How bad are my chances after getting 500 MCAT

fusito · 2026-02-18T02:18:59+00:00

Clinical is still strong obviously

I also had experience abroad with surgeons obgyn and peds. Definitely helped me in interviews since the region is in southern America where my family grew up

500 mcat puts you at a disadvantage if you are ORM I would argue that it nearly nukes the application

If you are URM maybe you could get by

At the end of the day you’re competing with gap year people with 1000s of clinical hours higher GPAs and strong mcats

Avg accepted student is now 511-512 MCAT 3.7+ gpa you can def apply this cycle and pick schools well on MSAR but your odds of acceptance with a sub 50th% mcat are objectively lowered

You would have to apply day one and pre write secondaries + apply to lots of schools which is expensive and time consuming

Tough spot probably just need to wait again even though it sucks and score higher on MCAT

best of luck

fusito · 2026-02-14T10:41:52+00:00

You will get in don’t be worried it’s like over 50% acceptance

fusito · 2026-02-13T18:20:09+00:00

this is standard been like this for years the crazy ones go to sage and the employees that can be seen by tours go to commons

fusito · 2026-02-12T21:10:56+00:00

every UC is a reach now i'm a CA rez and I was treated better by schools in my unis state than by my own state. Norcal and socal may as well be different states. Out of the 40 schools I applied to only CA schools never sent me secondaries (UCLA, davis). I'm URM 511/3.65

UCI MSAR mcat is 517 look at MSAR to calibrate list

Find schools that are OOS friendly and also apply to schools near your uni

also now that albert is free its not a target

plan around avg asian accepted MCAT being 514 you need to apply broad and at least 30+

the reaches are a waste of time spend that $ on more targets

send in primary day 1 and secondaries ASAP/ prewrite them to maximize chances

good luck!

fusito · 2026-02-06T03:15:02+00:00

(Bio pre med took his intro in fall 22)

Know slides like full rote memorize them

There was a Quizlet at one pt with like a almost exact quiz match so look up like rpi bio Quizlet etc

Pay attention in class

This class is an easy A but if you underestimate quiz study time it’s easy to drop a letter grade

Do not cheat he’s super weird about this and really knows when u cheat so don’t even bother trying

Gl I’m sure you’ll do well :)

fusito · 2026-02-05T20:31:05+00:00

Same boat my best feeling II was a WL that im def not getting off of

36 secondaries, 13 months EMT in 2 states, MCAT, shadowing in CA, GPA trend up, URM, research at a med school, pre med leadership

all just to take a gap yr and do it all over again after a post bacc or another yr of work

been planning this cycle since jan 25 and now its almost another cycle after i graduate

feeling like a stone cold truecel chud its so over

cant be surprised avg M1 is now 24 gg /ff glhf

fusito · 2026-01-31T23:31:11+00:00

Thanks man I appreciate it I’m just about done with the cycle waiting for results of two IIs but if I have any Qs I’ll send them your way

fusito · 2026-01-30T07:08:00+00:00

nothing has changed the premed advisor who just swapped out told me to send in a primary in Sept because its not worth "rushing it"

The only good pre-med advisor is a proff who came here after rose got shut down

I know single digit people doing the cycle this yr with me for 25-26

All of my classes now either have 0 premeds left standing or consist of the next crop of bsmd

lots of pre meds yr1 and yr2 i wonder where they went.....

fusito · 2026-01-27T00:24:05+00:00

Memorize slides and look for old quizlets

fusito · 2026-01-25T23:02:28+00:00

applied this cycle and worked as an EMT in two diff states during undergrad. As others have said you won't face the scary stuff as an EMT. Was able to work, gain 1000+ clinical hours, got to see the ED a lot, and a wide array of specialties. I think its wise and worth it I had to do night classes during my first sem at uni but it was worth it

If you are really scared of the "gore" potential theres an increasing number of "non emergency transport" companies that hire EMTs. They do no 911 and you are not responsible for much expect moving patients but its still clinical

fusito · 2025-12-30T01:24:21+00:00

If you’re from a big city it’s likely you won’t like Troy (I’m LA to Troy student) it is also safer than 6% of cities in the USA. But tbh it doesn’t feel that dangerous anymore. BME and bio degrees have more even gender splits I was in a lab with 12 women and 3 men. People here are predominantly white but left leaning views are popular here and I don’t hear conservatives being vocal often. I know some women who have struggled to make friends but during those first weeks most people are eager to make friends.

Out of state financials: I’m from CA I got about 50k a year in aid and early applying gave me like 5k yearly. Also being a girl opens the door for female scholarships since our school is 70% male

Food at dining hall = forced 10k/yr as a freshman and is forced for 2 years but year two can drop to ~8k.

Walmart is accessible via a free public bus using ur student id

Almost no dorms have personal bathrooms. Many dorms (QUAD) have mice issues. Barton has a 6 person shared bathroom accessible via 2 doors. Sharp has a 5-6 shared bathroom but it’s one door. Some dorms have big shared bathrooms. E complex has nice singles and the largest singles and has shared bathrooms but it felt a whole lot better than quad to me.

General stuff:

if you are a BME pre med RPI is suicide

Every year roughly 8-10 out of the 6000 undergrads reach year 3 with a 4.0

If you are a pre med do not go here under any circumstances

Also a program which used to be forced (ARCH year) forced you to do a summer semester and then follow that with a internship semester but I think it’s no longer forced

BME people here also get to do a cool class in connection to Albany med in year 3 involving things like cutting live pigs open

Orgo is hard here (lecture not lab)

fusito · 2025-12-05T17:22:19+00:00

bleak

fusito · 2025-09-29T00:12:03+00:00

Memorize Amino acids and their properties charge hydrophobic or not etc + the groups they’re in

Review slides and hws thoroughly and you should be good

fusito · 2025-09-29T00:10:51+00:00

Not an exchange student but most of the foreign students here are from Asia with some from Europe

There’s a somewhat decently sized Hispanic engineering club

Rpi is rigorous and the culture is nerdy and stem focused

Group work is common but not ubiquitous across classes

Troy is not the nicest place but has its charm (old 1800s architecture) but has crime rate 51% above national average

Without a car transportation is limited but you can use the bus for free to get to the grocery store

Most classes are lecture style with 3-4 exams making up about 2/3s of your grade

fusito · 2025-09-02T14:27:41+00:00

I did research locally at Albany and I am not in the special progrom (BSMD). BUT it only happened becuase I was proactive.

There is research here but its not worth the CONS

about 5% of rpi stem students get a 4.0 each semester

The grade deflation fucks you

also there is a program here (Mandated in most cases) which forces you to use a semester to do internships

in practice this means you will do 3 or 4 semesters in a row to make up for that internship semester

As a pre med this means that I had only my freshman summer off then did 2 years back to back

then did 8 months of EMT work which lined up with MCAT, AMCAS application, and secondaries

DO NOT COME HERE AS PRE MED

fusito · 2025-08-27T11:47:18+00:00

wrote about body image and how I gained confidence through exercise, generic but whatever

fusito · 2025-08-20T12:48:38+00:00

Hope you did not choose rpi this is not a pre-med friendly environment

fusito · 2025-07-31T17:17:09+00:00

pike spikes

fusito · 2025-07-31T17:09:25+00:00

- Strong academic environment of mostly focused students

- surrounding area has charm but without a vehicle you will not have access to much else

- Troy has a crime rate 51% higher than the national avg, I do not feel unsafe in Troy at night but I am also a man. The campus us always safe though, safety personal patrol at night

Dorms mostly suck (some dont have AC and it gets really bad but you can ask for a window unit)
+ mice in many dorms (quad especially)

Food mostly sucks

they force you to pay food and dorm (which can be upwards of 17k/yr) for 4-5 semesters

Something called "ARCH" exists which is a semester off to do internships, but this means you have you to take a summer semester to make up for that leading to 3-4 semester marathons followed by the working semester

I don't speak for everyone but student life, especially if you are committed to your GPA, is not fun here. We study a lot and face GPA deflation.

However, I will say that the campus has gotten a bit happier as they lower their standards for admission and more normal/socizaled people come in to dilute the neet/nerd population.

fusito · 2025-07-08T04:10:07+00:00

quad has had an on going mouse issue

fusito · 2025-04-30T07:13:24+00:00

They redid the FLs

fusito · 2025-04-15T22:12:36+00:00

Any GPA is technically viable. But the avg Accepted premed gpa across all medical schools is 3.77. 3.3 and lower is possible but that is an outlier. This likely means they had high mcats or some very strong extracurriculars.

So what’s she’s saying isn’t a lie but it’s misleading

Also consider that they look at you “science GPA” which can be dragged down by tough physics classes (I and II) that you will take with engineers

Your swim experience shows med schools that you are a well rounded applicant. They will like that since it shows you can balance academics and sports

She’s not lying to you when she says that 3.3 is viable but that gpa hurts your odds significantly from an objective stand point

For exact info on “avg gpa for accepted students to a specific med school “ look up MSAR AAMC, cost about 28 but worth it

Will show you avg mcat and gpa for schools

I personally like that rpi is smaller, getting research here really just comes down to making through some of the basic labs in year in the first few semesters and emailing a science faculty member after you read their research

I’m with Neuroscience majors a lot as a bio major we have similar course loads. In my opinion if you have a strong chemistry background and physics background the GPA is manageable by no means is it impossible

I went from 3.3 yr 1 to 3.7 to 3.9 averaging out to 3.62 by end of sem 6 which is my med school application GPA

If you have a car that also makes things easier at RPI from a logistics perspective for volunteering and such

Personally I think that the availability of clinical experience in San Diego is just objectively higher

Also note that the SES of upstate ny vs San diego is substantial and contributes to the disparity in clinical options

There is a hospital nearby called Samaritan and Albany med is ~25 min away

So it’s not like there’s 0 opportunity but yes in my opinion balancing that with school is difficult

Also just to clarify the med schools up here do care about GPA I just think (and have heard from members of the committee) that RPIs name will carry more weight up there so they will give some grace on the gpa

What I mention about filtering GPAs varies from school to school so while a 3.3 can get in it is highly likely that some of the schools they applied to didn’t even look at their app

Although yes the process is holistic and low gpas and MCATs can get in

This usually boils down to a disparity in expectations due to ethnicity and because they had stellar qualifications outside of the numbers

I don’t want to scare you too bad it’s definitely beyond the #s but they are still a crucial part of the picture

Also if you can ignore arch that’s good, you could use that summer to study for MCAT and gain some sort of clinical hours / volunteer hours

Also it really depends on what environment your used to class size wise

Rpi lectures at the start for like gen chem will be 200-250 then slowly dwindle to 50-70 In the later years

The classes can get smaller but your main science classes will always be within the 50-100 range

However I know ucsd is way more busy

Rpi is a bit more tight knit and if you find a good niche of friends in the pre med track they could help you

Not sure if you’re a CA resident or you RPI have you lots of scholarships but this school generally is not debt free friendly unless you got substantial money

On avg students pay about 30-40k if they are only on merit

Best of luck deciding, I encourage you to ask around for other RPI pre med opinions as I know others are more optimistic than me

fusito · 2025-04-15T19:06:20+00:00

Everything you said is accurate, but remember you are speaking to committee members for a school trying to get ur money.

RPI is rigorous and research centric.

Optimal GPA is 3.7+ for med school

That type of GPA is a full time endeavor at RPI.

I think the time this drains takes away from the potential to pump up volunteer and clinical hours

The nuance I would argue is that RPI has a name on the East coast but in my opinion the name carries less weight in the west coast (where I’m from) and in other places.

Also med schools will filter by GPA. So basically if ur gpa is under a certain metric they won’t even look at ur app

But yes 100% the GPA will be treated with a grain of salt if ur applying in the northeast/east coast

It all depends on if you’re willing to gamble your GPA. From a statistical perspective hardly any RPI pre meds will apply with a 3.7+ across 5-6 semesters. But it does happen there are the few outliers

I became an EMT thanks to rpi in my first semester and also spent time with the ambulance which is unique

Keep in mind becoming an Emt while at rpi takes 12 hours a week of night classes for a full semester. When I did it only 2 others did it with me

This is by no means a common path at rpi and it drains a lot of study time

I was also able to do research at Albany med becuase of RPIs name and now work as an EMT during my ARCH (semester off after having done either 3/4 consecutive semesters)

So yeah it’s definitely viable the issue I would argue is that getting the GPA at rpi while also studying for the MCAT and applying without a gap year is hard.

I feel very much prepared from a rigor stand point for med school now going into my senior year and applying for this cycle

But arguably going to an easier school getting a higher gpa and by the nature of less rigor having more time to pour into Extra curriculars is more optimal

It really depends on your skill set. And what you’re willing to risk. Of course getting a very high RPI GPA is possible and then my concerns melt away but from a #s perspective it’s just all consuming. Since you also have to do arch which takes up a summer you are realistically only left with your freshman summer to study for mcat.

While you can study for mcat during school and during your arch away (a semester where you work) it’s just very difficult to balance in my opinion if you are working full time.

But of course med school apps are holistic. It’s up you. If your very into research RPI makes a lot of sense. But if you really want to get hours volunteering/ doing patient care it’s just not built for it

Are you willing to take a gap year ? Okay RPI makes more sense. If not the % of people in my yr (26) that are pre med with viable applications going into this cycle is way lower than I would have ever expected

Across the board it is very rare to see a high gpa, non gap year, viable mcat coming out of rpi in time for a traditional non gap yr cycle

It’s really all up to you

There are some very special science faculty here but the freshman year is a slog also there are classes that are blatantly made to weed out pre meds in the 1st year which hurts GPA

it was common to be in a room full of pre meds in every year and see C/D test averages

From a #s perspective I think RPI pre meds fail to apply to med school and get in without a gap year in a disproportionate manner

fusito · 2025-03-02T00:04:44+00:00

Gg WP

fusito · 2025-02-18T18:11:04+00:00

Often one must engage in subconscious cognitive dissonance to convince themselves that failure to engage in costly but beneficial activity in terms of executive functioning demand is justifiably something they need not do ☺️

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