For pre-med or pre-dent, help needed :)?

Question

do med/dental schools look at specific grades or overall GPA? what is a solid GPA and DAT score that will garantee my admission? what else should i do to become a better applicant?
i am most likely worried about my grades though..help please
thanks

Answer 1

The look at overall GPA and individual grades in your math and science courses (assuming your other courses are terrible, but they do have a little more leeway). You're never guaranteed admission (I've known a few people with a good GPAs and MCATs score that didn't get it for various reasons but people with lower scores got into...). The best you can do is work hard and stay the course. State schools generally don't require 11's on every section-the averages are around 9-10. You might get away with an occasional low grade (if it was your freshman year but your grades went up afterwards, etc). I also suggest getting involved in extracurriculars (not necessarily pre-med clubs...pretty much a waste of time, at least here). Do something you love, that shows you have a personality outside of medicine. An admissions counselor told me he'd rather see someone with a variety of extracurriculars than solely devoted to medicine. You'll be working in medicine the rest of your life and it med school you won't have a life so do what you want now (as long as your grades don't suffer!)! Good luck!

Answer 2

At your college there is a pre-med, pre-dental advisor. You should go to see him/her immediately. Also, they probably have a pre-med club. You should join that immediately. And you should look up different med schools to see what they say about admissions.

You need to have about a 3.5 to get into med school, or about a 3.8 to get into a top medical school. That GPA only counts the real courses like biology, organic chemistry, biochemistry, calculus. etc. They don't care too much what you got in your required Freshman writing class or Music Appreciation. And you need to have about an 25 or better on your MCAT test.

These do not guarantee admission, but most people who are in this range are admitted. It is not exactly true that 1 of 250 are admitted. It is more like, of 250 who start college as premed majors, only 2 or 3 will actually make it through med school. But that is because a huge number get weeded out by the pre req courses such as organic chemistry. At a school one of my kids was at, in his organic class there were 190 pre med majors. Twelve got A's and about 20 got B's. The rest got Cs or lower, which meant they could kiss medical school goodbye.

Answer 3

You need to understand that for about every 250 applicants for med/dent school....ONE is chosen. There is NO GPA/DAT/whatever score that will GUARANTEE admission. I happen to teach at a med school...and the admissions board has the wonderful luxury of picking the best of the best for admission. Do the best you can....that's all you can do.