- Building a great school list
is one of the most important yet underrated aspects
of your medical school application process.
Getting this right, or wrong, can genuinely mean
the difference between you getting into med school
and having to reapply.
Therefore, I was thrilled to receive
the following submission for our "Ask Dr. S" series.
"How should you go about making a school list
"if you have a high MCAT score and high science GPA,
"but very low cumulative GPA from before you were a premed?
"I failed a number of classes, along with multiple Cs and Ds
"when I was a philosophy major with poor time management.
"Since deciding to be premed, my GPA is 4.0
"and I expect this to continue through graduation.
"If I look at the average cumulative GPA of medical schools,
"I'm pretty much below every school.
"If I consider only science GPA, then I am competitive.
"My projected MCAT score is also quite competitive.
"So, my question is,
"how do I think about making a school list
"considering a very low cumulative GPA,
"high science GPA, and high MCAT?
(air whooshing)
All right, even though I don't have the specific
cumulative GPA and science GPA
since this student started college,
or even their MCAT score, this is a great question.
It's hard enough as it is to build the right school list.
Most students simply look at the median GPA
and MCAT score for a given school
and apply to schools whose average stats
are at or below theirs.
They might then sprinkle in a few undershoot schools,
schools whose median stats are a good bit below theirs,
and a few reach schools because they wonder,
"Hey, why not?
"Can't hurt, right?"
First things first, purchase MSAR,
which is a comprehensive database of MD programs.
I've linked to it in the description.
By signing up for MSAR,
you'll have access to up-to-date and official stats
from each med school.
The really nice thing about stats on MSAR
is that schools report 10th, 25th, 50th, 75th,
and 90th percentile scores
for every important statistical category,
MCAT total score, MCAT section scores, total GPA,
and science GPA.
In addition, you can filter this information
based on whether you're interested in seeing data
for all accepted students, in-state and out-of-state,
as well as all matriculated students.
Why is this level of granularity important?
Because it allows us to not only see
whether you're at or above a school's median stats,
but also where you stand
relative to other accepted students.
That way,
you can know how much below your low cumulative GPA is,
and how much above your high MCAT score is
from a school's expectations.
For instance,
you might be slightly below the 50th percentile overall GPA,
but above the 75th percentile MCAT score,
which would be an okay place to be stats-wise
at that school.
Now, I get a lot of questions from students
about whether their stats are too low for a given school.
They might be concerned
about a single 124 MCAT section score or a 3.4 science GPA.
A useful rule is to see whether or not your score of concern
falls below the 10th percentile
among all accepted students at a given school.
If so, then it might be especially difficult
to get into that school.
For example, a program's 10th percentile CARS score
might be 125.
In that case, having a 124 might be a major problem for you.
Beyond that,
the way to approach your school list, stats-wise,
is to see where you stand
relative to an institution's expectations
and consider how competitive or conservative you wanna be.
Specifically, I advise you to set a clear
decision-making bar for your school list.
If you want to be especially conservative, you might decide,
"Okay, because my cumulative GPA is a 3.5
"and my MCAT score is a 522,
"I'm going to consider schools where my 3.5 GPA
"is at or above their 25th percentile,
"and my MCAT is at or above their 90th percentile."
That way, you can effectively balance
your lower cumulative GPA with your higher MCAT score.
Now, if you want to be less conservative,
you can simply move the needle
and consider, say, schools where your overall GPA
is at or above their 10th percentile,
and your MCAT score is at or above their 75th percentile.
To be clear, there is no 100% right or wrong way to do this,
it's simply a matter of deciding how competitive
or conservative you wanna be,
and understand the associated risks and upside.
If you go super conservative,
you increase your overall odds of getting into a med school,
but risk not getting into the best possible schools
you could have gotten into.
On the other hand, if you apply to a more competitive list,
you reduce your overall chances of getting into med school,
but increase your chances
of getting into the best possible schools
based on your profile.
You could also simply expand your list
so that you can more effectively balance out
the number of super competitive programs you apply to
with programs where your stats exceed their averages.
There's an art and science
to developing a great school list.
We haven't even gotten into questions
like, "How many schools should I apply to?"
or "How many MD versus DO schools should I apply to?"
or "How will I be viewed by XYZ schools
"as an applicant from California?"
Those questions can be covered in a future video.
But for now, I hope this helps clarify
how to navigate disparate stats
when putting together your list of schools.
All right, if you liked this video, give it a thumbs up
and subscribe to our channel
so you don't miss out on future videos
in our "Ask Dr. S" series.
And if you have a pressing question of your own,
make sure to submit it in the form I've linked to
in the description.
All right, I'd love to hear from you now
in the comments section.
What struggles do you have with developing your school list?
I'll read all the responses and respond to most.
Take care!
(cheerful music)