Okay so I’m trying to get into David Geffen School of Medicine. I haven’t taken the MCAT yet, but my question is mostly regarding what things you would need to be accepted. I have a 3.7 GPA, I have another three semesters before I apply so I’m hoping to bring it up, but I volunteer at my church and hospital and clinic, I will be shadowing over the summer, and doing research next year. Im hoping to be teaching elementary students french and german over the fall and hopefully have a very decent MCAT score. I don’t think I will be able to get an internship or go abroad or anything, and I was wondering if that would be something that would put me in great disadvantage to other people. Please please please let me know.
At 3.7, do not only target DGSOM at UCLA, you might be disappointed. What is your Sgpa? The EC’s you are doing are fine, there is no need to have an overseas assignment.You have to be outstanding to be accepted by DGSOM, at this point you are not there yet and the big question is your MCAT. Until then, there will be little comments from CCers/
I know it’s hard to get into and it is by no means the only medical school I am planning to apply to. Could you by any chance describe an “outstanding student.” I want to be the best I can.
I’d say 3.95+ and mcat 35+ (on the old scale) with a lot of ECs would be “out standing”, but that is no guarantee to get in any or all schools.
The top medical schools require a GPA in the 3.8 range and a MCAT in the 36-37 range on average. This includes all students including URM’s so for most applicants the bar is probably slightly higher. The most common undergraduate schools feeding into UCLA are UCLA, UCB and Stanford so an undergraduate school of similar caliber would be helpful or a higher GPA or MCAT score than the average. Good luck is also most helpful as they had about 10,000 applicants for about 175 spaces last year.
Only 13% of UCLA undergraduates are admitted to UCLA SOM.
Typical undergraduate GPA: 3.78
Lowest GPA: 3.41
You have a chance.
I’m a bit shocked at that table @coolweather. The med school acceptance numbers all around are lower than I would have thought for UCLA grads.
UCLA SOM is a great national school. More than that, it gives $300,000 scholarships up to 33 students each year.
Sorry if I wasnt clear @coolweather. I was surprised at the fairly low acceptance rate for UCLA UG’s to any med school.
Both UCLA and UCB undergraduates have about the same medical acceptance rate (~55%). National average is 45%.
Many of the UCLA and Cal UG students are CA residents- the bar is higher for them to get into med school due to the number of qualified candidates from CA and lack of seats IS. Those who end up with high stats from either school usually do end up in med school, though. Neither school screens out those who really are not ready (stat or EC wise) to apply to med school (like some other schools do).
Geffen is sometimes odd in who they choose to interview-- not as stat driven as one would think. They do not always favor the high stat kids-- they seem to really look for something special. Their secondary prompt is long and extensive- providing Geffen with quite a bit of insight into each applicant that gets that far.
That’s not how it works. Every high stat URM in the nation applies to the top schools. As a result these schools don’t need to make accommodations to anyone. Very high stat URMs are often rejected at top schools because the competition is incredible. At the top schools, the bar is the same height for everyone.
I would say the bar for outstanding MCAT score is 39+, not 35+. 35 is an average MCAT at those schools, plenty of applicants getting rejected with mid to upper 30s.
Hmm, actually that is the way things work out. First one generally applies to about 15 medical schools. One also tends to apply to some reaches, some matches and some safeties.
Most apply first to their instate public schools than add on others to make their list. Most applicants would prefer to end up in medical school close to home or their undergraduate school. Not all applicants want to go to a top research medical school. So most top applicants do not end up just applying to the top 15-25 medical schools.
Now consider that there probably about 5000 non URM candidates with a GPA 3.6+ and a MCAT >36 and about 200 URM candidates with similar numbers. This presents a problem since most medical schools would like a diversified class with perhaps 15% URM. The average medical school class is probably about 150 so each would want about 20 students who were URM. Unfortunately there are not enough minority students with top credentials to go around so the bar is set a little lower even in the best of medical schools. There are on the other hand 5000 or so non URM top candidates competing for admission and within this group luck plays a major role.