Dr. Darlene has been consulting for medical school applications for the past 6 years, with a passion for helping students with low MCAT and GPA and reapplicants. If you want to work with us on BS/MD or medical school applications, click the link here to get started.
One of the most common questions I get is “Can I get into medical school with a low GPA and/or MCAT”? The short answer: yes, but with the right application strategy. Getting into medical school with a low MCAT and GPA can be challenging, but it’s not impossible. In this post, I’ll be sharing insights into my student’s application cycle and how he successfully got into medical school.
Low MCAT and GPA can mean different things to different people. Typically for medical school applications, I use the national average of scores of matriculants to define my parameters of what I consider “low”. The current averages for matriculants in 2023-2024 are 3.77 GPA and 512 MCAT. This particular student that I worked with had a GPA lower than 3.5 and 506 MCAT. During his cycle, he had a less than 20% chance of getting to an MD school. However, between the MD and DO schools he applied to, he received over 10 interview invites and was ultimately accepted to 2 MD schools in addition to several DO schools. So how did this student beat the odds?
When he began undergrad, he had a challenging start adjusting to a rigorous college curriculum. He was also focused on getting onto the university’s athletic team, which demanded a lot of his time. This combination resulted in a low GPA, which in the scope of medical school applications, can seem like the death of your chances for a medical school acceptance. After a tough reality check, he began changing his strategy: managing a more efficient schedule and studying more effectively. Ultimately, this resulted in higher grades despite studying less.
Despite his efforts, his freshman GPA still weighed down his overall GPA by the time of graduation. During his gap year, he completed a series of courses. It wasn’t a formal post-bacc, but these courses helped him boost his GPA and demonstrate that he was able to handle the rigor of medical school. Using the same study strategies that he developed in his undergrad, he was easily able to manage more difficult courses. I often find that students are really afraid of post-bacc because they think that it takes too much time away from applying to medical school. However, if your GPA is too low, you may end up wasting a year of applying and put yourself in a position of reapplication. If your GPA is under a 3.5, I consider a post-bacc to boost your cumulative and science GPA.
While I didn’t help with the personal statement, we worked on the activities list, most meaningful essays, and secondaries together. Like the beginning of the writing process, we went back-and-forth on what was the best way to represent his life story, passion, and goals. Thinking about an application as a whole, we wanted it to represent him overcoming his obstacles and proving that he could endure any challenge that he would face in medicine. Starting with his life story, we wrote about his experiences as a patient in a free clinic and how that inspired his motivation to become a translator at similar facilities. This easily segued into his plans to contribute to and build upon similar endeavors in medical school, as well as his future goals for medicine.
Regarding his initial academic challenges, we discuss the pros and cons of being forthcoming. While on one hand, we didn’t want to draw any attention to his lower scores, but there was also a value in discussing what he had learned from the experience. One of the things I often see students get wrong is blaming their grades or MCAT score on other circumstances. No matter the circumstance, I recommend focusing on what you learned and how you plan to apply it in medical school. Medical schools, although they may seem unforgiving, realize that the premed path is tough. They want to see that you are able to self-reflect and continually improve yourself, both in an academic and clinical setting.
As I look back on his application, his overarching theme of resilience was spelled out very clearly and naturally. Rather than writing that he was resilient, his stories conveyed his resilience and passion for underserved medicine. Each story, ranging from his athletic experiences to volunteering at an Autism center, his application exuded commitment to improving himself and his community. Although he did not have research experience (he went to a research-focused undergrad!), his application was still a good match for medical school programs with missions focused on community health.
My advice to anyone who is applying medical school with a low MCAT and GPA is to plan strategically. If you still have the time to do so, I would suggest taking additional courses or a post-bacc, or retake the MCAT to improve your overall chances of acceptance. While scores aren’t everything, it can still create a barrier for entrance. For applicants writing their applications, consider what your strengths are and be sure to highlight them through your stories. Be sure to tie in your stories into a cohesive theme that interwoven in the reflections throughout each essay.
Read More: From No Invites to UCSF Interview- Reapplying to Medical School
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