 Let's not pretend GPA is one of the most central and pivotal aspects of your medical school application. How to improve it, how to go around it, stick around. For the best medical school personal statement coaching, hit subscribe, hit the bell, and you won't miss a video I post every Tuesday throughout the cycle. And if you want more personalized feedback, book a one-on-one call with me. The link is in the description. So yes, the GPA is super important, but don't feel helpless or discouraged. There are things you can do to empower yourself and to improve your GPA and to really kind of help yourself and your candidacy and your dream. Hi, I'm Dr. Josie with Write Your Acceptance. As a personal statement coach, I've worked with hundreds of students to perfect their story and be as compelling as possible. So let's get started. Step one, take stock of where you are right now in your undergraduate career. The GPA takes a really long time to kind of correct, right, and start to show very concrete changes and improvements. So can you make those changes by retaking any courses that you got a C minus or below? And that goes for all prereqs, math, sociology, English. So not just your science, although there's a science GPA. Can you improve your science GPA? Let's say by looking up the exhaustive list of what accounts as a science course, there are some, I'm not going to say easier, but there are some kind of more accessible, less challenging courses that count as science that you should consider to boost that GPA. Step two, if you're nearing the end of your undergraduate career and you're looking at kind of mathematically, you can get straight A's for the next few semesters and it's really not going to make the big difference that you need for your GPA. You should consider a post-bac or a master's degree. And so here are the pressures on because you need to prove that you have what it takes to do well at the kind of graduate level, right? The masters, let's say you may kind of study with medical faculty if you take a master's at a medical school. So it may kind of draw a large win for you because you may kind of prove yourself beyond successful there and it may even give you an in for that medical school, but they are pricey and they do take time and there are key differences between a post-bac and a master's like let's say a master's in public health. So let's get into that. For a post-bac, you can kind of stitch together courses, prerequisites that you didn't take if you were a non-science major or that you need to retake. For a master's degree, it's going to be a longer program, kind of more formal program, but you should definitely take it at a medical school. It's proving that you can kind of handle the rigors of a medical school content level, right? And you may be able to do TA shifts. You may be able to do research and that can kind of help you round out other activities and other aspects of your application. If you do a post-bac or a master's degree or you choose to take a gap year, make sure that you don't kind of just stop all of your volunteering and shadowing that you are consistent with that. I think kind of too many students because you have so much going on kind of hit a number of hours for shadowing and then stop for the rest of the gap year, let's say. So you want to be kind of consistent and maybe do less hours, but kind of stay consistent in these practices so that you show continued commitment throughout. So tip point five, I advise students that if you do have more space, more time before you apply or reapply, let's say, that you kind of improve your intentionality with your experiences and activities. Can you start to kind of bring together different aspects of a subfield or specialty or a topic that you find interesting? If it's pediatric oncology, can you do research on leukemia? Can you volunteer at the pediatric wing in a children's hospital? So can you kind of like see different angles of one topic? This doesn't, it's not necessary, but it can kind of help you with your kind of fine-tuning of your interest and intentionality, which may be key when you kind of bring together your journey and your story in one cohesive whole for your personal statement, let's say. So step three is to assess how well you've done or how well you will do for the MCAT. So kind of a non-styler GPA can definitely be offset by a very competitive MCAT score. And this, I kind of, you know, advise students to seek expert guidance in the MCAT sphere. So learn how many months you need to get to kind of, you know, so how many study hours you need to dedicate to get to the point that you need to kind of improve upon and then develop a study habit and stick to it, right? This is, there are no tricks, no kind of fun or easy way around it. It's just a matter of really kind of time management and feasibility to get to the point kind of improvement that you want. So I don't add this as a tip, but just kind of like a little pointer. Maybe you consider DO or perhaps even Caribbean schools, it is going to be easier to get into a DO school, let's say with a lower kind of GPA. But if you are going to consider the Caribbean school route, make sure that you are asking kind of questions about the attrition rate and the match rate. There are kind of varying levels of quality as options. So you definitely want to, and I've had students that have been very successful and students currently right now at Caribbean school or that just matched to two state schools competitive residency programs. So it can happen and, you know, positive stories are out there. You just want to make sure that you are vetting them properly. Did you have a low GPA and got into an amazing school? If you're watching this, please comment below, share your win. Let's celebrate kind of, you know, goodness because I know that people who are in your shoes may feel stuck or helpless and it's definitely possible and you can do it for sure. Step four, and of course this is in my wheelhouse, have an amazing personal statement. So make sure you spend time on it. Tell a cohesive story. Don't spend the entire essay talking about, you know, why you have a low GPA and have this like apology tour really showcase your best self, how that has taught you to change your systems of study habits, how it has improved who you are in your resilience as a student, as a lifelong learner. So really kind of make sure you spend time on kind of, you know, really stitching together a cohesive, compelling personal statement that showcases your best self. And so for creative and critical thinking elements that you should be adding into it, definitely hit a couple of these videos. I have a few videos in my channel on my channel right now so they could definitely help you out. If you want more expert feedback, definitely book a one on one call with me so we can strategize on your personal statement. The link is in the description below. If you found this video helpful, give us a like, subscribe, share with your pre-med students. And I wanted to give you one more kind of pointer for more on kind of examples on the science GPA. Go to my Instagram. I have a video and IGTV story from destination medical school. Jake, he is amazing. And he, if you're not following him, you should be, he is going to get on YouTube. I think very, very soon we need him here. So he is fantastic. And he breaks down even more details on the science GPA. So check him out. Make sure to like, subscribe, and I'll see you soon. Thank you.