what about your GPA?

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iluvuni23

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Please help with your advice!!!
those of you who got into DO school...when you were undergraduate, what was your grade and what extra activity did you do?
I am majoring a bio med right now and having little problem with my GPA...how hard is to get in to DO??🙁
 
You mean OD school or DO school?
 
I assume you meant OD school, not DO school. I just computed the average GPA for all 17 OD schools, including PUERTO RICO. The average GPA came out to be 3.33. This is a litte lower than MD school with ~3.5-3.6 (I'm not sure exactly, too many to figure) and only slightly lower than DO school with a 3.41. For all these schools you have to remember the GPA is an Average!!! That clearly means students with lower GPAs get is too. The range of those accepted is 2.2 (Puerto Rico) up to 4.0. To have a decent chance you really need a minimum of a 2.7. I would guess for those who gain acceptance with less than that have something really amazing about them. With a lower GPA the OAT could help you by over shadowing it.

In reality, OD school is "easier" to gain admissions to than MD school. That does not mean you can have a 1.5 and get in. You still have to have a respectable GPA. The average GPA is lower, but only about 30% of those who apply to OD get in. I don't have any data to back this up, but I always thought about 50% of those who apply to MD school get in. People have made argument both ways about which is "more competitive," but it is really just how you look at it.

You can also boast your app by shadowing an OD or 10. I lucked out and my Dad is an OD so I have been working for him since I was 16, now 22. That really helped me. I also worked for an orthopeadic surgeon over the summer. That showed the school that I have looked into other fields and still applied to OD school. For the last 1.5 years I have been doing research at a medical school and I volunteered at a hospital for a semester last year. I'm also on the committee who is planning Drake Relays. Relays is internationally known track event and is also like our school's Homecoming. The funny thing is that I only ran track in 7th grade and could really care less about running, the student events are fun though.

There are student who did more than I did and also those who have done less. If you have a family or have been working a job to help pay for your schooling, the schools do not expect you to have tons of extras. They understand the strains of life. However, if you have only been taking 12-15 credits a semester and have no extras (job, clubs), they may be a little more critical of your app.

Above all, shadow an OD to make sure that is what you would like to do.

Hope I helped a little.
 
rpames,
"only about 30% who apply to OD school get in. I don't have any data to back this up but I always thought that 50 % who apply to MD school get in." Where in the world do you get this info from? Do you think before you actually speak or express yourself to make such comments. 30 percent of applicants get into OD school. You are nuts! Try like 95-96% acceptance. I can't give you accurate numbers off hand at the moment but for the past year 1 out of every 1.8 applicant I believe was accepted to MD school. You are giving too much credited to a profession you have no clue about yet; thanks to daddy and your ways in. Think before you speak this way you will not look stupid to those who read your comments as you speak off the top of your head. Medicine is extremely much harder to get into. After 4 years of hard work, when you become an optometrist you won't think of yourself too highly as you do now and the optometric profession.
 
excuse me I meant 1 out of every 1.8 applicant who applied to OD school was accepted. Admission to OD school in the 80's and 90's was very competitive at one time rpames. That is not the case in 2002-2003 etc..... 27 thousand dollars a year for tuition in OD school is absurd plus living expenses comes out to 40G's. X 4= 120K for an OD degree. Why not go to Med school? and have a greater return on your investment and be respected ? Don't think too highly of yourself as a future optometrist. My opinion and only my honest opinion.
Your admission statistics to OD school staggered me.
 
Reality Check- please treat me with respect and do not attack everything I say. I have no memory of you ever posting a non-aggressive post. If you do not like OD students please leave.

Here is my data for my posting of 30%. If I did the math wrong, please let me know.

The order will be:
School- applications/admittance = %

Alabama - 144/41= 28.5
California - 335/98= 29.3
Berkley- 191/60= 31.4
Florida- 431/115= 26.7
Illinois- 617/147= 23.8
Indiana-287/75= 26.1
Massachusetts-430/90= 20.9
Michigan- 134/34= 25.4
Missouri-208/37= 23.6
Oklahoma-121/26= 21.5
Oregon-286/90= 31.5
Pennsylvania-508/153= 30.1
Perto Rico-75/40= 53.3
Tennessee-505/117= 23.2
Texas-262/96= 36.6

Just for fun, lets use your number of 1 out of every 1.8. I'm pretty sure that value is 55.5% That is a couple percent lower than your stated 95%. Were you perhaps talking off the top of your head, or did you put "extremely much hard" thought into your post. :laugh:

All my data came from the Assoc. of Colleges and Schools of Optometry.

By the way, why did you attack my "daddy"? What is your problem?
 
I do think the 30% number is way off. While 30% of applicants may get in.. people apply to more than one school. I know I applied to three so you're counting me as three people in your calculations. To find ACCURATE numbers you have to look at total number of applicants vs number of seats available in a way in which total applicants take out people who applied to more than one school.

Med schools can do this calculation more easily since they go through AMCAS. OD schools don't have this system so it's hard to look at how many total applicants there are.

Okay, now to the fun stuff. while rpames numbers were off, reality check.. I think you need some Xanax. You don' t have to go telling people the only reason they got into OD school is cuz their daddy's an OD. Yes, the average GPA to gain admission to OD school is 3.3 ... yes the average OAT score is 330. BUT we're all professionals, we're all going to be doctors. And you just need to get over yourself. If you don't have anything constructive to say you can leave our forum.

Rpames: btw.. I know two students here at UHCO who went to Drake. 😀 😎
 
Originally posted by Reality check
40G's. X 4= 120K for an OD degree.
Click to expand...

Fuzzy math?

Originally posted by Reality check
Why not go to Med school?
Click to expand...

It's not about the money, sonny.
 
I don't think the multiple school applicant would affect the acceptance rate. The data I used shows the number of those who applied to each individual school, and then the number out of those who were accept to that school. Therefore the value of acceptance % from that school is independant from the the other schools and those who applied to more than one school.

Regardless of the math, I think the value of ~30% is pretty close. Beleive me or not, I could careless.
 
Where's OSU in your calc? I would have to agree with cpw- the % is prob more like 35-40% because the stats you show are the # admitted vs # applications. In this case, the # admitted is the class size. Thus, if OSU says 320 applied and only 64 were admitted, that means there are 64 spots in the class. The actual # of people who got accepted could be 80, but 16 chose to either not attend or went to another school. It is still difficult to get in, even though it seems to have gotten easier over the past couple of yrs. I believe this is just a cycle and the # of applications will begin to increase again.
 
Originally posted by Reality check
Why not go to Med school? and have a greater return on your investment and be respected ? Don't think too highly of yourself as a future optometrist.
Click to expand...

1) 🙄 not everyone wants to go into med-school. i hope your not in med-school--some of my best friends are in med-school and they'r standing here reading this....shaking their heads, and laughing.
2) greater return of investment?? please explain what you mean by investment....you seem to be basing everything on $ ??
3) optometrists are an integral part of the health care system. all health professionals are respected, its people like your that seem to think "but im better". Individual merit is more important than a title in front of your name.
 
You are correct that a school may have accept 80, but only 60 decide to go. However, it is rare that a school would accept 20 more student then they have seats for. The schools usually send acceptances to a couple more student than they room for, but not that many. They fill as much of thier class as they can, and if they have to, they go to their alternate list. With that reasoning, I would think the number actually accept is pretty close to the number of their class.
 
Wouldn't it be more accurate to look at the number of total applicants to optometry school, instead of the number of applicants per school (as pointed out already, most students apply to more than one school), and comapre that to the number of these applicants that get accepted? (edit -- I just noticed that cpw already suggested this 🙂 )

From the statistics I've seen based on using the above numbers it comes out to about a 55-60% overall acceptance rate.
 
Total numbers would be more accurate, but I don't know if those numbers are even avalible. Just out of curiosity, how do you get 55-60%. I'm not asking to be critical, I just would like to know. I only took one Stat course and that was a while ago.

Thanks!
 
I remember seeing several weeks ago some statistics about acceptance rates into various professional schools. The percentage they quoted was in the 55-60% range for optometry. I can't find any "official" statistics, but here (at bottom of page) they show the total number of applicants (2339) and the total number of matriculants (1383) for all optometry schools.

1383/2339 = .59 = 59%

This is within the range for the statistics I saw before. While searching I also found similar numbers on other sites.
 
As far as medical school, they have roughly a 50% acceptance rate overall (17000/35000). However, when comparing which is more competitive (OD or MD) I think you also need to look at the credentials of the applicants and the credentials of those accepted. On the average, those accepted to medical school have higher GPA's and have to take a harder entrance test. So basically, even if medical and optometry schools had similar acceptance rates (optometry actually being a bit higher in reality) it would still be harder to get into medical school because they generally have higher standards (I'm only talking statistically -- mainly in terms of GPA -- other factors such as comparing extra curriculars, strength of essays, work experience, etc., would be much harder to quantify statistically) and require the harder entrance test.

Does this mean optometry school is easy to get into to? Of course not.
Does this mean medical school is somehow "better" than optometry school? Of course not.

All I think it really means is that medical schools receive a greater amount of applicants and therefore must be more selective.

Why does any thread about optometry school acceptance inevitably turn into an MD vs OD debate?
 
Thanks for clearing that up Brill. I think your post is right on the money.

Today's Lesson:
Did everyone notice how Brill gave credible information correcting previous posts without becoming hostile? This is how we all should behave. Is everyone taking notes? If you believe someone posted inaccurate information, it is ok to correct them, but not in a mean fashion. We are all here to help each other.
 
Was I hostile?? I'm sorry rpames 🙁 I didn't mean to be. I'm a little stressed out at the moment. If I came across that way I'm truly sorry.

On an up note. I fit my first monovision contact lens patient this week. She's a friend of mine.. and she's THRILLED!

It made me so happy to see her that excited. her doctor never told her she could do monovision with contacts instead of opting for monovision Lasik. Ding dong.
 
rpames,
I did not attack your daddy by saying anything condescending or derogotory in any way. You are right however, that should never have been brought up. My apologies to you for any misunderstanding. I got annoyed at your stats and I really should not have. "For 2002-2003, the OD school had 2037 applicants submitting a total of 5056 applications. The total number of students accepted was 1381 and 1355 actually enrolled indicating that the applicant pool is currently less than 1.5 students per first year position." AOA News Volume 41 Dec 16, 2002. Exactly as Brill mentioned in his post. 59-60% acceptance. I over reacted to your statement of 30% acceptance making it seem wow- OD school is really tough to get into. Not anymore. Applications to OD school have decreased consisitently during the past few years.
I need to take an angry management course and control my emotions. My apologies to you again for attacking you. It was uncalled for.
 
Actually it looks like the percent accepted went up for 2002 since the number of applicants went down. Those stats show an acceptance rate of ~67%. Not that it really matters. Just an observation.
 
The problem is that this forum has too many premeds roaming around and that's why many threads have deteriorated into name-calling.
 
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