I'm again trying to get into DO or med schools in the states and planning to take the MCAT for the first time this September for 2014 applications. I don't know how much you know about the process or how to get in with sub-par grades, etc but I will give you my situation because all I really want is a good dose of advice from someone who may know something. Basically, I struggled at Kenyon and thank God for my Psych courses because I would have worse but graduated with a 2.77 in the sciences. I did a couple of summer courses in Physics and calculus that boost my overall science cumulative GPA to a 3.4 (surprising to me since they are summer courses and they may be given less consideration when I apply to medical schools, I'm not too sure but they weren't re-takes). I realize that is a low GPA applying to medical school and even DO school these days and I don't have three legitimate science professors I feel I could ask for recommendations because I didn't establish a good connection with but 2 of them during my four years. Right now as my options stand there are two (three if you count not pursuing either of the two and just looking for a job): I can attend a SMP (Special Masters Program) in Physiology and Biomedicine at Barry University on a one-year accelerated basis. The Masters is meant to help my application to medical school and is something students usually considered once they have already been rejected from medical school or if they have low GPAs and high MCAT scores. I applied because I read that medical schools don't look fondly on re-taking classes you achieved a C or better in and that applies to most of my science classes. The program is meant to be identical to the NOVA comm first year of Osteopathic Medicine and they set you up with a hospital dong volunteer work regularly. Anyway, second option is attending Cleveland State (where I went for summer school in 2012 and did pretty well, also enjoyed it) to work on boosting my GPA by re-taking core pre-med classes I did not achieve so highly in. I would also hope to volunteer in Cleveland and potentially get a part-time job working in Personal Care.
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