insight or help?

[steph-oh]

Hi all,

Sorry to make this yet another one of those "What are my chances posts", I'm needing advice about my situation.

 

I just finished a four year human geography degree at Queen's with not such a good GPA:

A 2.7 in First year, and study abroad in 3rd year with no grades transfered (only 5 courses passed) have not allowed me to really benefit from a 3.5 in second year and 3.9 in my fourth year.

My OMSAS GPA is 3.32

 

I have volunteer under my belt, although not a whole ton, as I only decided to start along this path a year ago (I was doing a bit of volunteer before that though).

I will have a summer research program at UofT under my belt by the end of this summer as well as an abstract, poster, and hopefully my name on a paper.

I also have NO prerequisites for any schools, so I'm doing another year of undergrad this year to get the courses I need for that, and also so that I can write the MCAT.

I'm going to apply to Mac for 2009 entry...how do I make up for my GPA on my application?

 

Does anyone have any advice for other ways to get past the GPA? Even a really good year this year won't be able to bring it up that much. Is it going to be necessary to do a Masters first, and will I even be able to get in with my GPA?

Any advice would be great, despite having worked really hard this past year and doing my research on different schools I'm feeling really stuck.

 

Thanks,

Steph

[Jamer]

EC's generally help a bad GPA (to a limited degree), and it looks as though yours are average at best right now. Fortunately, they can only improve with time.

 

Grad school only counts at some Universities and many don't care about it much at all (U of M doesn't care whatsoever). U of T definitely does.

 

Some schools (Queens, Ottawa, etc) look at your best 2 years/most recent 2 years. Your best bet is to figure out what your GPA is with those 2 things in mind and figure out which school favors your application the most.

 

Worst comes to worst, a 2nd undergrad is the next choice.

[Guest soaring_eagle]

I would recommed you look into Western (Shulich) med school. You only need two years of GPA over 3.70 (you already have one). So next year if you could push it you would be fine (also though dont forget the MCAT).

 

Be careful with Western though, they are really stiff on taking full course load requirements, etc.

 

Look into you, and you may find yourself a Western med student in a few years!

[steph-oh]

Thanks for the info about Western,

 

I remember reading that if I did another year of undergrad that isn't part of my degree, which is what I'm doing next year, and if the courses in that year were not above the first year level then you couldn't count that year towards one of your years with a GPA over 3.7.....but now I can't find where I read that.

Does anyone have this information??

 

Steph