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[Hopefulm]

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[Hopefulm]

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[offmychestplease]

you applied to some of the best medical schools in the US as an international with a 3.6 GPA..

[Hopefulm]

24 minutes ago, offmychestplease said:

you applied to some of the best medical schools in the US as an international with a 3.6 GPA..

I applied to schools where my MCAT falls between 25-75 percentile of accepted students, and after making sure that my activities fit their mission. I always thought they would be more holistic, as my senior 2 year GPA was around 3.85.

Do you have any school recommendations that a 3.6 should apply to? 

[offmychestplease]

Your GPA is too low regardless of MCAT. Your GPA is your cGPA for the US not a "senior 2 year GPA".  Canadians need to have more competitive stats than Americans to have a shot as you are competing for a select few seats. Even if you were an American that 3.6 is way too low for those schools, you would need cGPA 3.80+ as an American and cGPA 3.90+ as Canadian to have a shot at your schools mentioned. 

3.6 is more DO-level GPA wise for a Canadian applicant. 

[shikimate]

You have to remember US applicants need significantly lower GPA and MCAT to get in compared to internationals, so the stats are likely misleading.

You could try DO schools for sure, apply to as many as you can.

Applying in September likely had a major negative effect. As early as possible they say.

You should consider applying to some lower tier schools that are Canadian friendly, Wayne State for example.

Your MSc and MCAT certainly are positives, but unfortunately overall GPA is still suboptimal.

Next cycle if you want to apply again you should apply broadly, early, and add a bunch of DO schools to increase your chances.

 

 

[bearded frog]

You tagged me but I agree with the other posters. It's always good to have an upward trend but it only puts you ahead of the people who have the same GPA without an upward trend. Your GPA is too low for the schools you applied too. If you had applied much more broadly to lower tier schools you may have had some love.

My recommendations:

• Do more undergrad to get your GPA up, especially phys/chem/bio/math as AMCAS has a separate GPA for that.
• Apply much more broadly and consider DO
• I don't think LGBT stuff usually hurts your app except for certain non-secular US schools that you would not want to attend anyway
• Apply as early as possible for US

You don't need Harvard level stats but you do need much higher than US applicant stats. Unless you have an amazing MCAT and very unique ECs/research your GPA needs to be at least in the low end of the competitive range for Canadian MD to get into USMD.

[JohnGrisham]

23 hours ago, Hopefulm said:

@bearded frog

@JohnGrisham 
I heard tagging helps get your attention  thank you! 

Your list was a bit off(this is a nice way of putting it), the only school that seemed reasonable to me was St Louis. You're missing a lot of the typical schools that take Canadians.

Also you applied LATE in September, strike two on a already poor list.

I would take the cycle as a Loss, and keep improving your application if there was any self-identified deficits(LORS, Physician shadowing etc, are you sure you have all the right pre-reqs?), and bring your A game with a better list (look on this forum for better schools), to re-apply FIRST THING next cycle, and add USDO to maximize your chances at admission and moving on with life. You really should have applied to smarter choice MD schools, and not thrown this cycle away, but live and learn. Make sure your 2nd cycle is your last - US reviewers don't like people who don't come up with good plans, poorly thought out plans reflect poorly on decision making.

Obviously reapply to UBC as you said you scored well.

I think the 3.6 isn't a death knell, especially with upward trend - and your strong MCAT science scores + MSc.

[Hopefulm]

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[Hopefulm]

13 hours ago, shikimate said:

You have to remember US applicants need significantly lower GPA and MCAT to get in compared to internationals, so the stats are likely misleading.

You could try DO schools for sure, apply to as many as you can.

Applying in September likely had a major negative effect. As early as possible they say.

You should consider applying to some lower tier schools that are Canadian friendly, Wayne State for example.

Your MSc and MCAT certainly are positives, but unfortunately overall GPA is still suboptimal.

Next cycle if you want to apply again you should apply broadly, early, and add a bunch of DO schools to increase your chances.

 

 

Thank you for your response. I know you mentioned Wayne state, but are there any other MD schools that you would recommend?

[bearded frog]

https://students-residents.aamc.org/applying-medical-school/applying-medical-school-process/medical-school-admission-requirements/

Purchase this, (hopefully they still include this data?) find schools that actually accept more than 2 Canadians each year and that your numbers are above average for, apply to all of them.