Med-School applicant?

May 2021 2 73 Report

Med-School applicant?

I am a senior at Oakland University trying to get into medical school. I am a semester behind so I haven't taken my mCAT yet. My GPA is a 3.3 right now so it's not the best.

I would like to know my chances of getting in to medical schoo.l I am a very involved, well rounded student. I had an athletic scholarship as a freshman, I am president of a medical related club, I volunteer to coach volleyball, I head coached a vball team through a club league and we placed the highest of all the teams, I work in a hospital as a nursing assistant, I have shadowed physicians and I am taking a medical trip this year.

Could anyone give me their honest opinion as to whether or not they think I am a good candidate? (I know it is hard to tell since I have yet to take the mCAT, but I would appreciate feedback).

Education & Reference / Higher Education (University +)

Hannah

You are very involved so that is a very good thing already. You need to be sure, when you do apply, you have a very good personal statement essay to support yourself. A GPA of 3.3 is not bad but it's not competitive. You need to look at the different schools that you are interested in to see what their GPA averages are for the students that they admit. Of course, that is not the end-all if their average GPA is 3.6, for example. Schools like to admit students with diversity so they will fluctuate over and under that GPA. The point is that they want very well driven students who know for sure that they want this career.

The MCAT is made up of 3 sections at 15 points each. Kaplan MCAT class says that an 8 across all three sections is a good score, but you would want to shoot for a score of 30 or above to be competitive. And you want to make sure that your scores are as even as possible across all sections because they want to know that you are well rounded. For example, they would prefer a student who got an MCAT score of 31 with 10 in english/reading, 10 math/physics, and 11 in chem/bio, rather than a student who got a score of 31 with 6 in english/reading, 12 in math/physics, and 13 in chem/bio.

Be wary though that the MCAT test is changing in 2015, if you haven't taken it by then. The 4.5 hour test with 3 sections will be extended to 7 hours with more sections like psychology and etc to mirror more of what it would be like if you took the board exams in medical school. This way, they also would be able to test you on more material since they believe that the tests now aren't testing enough material.

I know it's a lot of information but I hope this helps. You are doing great as a student, though, so keep it up!