Loooong Time lurker here, finally decided to post myself here.
My stats are perrretttyyyy baaad..ESPECIALLY for a transfer student
AMCAS cGPA 2.640
sGPA 2.341
WOW.
AACOMAS cGPA 2.878 sGPA 2.757 Redeemable? Probably if I simply retake all these C's I had back when I was fooling around.
Would take quite a bit of work to get there back up to a 3.0, and I honestly don't really trust myself in getting being an absolutely perfect student. I don't think it's particularly a motivational thing, I work pretty hard, but probably not very smart. I'm just finally starting to understand my own study habits right BEFORE I graduate unfortunately so I have a pretty decent upward trend and It'll hopefully show this quarter when I see my grades.
Some Stats:
500+ volunteer hours at Stanford Hospital, 200+ @ the UCSF Benioff Hospital @ Oakland (I know they're a bit out of the way from each other)
50+ hours shadowing under an ER MD & a DO. The ER MD is pretty cool
and my shadowing experience with her further strengthened my resolve to become an MD, she's my current "guidance" counselor whenever I shadow under her on a weekly basis.
No research unfortunately.. yikes
I have some pretty decent LORs, moderate ECs (I could probably strengthen those a bit more)
Hoping to get an EMT-B license after I graduate, I'm finishing up this year with a B.S in Biology.
Now that I calculated all my stats, I regret applying for graduation so early
. I was thinking of possibly going for a second B.A degree in Psychology or another B.S, but from what I've read, it seems like it's rather silly to go after another B.S (not exactly sure what the reason was). Another thing I was thinking of doing is a DIY Post-Bac while re-taking certain pre-reqs that I'm sure I could do much better in (while making sure I don't take them at a community college). Considering I don't screw up the rest of my chances, from what I've calculated, I could potentially muster up a 3.051 cGPA and a 2.990 sGPA(I should probably take another course or two to make sure that's over a 3). Afterwards I could go for an SMP, after taking the MCAT, at a linked school schools while probably working on my ECs from my hopeful EMT job while I'm working on my unfortunate GPA.
I could also go towards the DO route instead and re-take the same classes at another community college (since I've read that the grade replacement is much more forgiving for the Adcoms for the AACOMAS) and the highest my cGPA would go to would be a 3.510 with a 3.501 sGPA (pretty good for DO school). Then just simply apply to DO school.
I would like I stay in CA, but since its probably the most competitive state, I'm willing to go anywhere. I read a thread in the front page about SMP programs from Dr. Madlife and looked at the Category 1 SMPs and noticed USC as one of those programs. I probably should've emailed/called them and asked them for more information about their program have done a little bit more research. I'm more concerned on how connected their MD program is to their Master of Science in Global Medicine program and whether those that finish the MSGMP are allowed entry to the medical school. The website itself is pretty vague and doesn't give a whole lot of detail about the MD integration.
Lemme know what you guys think! I don't really mind either route. But as long as both routes are open to me, I'll always choose the MD route because of my guidance counselor!
P.S I'm a CA resident (if you didn't know) & I'm not a URM.
Tl;dr: 23 yr old messed around too much in undergrad, has a crappy gpa, wrote a long post to hopefully get the attention of people who know more than me, smack me around a bit more for a reality check whilst giving me advice. Thanks for reading!