Can I get into Med School? Can you help me?

[Stiganator]

So guys this is a serious post. I'm 20 going on 21 in about 7 months. I am going on my 5th year of college, (long story college during hs, and wrong classes etc). Right now my GPA is at about 3.2. I haven't taken the MCAT, but I would score in the range of 32-36. Can I get in to a good school? I haven't really done any volunteer work, but I have always wanted to practice medicine since I grew up in the hospital. Suggestions? I noted there are 4 classes that I had got C's in that are holding me down, if I was to retake them and get A's I would have 3.57. The classes are Biochem, Deformable Body Mechanics, DiffEQ, Bioelectricity. You think it would be worth my while to retake them? Or are there other things I should be doing instead?

 

[Buttzilla]

you know...if you really want to go to medical school you wouldn't be asking these kind of questions. you would just do it, retake those classes, volunteer, do research, tutor, take the mcats and apply. if you don't get it, you try again next year. btw, average age of most health profession students is about 25. so in reality, your still pretty young.

 

[Inspector Jihad]

hey stig...one thing i learned about med school admission offices (ADCOMS) is that they are bastards. If you retake those classes you still need to include them in your app. Here, go to www.studentdoctor.net and sign up for their forums and ask this question...they are pretty useful most of the time. my handle there is Ron Mexico, so i will reply there when i get some time.

 

[Buttzilla]

go to this website... www.studentdoctor.net

 

[Stiganator]

Well I see a lot of my classmates doing the volunteer work and all that jazz because it looks good on the application. Some of them just want to be doctors for the money. I want to because I genuinely like medicine; its very dynamic and the people are awesome, especially the kids. Does everyone get an interview or would I get screened out due to my GPA before that point?

 

[Stiganator]

I posted on there. Same ol' name.

 

[Mermaidman]

Why did you do so poorly in those classes? IMO, you need strong motivation and ability to work hard to succeed in med school (in addition to smarts, of course). AND can you memorize memorize memorize?

 

[GoingUp]

Are you a white male? Forget it if you are.

 

[Stiganator]

Why do you say that? I speak chinese though??

 

[drsafety]

if you retake the classes you should have a decent chance, 36 is a good score... what school do you go to?

 

[LordMaul]

I was told a B-average is par for med school students, by my doctor.

 

[Lenine]

I don't know how it is in the US but in Canada the application requirement is around 3.6 GPA and the average was 3.8x for admission. Maybe the GPA calculation is different in Canada and the US.

 

[Strk]

Go and check out the websites of various med schools. They'll list the minimums they expect you to have to be taken seriously.

 

[Slew Foot]

I was on the UCSF adcom when I was a student there. It sounds like you're into some kind of engineering field? We used to take that into account. For instance, when someone from Stanford applied and had "Underwater basketweaving" as a a class they took, we asked one of the members of the adcom who went to Stanford how hard that class was, and factored that in. That being said, there is a strict criteria, point based sytem for advancing through the admission system. Though I cant reveal the actual algorhythm, it helps A LOT to do well on the MCAT, especially the verbal section.