Yet another... what are my chances.....

[icdi]

Ok, after many years off --I graduated undergraduate in 1997, and a career in the pharmaceutical industry..... I really want to follow my passion and go to medical school. In undergrad I had no intention of going to medical school and although my overall undergraduate GPA as 3.3 my science GPA was 2.0 mainly due to terrible performance in physics and chemistry freshman and sophmore year....and I am afraid this may have killed my chances of ever getting into medical school.

Over the past two years I went back and re-took all my premed requirements getting A's in all of them (Chemistry, Physics, Organic, Biology) and now have a BMCP of 3.05 (because the undergrad chem/phy courses were 4 credits and I took 3 credit chem/phy courses for postbac and did not re-take the lab component as it was a separate course).

I should say that I also have an MPH degree and plan on taking the MCAT in January.

I have two questions:

1. Do I even have a chance at an allo school with a 3.1 GPA????? I have an upward trend but I would have to take many more classes to get it much higher.

2. I have some athletic training courses that fall under the athletic training departement (e.g., Anatomy and Physiology) will these count towards my BMCP or since they were specific to Athletic Training they will go into the non-science calculation.

I apprecaite any insight!!!!!

Thanks!!!

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[Blade28]

(1) Just to clarify, when you retook those classes, did you then average the old and new grades? Or did you replace them? MD schools use the former method, DO schools the latter.
(2) Any particular reason you're not considering DO schools?
(3) Any other volunteering/shadowing/clinical experience?

Tough to say what's going to happen without your MCAT score. But I should warn you that the average GPA of matriculants is quite high - at least 3.6 - so you definitely have your work cut out for you. You said your new BCMP GPA is 3.05 - what's your new cumulative GPA?

 

[icdi]

If I look at the GPA by year it looks like:

Freshman Year 2.0 (Chemistry I, II)
Sophmore Year 2.0 (Physics I D, B; Physics II C, Biology B)
Junior Year 3.5 (Calculus I A; II B)
Senior Year 4 (Biochemistry 3 cr. A)

*Undergrad I have 33 credit hours with 81 gradepts (GPA 2.45)

MPH GPA 3.7 (but nonscience)

It was 10 years since I took those classes and over the past year I retook:

Postbac: 3.9...
Chemistry I, II A-
Physics I, II A
Biology I A
Organic I, II A

If I take an average of grade points/credit hours I have around a 3.2 GPA.

EC:
I currently volunteer at a hospital and previously worked at the health departement and in a hospital as a clinical research assistant.

I am scoring 31 on my MCAT practice tests.

I am going to apply to both allo and DO school but I am wondering if I have any chance at all at an allo school?

 

[icdi]

I forgot to mention:

Would master's level biology courses (e.g., as part of my MPH elective I took Cell Bio and got and A and Physiology A-) be factored into my overall BMCP grade?

I am currently only factoring in undergrad and post-bac classes.

Thanks!

 

[Blade28]

No, graduate grades (Master's, PhD, etc.) and the GPA are separate from your undergrad grades. Unfortunately, most graduate work doesn't help much in the admissions process.

So you did the calculations correctly - your cumulative undergrad GPA consists of your undergrad work and post-bac work.

Again, it's very difficult to know what's going to happen on your MCAT - just make sure you study hard and are prepared when you do take it.

And know that you're going to have to pull that GPA up some more - or consider an SMP - to be competitive.

Best of luck.