What Counts as an Upward Trend in Your GPA for Med School? | Ask Dr. Gray

Today, I answer a question from Natalie about what counts as an upward trend in GPA when you're applying to medical school. We also talk about application timing, the downsides of being an International Medical Graduate (IMG), and how effectively space out your MCAT practice tests.

For more Ask Dr. Gray: Premed Q&A episodes, check out http://askdrgray.com. And for all of our Meded Media podcasts, check out http://premedpodcasts.com.

Natalie is currently taking a premed postbac at a community college. She's getting great grades in her med school prerequisites, with a 3.8 science GPA so far. But she had a cumulative GPA of 3.24 from her bachelor's degree in business. Does this count as an upward trend? Is this what medical schools are looking for in terms of GPA trend?

Natalie's situation is actually great because her initial degree wasn't in science, so her science GPA is mostly comprised of the prereqs she's taking, which she is doing great in. And then her cumulative GPA has an upward trend going from her initial undergrad years into this postbac program. So she's doing great as far as GPA is concerned.

We also discuss MCAT timing and applying later in the cycle. Natalie was thinking about taking the MCAT in mid-August and then applying to some schools this year. That means her application wouldn't be complete until mid-September, which is pretty late.

Natalie also mentions her interest in applying to the Sackler School of Medicine in Israel this year. We discuss the downsides of being an International Medical Graduate (IMG) in terms of the potential difficulty of matching into residency programs back in the U.S.

Lastly, we discuss her MCAT prep. Her full-length practice tests have only recently crossed above the 500 mark. We discuss how to ideally space out your MCAT practice tests so you can fully review them and then do the content review you realized you needed. Many students try to cram in a bunch of practice tests so they can feel good about the total number of tests they've taken—but the in-depth review is really the key.

An interesting side detail we covered is how to know if you should take more MCAT practice tests. Basically, if you're making a lot of little stupid mistakes and you're getting tricked by the wording of questions a lot… that's a pretty good indicator that more full-length practice tests will probably help you improve. But if you're just missing a bunch of questions due to gaps in your content knowledge, then you just need to focus on content review.

Hopefully, this was a helpful episode for those of you trying to plot your own path forward to a medical school acceptance! Even if you start with a low GPA, an upward trend can be very powerful in demonstrating that you're capable of handling a medical school course load!

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