What To Do With 3.7 Gpa

[kwyhan]

Hello, 

Feel like I'm in a mid-life crisis (okay, maybe a little bit exagerrating ).  

Pretty much, I feel like I have no chance at any professional schools. I'm not financially well off which honestly sucks, but I thought this time, I had to be realistic. I'm 23 and I gave up on med this year because of my lackluster MCAT score and truthfully, I don't have the confidence to score higher by January 2015. So disappointed in myself for the GPA's (cGPA: 3.69  best 2 years: 3.79)  Ive gotten during my undergrad years. Unfortunately, this summer I've just regretted a lot of things and been really down (These feelings are difficult to get rid of. It's often easier said than done). 

Canadian med and dental schools IN ONTARIO are pretty much done deals for me, as my undergrad GPA is done and can't be recovered.. Just so disappointing that because of my GPA & being an Ontario resident, I don't have a shot here.

 

I guess my dilemma is, do I continue to chase for this dream of mine (dent/med) with many failures and prehaps additional schooling before going into these schools or be realistic in that go into master's (Epidemiology) or pharm? I've been looking heavily into pharm and I will do my best if I do go into the program but I don't want to be working in Loblaws and other opportunities in Pharm are rare+ It's 4+ years of schooling (which is similar to med/dent).

 

I'm probably just going in circles and I know it's stupid to ask people online about what you should do with your life/future, but I've been on this forum for a while and I've received some comforting messages from some of you; People who are going similar things and share each other's stories and supporting each other have been really good to see on this forum. Anyway, I would appreciate any help you could provide me with.

Thanks! 

[tigars53]

You can always do a master in epidemiology, and if you get a 4.0 GPA there, you might have a shot in med school. Usually they boost your score considering you have a master's degree (at least they do in quebec). And by doing the master you will discover if you want to stay in that path, try med, or go pharm.

The important thing is that YOU ARE YOUNG. You've got plenty of time to figure out your future. I've got friends who decided to go in med at 35. Don't despair, take your time, you'll find your way.

[Lost&Found]

Hello, 

Feel like I'm in a mid-life crisis (okay, maybe a little bit exagerrating ).  

Pretty much, I feel like I have no chance at any professional schools. I'm not financially well off which honestly sucks, but I thought this time, I had to be realistic. I'm 23 and I gave up on med this year because of my lackluster MCAT score and truthfully, I don't have the confidence to score higher by January 2015. So disappointed in myself for the GPA's (cGPA: 3.69  best 2 years: 3.79)  Ive gotten during my undergrad years. Unfortunately, this summer I've just regretted a lot of things and been really down (These feelings are difficult to get rid of. It's often easier said than done). 

Canadian med and dental schools IN ONTARIO are pretty much done deals for me, as my undergrad GPA is done and can't be recovered.. Just so disappointing that because of my GPA & being an Ontario resident, I don't have a shot here.

 

I guess my dilemma is, do I continue to chase for this dream of mine (dent/med) with many failures and prehaps additional schooling before going into these schools or be realistic in that go into master's (Epidemiology) or pharm? I've been looking heavily into pharm and I will do my best if I do go into the program but I don't want to be working in Loblaws and other opportunities in Pharm are rare+ It's 4+ years of schooling (which is similar to med/dent).

 

I'm probably just going in circles and I know it's stupid to ask people online about what you should do with your life/future, but I've been on this forum for a while and I've received some comforting messages from some of you; People who are going similar things and share each other's stories and supporting each other have been really good to see on this forum. Anyway, I would appreciate any help you could provide me with.

Thanks! 

 

What's your VR? Your cGPA for Mac is decent (a little below average but not by too much). If your VR is decent and you do well on CASPer, you could have a chance at Mac. 

 

If you have a 3.7 in each of your best two years and if your best two years are also your last two years, then with improvement in your MCAT score, you could open doors to Western and Queen's as well.

 

It would help to know what your yearly GPA breakdown and what your MCAT score is.

[duoduoa]

Do anything but going into pharm, especially in Ontario!

[jmira]

Do anything but going into pharm, especially in Ontario!

 

Just curious, why is that?

[MD2B2019]

Same question here. What's wrong for PharmD program at UofT ?

[MD2B2019]

Hello, 

Feel like I'm in a mid-life crisis (okay, maybe a little bit exagerrating ).  

Pretty much, I feel like I have no chance at any professional schools. I'm not financially well off which honestly sucks, but I thought this time, I had to be realistic. I'm 23 and I gave up on med this year because of my lackluster MCAT score and truthfully, I don't have the confidence to score higher by January 2015. So disappointed in myself for the GPA's (cGPA: 3.69  best 2 years: 3.79)  Ive gotten during my undergrad years. Unfortunately, this summer I've just regretted a lot of things and been really down (These feelings are difficult to get rid of. It's often easier said than done). 

Canadian med and dental schools IN ONTARIO are pretty much done deals for me, as my undergrad GPA is done and can't be recovered.. Just so disappointing that because of my GPA & being an Ontario resident, I don't have a shot here.

 

I guess my dilemma is, do I continue to chase for this dream of mine (dent/med) with many failures and prehaps additional schooling before going into these schools or be realistic in that go into master's (Epidemiology) or pharm? I've been looking heavily into pharm and I will do my best if I do go into the program but I don't want to be working in Loblaws and other opportunities in Pharm are rare+ It's 4+ years of schooling (which is similar to med/dent).

 

I'm probably just going in circles and I know it's stupid to ask people online about what you should do with your life/future, but I've been on this forum for a while and I've received some comforting messages from some of you; People who are going similar things and share each other's stories and supporting each other have been really good to see on this forum. Anyway, I would appreciate any help you could provide me with.

Thanks! 

Some MD schools just need one year to be treated as residence, like UBC.

Why not move to Vancouver, get a job and BC health card, apply next cycle?

UBC has FOUR MD campus, 300 MD positions each year, you will have good chance there.

 

While you still can apply McMaster, Western Ontario and Queen's from Vancouver same as you with OHIP card live in Ontario now.

[duoduoa]

Just curious, why is that?

Not too long ago, generic drugs are sold at 75% of price of the brand name drug. In recent years, in order to cut down on healthcare spending, the Ontario government "forced" the generic drug price down to 25% of the brand name. The profit margin has also been forced to drop from 10% to 8%. Imagine a generic drug with an old price of 75 dollars. Before you can make a profit of 7.5 dollars. Now you are making 0.08*25=2 dollars. I heard one chain store lost 30million in just one year.

 

Another reason is that unlike physicians, a large chunk of the market share of pharmacy stores has been taken over by corps (shoppers, followed by rexall). Opening up your own private drug store, which used to the dream of every pharmacist and can easily offer 200K income, are now turning into extremely risky investment. With corp, aside from the general problem of wealth distribution and unnessary admin fees, the pharmacists working for these corps are also under much more pressure with little pay increase. The starting salary of a pharmacist in GTA hovers aroudn 35/hr, with no overtime pay (and yes you are expecting to work over 40hrs per week). The "45/hr plus bonus" days are long gone. Of course, these are just the working condition of grads who can actually find a full-time job..

[duoduoa]

Same question here. What's wrong for PharmD program at UofT ?

Nothing wrong with the program, but expanding their class size while being fully aware that the job market is saturated, especially considering the tuition is 16K per year??? I just can't agree with that.

[kwyhan]

What's your VR? Your cGPA for Mac is decent (a little below average but not by too much). If your VR is decent and you do well on CASPer, you could have a chance at Mac. 

 

If you have a 3.7 in each of your best two years and if your best two years are also your last two years, then with improvement in your MCAT score, you could open doors to Western and Queen's as well.

 

It would help to know what your yearly GPA breakdown and what your MCAT score is.

 

My best two years are 3.85 and 3.73 (This does not make Queen's cut off (of two recent years being 3.8). 

Also, if Western increases their GPA cutoff to 3.75, I'm screwed as well . 

 

It's been a month since I've written my MCAT, and I'm scared to go back to studying for it. And my VR was low (Single digit). 

Just trying to be realistic and see, even with going into Master's, I have a shot.. (There's obviously pressure of publishing and meeting the right supervisor, etc).

[kwyhan]

Nothing wrong with the program, but expanding their class size while being fully aware that the job market is saturated, especially considering the tuition is 16K per year??? I just can't agree with that.

 

I agree with you in that a lot of incoming students KNOW the situation. But isn't the job market with most professions right now? The economy sucks, but I see some hope, especially in the pharm industry. PharmD opens doors not just to retail (Yes, I'm sure you gotta work here at some point), but there are opportunities other than retail. Of course these opportunities may be rare, that's why networking as soon as you start school is important. I don't know..maybe I'm too optimistic about it. 

Btw, GTA for sure, it's ridiculous.. I saw job openings at $39 something/hr for PHARMACY.. -___- geeze. I don't mind working somewhere else besides Toronto though. 

[duoduoa]

I agree with you in that a lot of incoming students KNOW the situation. But isn't the job market with most professions right now? The economy sucks, but I see some hope, especially in the pharm industry. PharmD opens doors not just to retail (Yes, I'm sure you gotta work here at some point), but there are opportunities other than retail. Of course these opportunities may be rare, that's why networking as soon as you start school is important. I don't know..maybe I'm too optimistic about it. 

Btw, GTA for sure, it's ridiculous.. I saw job openings at $39 something/hr for PHARMACY.. -___- geeze. I don't mind working somewhere else besides Toronto though. 

PharmD is only good for getting a job in the States and working in a hospital. Mind you that the job market in the States is not any better than here for pharmacists. As for landing a job in a hospital, well good luck with our public-funded Canadian hospitals.

 

Also, while PharmD may open up more doors to the niche positions than BPharm (hightly debatable though) but first of all you are taking a huge pay cut by not becoming a pharmacist and second you don't need a 50K debt to get those positions IMHO. The second reason is the key difference between pharmacy and other saturated job market such as actuarial science.

 

But I do agree with you, our generation is f$*cked.

[kwyhan]

Edit

 

Some MD schools just need one year to be treated as residence, like UBC.

Why not move to Vancouver, get a job and BC health card, apply next cycle?

UBC has FOUR MD campus, 300 MD positions each year, you will have good chance there.

 

While you still can apply McMaster, Western Ontario and Queen's from Vancouver same as you with OHIP card live in Ontario now.

[duoduoa]

I agree with you in that a lot of incoming students KNOW the situation. But isn't the job market with most professions right now? The economy sucks, but I see some hope, especially in the pharm industry. PharmD opens doors not just to retail (Yes, I'm sure you gotta work here at some point), but there are opportunities other than retail. Of course these opportunities may be rare, that's why networking as soon as you start school is important. I don't know..maybe I'm too optimistic about it. 

Btw, GTA for sure, it's ridiculous.. I saw job openings at $39 something/hr for PHARMACY.. -___- geeze. I don't mind working somewhere else besides Toronto though. 

btw I'm not blaming the students. My original comment was more toward UofT for acting like a money-grabbing whore.

[kwyhan]

Completely agree with you on that one  

Thanks for your responses, btw! 

 

So when you say 'anything other than pharm in ON' what were you suggesting? I've already looked into PT/OT/PA/ and I'm not interested in that.

btw I'm not blaming the students. My original comment was more toward UofT for acting like a money-grabbing whore.

[duoduoa]

i don't know man...If i knew the answer, I wouldn't be this stressed. But I do know this though, just because you don't know where to go next, it doesn't mean you have to go down a path where you know it's going nowhere. A lot of times doing nothing is better than hard-working on a wrong track.

[Lost&Found]

My best two years are 3.85 and 3.73 (This does not make Queen's cut off (of two recent years being 3.8). 

Also, if Western increases their GPA cutoff to 3.75, I'm screwed as well . 

 

It's been a month since I've written my MCAT, and I'm scared to go back to studying for it. And my VR was low (Single digit). 

Just trying to be realistic and see, even with going into Master's, I have a shot.. (There's obviously pressure of publishing and meeting the right supervisor, etc).

 

It's unlikely (though I suppose not impossible) that Western will increase their two year GPA requirement to 3.75. Western seems to narrow down its applicant pool using MCAT cutoffs rather than GPA. Obviously, you'd have to rewrite your MCAT in order to have a shot but if you're able to devote yourself to it and come out with a score of (as of last year) 9/11/12, then you're more or less guaranteed an interview at Western. This is of course assuming that you have a full course load in your best two years with 3/5 courses at the correct level.

 

Queen's doesn't publish its GPA cutoffs. Based on the stats listed on this website, members have speculated that the two year GPA cutoff for Queen's is 3.8. However, applicants have received interviews and acceptances with wGPAs of 3.7. As DarkGhost said in another post, if your cGPA is >3.5 or your wGPA is >3.7, it is worth an application to Queen's simply because it is a black box and all we can really do is speculate. Now once again, you'll have to rewrite your MCAT. For Queen's, I believe the ideal MCAT score is a balanced 32 (w/ no section lower than 10). Queen's does seem to place emphasis on your ECs once you've passed the GPA and MCAT cutoffs. I'm not sure where you stand with your ECs.

 

What I'm trying to say is that you have a shot at both Western and Queen's based on your GPA. Is it the highest GPA they'll see? No. But it's definitely in range.

 

I think you have to ask yourself now how much you want this. If you really do, try to commit yourself to the MCAT and get the score you need. I wouldn't bow out of the race just yet but you know what's best for you. 

[kwyhan]

Edit

i don't know man...If i knew the answer, I wouldn't be this stressed. But I do know this though, just because you don't know where to go next, it doesn't mean you have to go down a path where you know it's going nowhere. A lot of times doing nothing is better than hard-working on a wrong track.

[JohnGrisham]

Hello, 

Feel like I'm in a mid-life crisis (okay, maybe a little bit exagerrating ).  

Pretty much, I feel like I have no chance at any professional schools. I'm not financially well off which honestly sucks, but I thought this time, I had to be realistic. I'm 23 and I gave up on med this year because of my lackluster MCAT score and truthfully, I don't have the confidence to score higher by January 2015. So disappointed in myself for the GPA's (cGPA: 3.69  best 2 years: 3.79)  Ive gotten during my undergrad years. Unfortunately, this summer I've just regretted a lot of things and been really down (These feelings are difficult to get rid of. It's often easier said than done). 

Canadian med and dental schools IN ONTARIO are pretty much done deals for me, as my undergrad GPA is done and can't be recovered.. Just so disappointing that because of my GPA & being an Ontario resident, I don't have a shot here.

 

I guess my dilemma is, do I continue to chase for this dream of mine (dent/med) with many failures and prehaps additional schooling before going into these schools or be realistic in that go into master's (Epidemiology) or pharm? I've been looking heavily into pharm and I will do my best if I do go into the program but I don't want to be working in Loblaws and other opportunities in Pharm are rare+ It's 4+ years of schooling (which is similar to med/dent).

 

I'm probably just going in circles and I know it's stupid to ask people online about what you should do with your life/future, but I've been on this forum for a while and I've received some comforting messages from some of you; People who are going similar things and share each other's stories and supporting each other have been really good to see on this forum. Anyway, I would appreciate any help you could provide me with.

Thanks! 

You haven't said what your mcat is.

 

3.79 best two years should be fair game for UWO and QUeens coupled with a good MCAT retake.

[kwyhan]

I got under 30.

You haven't said what your mcat is.

3.79 best two years should be fair game for UWO and QUeens coupled with a good MCAT retake.

[thehead321]

What was your verbal? It can definitely be improved. Don't listen to the people that say it requires some innate talent or whatever... those are the same people perpetuating the cancerous myth of innate "math" ability. I started out with 5-6s (wasn't finishing on time) but now I'm getting around 9-10s with 5 months of HARD work and a healthy diet (diet and exercise is more important than you think on cognition). I know 11 is pushing it but if you really want med, put in the work and apply to Western with your GPA

[kwyhan]

I guess some students enjoy what they'll learn in pharm and will go in that route! I honestly don't think the profession will get a huge hit, besides GTA area in the near future

i don't know man...If i knew the answer, I wouldn't be this stressed. But I do know this though, just because you don't know where to go next, it doesn't mean you have to go down a path where you know it's going nowhere. A lot of times doing nothing is better than hard-working on a wrong track.

[kwyhan]

Okay, will try to keep a healthier lifestyle.

I've been quite depressed and have not been waking up early. I love sleep too much =/

May I ask what you did differently? How you approached VR? Im worried I'll open my book and study the way I did it before =/

What was your verbal? It can definitely be improved. Don't listen to the people that say it requires some innate talent or whatever... those are the same people perpetuating the cancerous myth of innate "math" ability. I started out with 5-6s (wasn't finishing on time) but now I'm getting around 9-10s with 5 months of HARD work and a healthy diet (diet and exercise is more important than you think on cognition). I know 11 is pushing it but if you really want med, put in the work and apply to Western with your GPA

[miracle]

I am in the same boat and do not really want to attempt the new MCAT in 2015. There is no way i can rewrite with the old exam in january...

[thehead321]

Okay, will try to keep a healthier lifestyle.

I've been quite depressed and have not been waking up early. I love sleep too much =/

May I ask what you did differently? How you approached VR? Im worried I'll open my book and study the way I did it before =/

Don't stay in that depressed state for too long. It will soon become your normal state.. that's how depression develops for most people. Check your PM by the way, I sent some details on what I did differently. Don't be too depressed about your GPA (it's seriously not even that bad), I know people that skipped a letter on the scantron and got destroyed in a single course... their GPA is ruined and they have 0 shot at medicine because of a single mistake. Look at the bright side to everything, lots of people go through relationship breakups, family deaths, and similar disasters (like skipping numbers on scantrons..)