite classes and retake a statistics class I failed during my first round of college. I took the MCAT in April 2012 and got a 32. It was a good score but still a disappointment, since I had been averaging 35's in practice. I applied to 11 MD and 9 DO schools.
What I did right
I got perfect grades in a full schedule of the prerequisite classes. I was able to hammer this point home in my essays and interviews to show that my poor cGPA was not an accurate gauge of my ability to succeed in medical school. That seemed to work well for DO schools and some MD schools. All my volunteer work helped a lot too. I wasn't doing it with the intention of strengthening my application, but it certainly did work well. I must have been the perfect candidate for schools like VCOM that specialize in rural and international medicine.
What I did wrong
I needed at least a month of dedicated study time for the MCAT, and I didn't get it. The test was only available in April or July in my town. I chose April, but I'm certain that if I'd taken it in late May after college was finished my score would have been 3-4 points higher. When I chose schools to apply to I took the shotgun approach and sent applications to everything from top-notch MD (Mayo, UNC) to new DO (Campbell, PNWU). I should have tightened up the spread a little and added a few more lower-tier MD and top DO schools. With my weird stats it was hard to know what to apply for.
Results
Accepted to NOVA, VCOM Carolina and Tulane. Waitlisted at Western Lebanon. Withdrew from interview invites at KCOM, LMU and PNWU. Small-pooled at Rosalind Franklin. Rejected at Mayo after getting a LOR request, which is still a huge step. Rejected outright at UNC, VCU and Wake Forest. I'm waiting to hear from six schools but there are only two I would go to interviews at. Tulane was always one of my top choices, so I'm delighted to be accepted there.
Conclusion
It is possible to ignore your cGPA and get accepted DO and even some MD schools based on amazing ECs, a decent MCAT and a perfect postbac. However, even though this approach worked for me, I do not recommend it to others. Unless you enjoy smuggling Bibles into China, welding on a ship in Croatia or mixing concrete in Gambia and would do those things if you weren't applying to medical school, the established route of retaking bad grades and boosting the sGPA is going to be an easier, more reliable way to get accepted.
30 years old, 3.1 cGPA, 4.0 postbac GPA, 32P MCAT.
2. Your financial and work situation.
Just before starting my postbac I worked as a carpenter for a few months. Before that I was volunteering for two years in West Africa. I had a few people and churches sponsoring my volunteer work, but I was always broke. After the postbac I bought an old fixer-upper house that I've been remodeling. It will be ready to sell in a few weeks, and I'll make a nice profit.
3. Your family and significant other situation.
I'm single and realistically, I'll stay that way for a long time.
4. Your plan or your path to success.
I graduated from Fort Lewis College, Colorado in 2004 with a European History degree. After that I alternated between construction work and a total of more than three years of volunteer projects in Romania, China, New Orleans, Croatia, Germany, Gambia, Togo, South Africa and Sierra Leone. I returned to school in the summer of 2011 at Oregon State University and University of Alaska Fairbanks to take all the prerequisite classes and retake a statistics class I failed during my first round of college. I took the MCAT in April 2012 and got a 32. It was a good score but still a disappointment, since I had been averaging 35's in practice. I applied to 11 MD and 9 DO schools.
What I did right
I got perfect grades in a full schedule of the prerequisite classes. I was able to hammer this point home in my essays and interviews to show that my poor cGPA was not an accurate gauge of my ability to succeed in medical school. That seemed to work well for DO schools and some MD schools. All my volunteer work helped a lot too. I wasn't doing it with the intention of strengthening my application, but it certainly did work well. I must have been the perfect candidate for schools like VCOM that specialize in rural and international medicine.
What I did wrong
I needed at least a month of dedicated study time for the MCAT, and I didn't get it. The test was only available in April or July in my town. I chose April, but I'm certain that if I'd taken it in late May after college was finished my score would have been 3-4 points higher. When I chose schools to apply to I took the shotgun approach and sent applications to everything from top-notch MD (Mayo, UNC) to new DO (Campbell, PNWU). I should have tightened up the spread a little and added a few more lower-tier MD and top DO schools. With my weird stats it was hard to know what to apply for.
Results
Accepted to NOVA, VCOM Carolina and Tulane. Waitlisted at Western Lebanon. Withdrew from interview invites at KCOM, LMU and PNWU. Small-pooled at Rosalind Franklin. Rejected at Mayo after getting a LOR request, which is still a huge step. Rejected outright at UNC, VCU and Wake Forest. I'm waiting to hear from six schools but there are only two I would go to interviews at. Tulane was always one of my top choices, so I'm delighted to be accepted there.
Conclusion
It is possible to ignore your cGPA and get accepted DO and even some MD schools based on amazing ECs, a decent MCAT and a perfect postbac. However, even though this approach worked for me, I do not recommend it to others. Unless you enjoy smuggling Bibles into China, welding on a ship in Croatia or mixing concrete in Gambia and would do those things if you weren't applying to medical school, the established route of retaking bad grades and boosting the sGPA is going to be an easier, more reliable way to get accepted.