Would you begin an SMP in my situation?
Hi all,
To cut things short, I started college at a local state university in 2015 and simply had the wrong priorities. Not focused on my academics, especially my junior year and the first semester of senior year (fall 2018). At the end of Fall 2018, I knew it was pointless to try and slog through another semester for a small chance of graduating. I dropped out, started working full time in various clinical settings, and returned to school to finish my degree and my senior year over 27 credits of classes in 2021. Did better, but graduated with a paltry GPA (3.17uGPA, 3.01 s GPA on AMCAS)
Continued adding to my work and EC experiences, then took the MCAT April 2025, got a 518.
After the MCAT, I took 19 credits (15 BCPM) at a small local university, got a 4.0 — just finished this program. I know the timeline can be confusing so I attached a pic of my trend, accounting for my pre and post drop out stats senior year.
What do you think about doing an SMP in my situation? I am accepted to an SMP that will have access to grad-plus loans, since I can opt to do a summer start at the end of May. This is the only opportunity to get an SMP funded by federal loans, and I do not intend on taking private loans out for one, so I either do an SMP now, or I dont do one at all. I also largely prefer MD schools but will apply to a select # of DO schools too b/c I know beggars cannot be choosers… Thoughts? I am so unsure on whether to commit to the SMP in my situation, especially since I have 2 weeks to decide before summer classes start (which I will need to get grandfathered in to grad PLUS federal loans)
My other stats for your reference…
ORM, 8000+ clinical hours in the same orthopedic clinic where I started as a scribe and now work as a medical assistant/casting tech (very direct hands on patient care experience, have been doing this since 2022), ~500 hours of research with one publication back in 2019, 50 hours of ortho bio lab research this year (no pubs/posters), ~365 hours non clinical volunteering (food shelf, tutoring adults in ESL and reading in kids, tax prep volunteering for low income folk), ~60 hours shadowing, TA for micro class this last semester (spring 26) and for a bioinformatics lab back in 2019, student board and student senate for my college back in 2017-2019.