Need advice for reapplying

[nsin0]

Hey everyone, this is my first post so bear with me.

Before I get into it, let me give u some background info. My OAT scores are AA: 330 and TS: 350, reading comp 290 dropped my score big time. I graduated UC San Diego with a bs in cognitive science/neuroscience with a minor in history. My overall gpa is 2.6 and my pre-requiste is slightly lower. I have some great optometric experienes over 1000+ hrs at a retail office and a vision therapy clinic. I'm currently researching the effectiveness of neurofeedback training on autism spectrum disorders at UCSD's neuro lab. I've applied to, well lets say a lot of opt schools, got 2 interviews at SUNY and ICO. SUNY's interivew was...well not a pleasant experience, got waitlisted for ICO, but found out recently I wasn't in the final cut (more power to you optcraze, lol). Now i'm contemplating, what I need to do to improve my application for next years class? which its scary to think since this whole process begins again at Aug 1. I know my biggest weakness is my gpa. those early years of goofin off, I'm sure paying for it now. I've been trying to improve on that by taking 3 classes per quarter for the past 2 quarters, with meager results B, B, C grade for both quarters. Now I'm at a crossroads: from now till aug 1, I can take up to 4 classes, will getting high marks on these 4 courses be enough? During this time I can also get another optometric internship to help pay for this whopping $2,800 tuition. Or should I take these courses at a local community college, where it would be much cheaper, but risk having the admissions committee frown upon it. Or should I take only 2 courses and volunteer the 2nd month in Africa through Unite for Sight?, great experience, but my problems lie with my poor gpa-not my optometry exposure. Or another option, take additional 4 classes in the fall and turn in/update my app in early december? risk not applying early. Any advice would be most appreciated. For those who read this ridiculously long thread thank you, for those who didn't, believe me i understand. It's just that I think i'm a little too young to be giving up on my dreams just yet.

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[iiiimonica]

and maybe the OAT to get your RC score up. you already have all that AWESOME experience, that i bet admit committees want an excuse to let you in. retake your classes and bring that GPA up, so they can let you in. don't worry about community college credits - only 1 school (SUNY) had any issue with them.

the bare minimuim GPA to shoot for is 3.0 and for the OAT 300 for every section. i say bare minimum because the higher the better. if you can do both you should be just fine - if not get as close as possible.

good luck

 

[vha7777]

I totally agree, as you know there are quite a few schools that will let you replace your grades (esp for required classes) so I'd try to get as many of those retaken to boost your gpa. That should help out loads. However if you are going to retake classes you MUST get A's, no if's and's or but's because what's the point of spending all of that time and money retaking classes if your not going to get a good grade. A CC should be fine, i haven't heard of any schools that really look down upon that. If you think that you can really boost your GPA by waiting til December to apply then do it, there are usually quite a few spots still open even toward the end of winter, just make sure you have the rest of your applications materials ready to submit as soon as that grade comes in and you are already in contact with the schools you are interested in so they know you will be submitting so they will keep an eye or for ya. If you want to be a really strong candidate then wait just one more year so you will have even better grades to add to the list so you will have the pickings as to what school you would like to attend.


I know someone that went from a 2.9 in required classes to almost a 4.0 because she retook a lot of classes and got acceptances from all the schools she applied to (which was a lot). I know it's painful but if it's going to help then do it! Maybe retake the OAT, hopefully ur scores will go up a bit too. Since you already got 2 interviews last year you should fair better this time around. Hope that helps. Just stick to it and it will all work out! Good luck!

 

[diva15]

wow u have amazing experience...i think u should retake some prereqs and u'll do fine.


If u don't mind me asking...why did suny's interview go bad? that would be my first choice...and i would like to ace the interview if possible...so if u could just let us kno some details so we kno what to expect...thaanx

Hey everyone, this is my first post so bear with me.

Before I get into it, let me give u some background info. My OAT scores are AA: 330 and TS: 350, reading comp 290 dropped my score big time. I graduated UC San Diego with a bs in cognitive science/neuroscience with a minor in history. My overall gpa is 2.6 and my pre-requiste is slightly lower. I have some great optometric experienes over 1000+ hrs at a retail office and a vision therapy clinic. I'm currently researching the effectiveness of neurofeedback training on autism spectrum disorders at UCSD's neuro lab. I've applied to, well lets say a lot of opt schools, got 2 interviews at SUNY and ICO. SUNY's interivew was...well not a pleasant experience, got waitlisted for ICO, but found out recently I wasn't in the final cut (more power to you optcraze, lol). Now i'm contemplating, what I need to do to improve my application for next years class? which its scary to think since this whole process begins again at Aug 1. I know my biggest weakness is my gpa. those early years of goofin off, I'm sure paying for it now. I've been trying to improve on that by taking 3 classes per quarter for the past 2 quarters, with meager results B, B, C grade for both quarters. Now I'm at a crossroads: from now till aug 1, I can take up to 4 classes, will getting high marks on these 4 courses be enough? During this time I can also get another optometric internship to help pay for this whopping $2,800 tuition. Or should I take these courses at a local community college, where it would be much cheaper, but risk having the admissions committee frown upon it. Or should I take only 2 courses and volunteer the 2nd month in Africa through Unite for Sight?, great experience, but my problems lie with my poor gpa-not my optometry exposure. Or another option, take additional 4 classes in the fall and turn in/update my app in early december? risk not applying early. Any advice would be most appreciated. For those who read this ridiculously long thread thank you, for those who didn't, believe me i understand. It's just that I think i'm a little too young to be giving up on my dreams just yet.

 

[nsin0]

wow u have amazing experience...i think u should retake some prereqs and u'll do fine.


If u don't mind me asking...why did suny's interview go bad? that would be my first choice...and i would like to ace the interview if possible...so if u could just let us kno some details so we kno what to expect...thaanx

Thanks everyone for the input, I just began re-taking some pre-reqs at the local community college and some at UCSD.

suny's interview went bad, because first of all it was a 3 person panel made up of od's and faculty and we were in this conference room, but they were super close to me, to the point that during some parts our knees accidently bumped into each other. That already made me super uncomfortable. Also one of the panel members kept pickin on why I got a C- in a chem course. It was like he didn't buy my response, and kept referring back to it. but definately Dr. J kept the interview bearable. One bit of advice, if they ask you a question, respond by trying to tie in everything u want to say to answer the question. One of my biggest regrets was not telling them everything I wanted to. 30-45min is not that long for the interview, time flies by quicker then u think. And they might not ask the questions u want them to ask, so if its opt related tie it in. Hope this helps.

 

[drsax]

Thanks everyone for the input, I just began re-taking some pre-reqs at the local community college and some at UCSD.

suny's interview went bad, because first of all it was a 3 person panel made up of od's and faculty and we were in this conference room, but they were super close to me, to the point that during some parts our knees accidently bumped into each other. That already made me super uncomfortable. Also one of the panel members kept pickin on why I got a C- in a chem course. It was like he didn't buy my response, and kept referring back to it. but definately Dr. J kept the interview bearable. One bit of advice, if they ask you a question, respond by trying to tie in everything u want to say to answer the question. One of my biggest regrets was not telling them everything I wanted to. 30-45min is not that long for the interview, time flies by quicker then u think. And they might not ask the questions u want them to ask, so if its opt related tie it in. Hope this helps.

The knee bumping *lol* yeah that's pretty nerve wrecking. Like you said before, you are too young to give up on the dream. Since you already know that everything else is fine, just try your best to do well in the courses to give the gpa the boost it needs.

 

[xmattODx]

Or should I take only 2 courses and volunteer the 2nd month in Africa through Unite for Sight?, great experience, but my problems lie with my poor gpa-not my optometry exposure.

I wouldn't advise going with unite for sight. They are not optometry friendly nor do they promote the development of appropriate care in the countries they work in. I don't believe that you will gain any useful experience by joining unite for sight on a international mission.

 

[O.D.-2-B]

So many excellent responses! But as a fellow low GPA/OAT scorer I wanted to give some input. First of all do not give up! With all that experience you would be an asset to the field and I think you would feel very at home in an Optometry school. I graduated with a 3.42 GPA and had a TS OAT of 320. I know my GPA was a lot higher but I had lots of experience in Optometry and I used that as confidence fuel for my interviews. The questions you were asked at the interviews for ICO and SUNY will be the same next year and similar at all the schools you apply to for 2007 so use the experience to your advantage. I am guessing you applied to SCCO (I am going to be entering their 2010 class) but perhaps you did not. It is of my understanding that they are most conserned with the completion of your degree and so the GPA does not matter so much (but perhaps to be considered it does...I am not entirely sure) .

I thought that I would have to redo some courses/my OAt but I decided not to bother getting carried away with it and tried at a bunch of schools anyway. I got accepted to 3, waitlisted at 2 (declined app before hearing otherwise)....not only were my marks not so great but all these schools were in the US and I am from Canada (what I consider to be another disadvantage)

So really, dont be discouraged. pull up that GPA a tiny bit and I am sure you will have better luck!

 

[nsin0]

Thanks for all the input, your responses helped me re-kindle hope and a new found determination. To give you an update on what i'm doing i'm re-taking 9 courses this summer. Class list as follows: microeconomics, biology, GenChemI, GenChemII, CalcII, Physics I & II, Stats, etc. With the short amount of time I had, I tried to maximize the course load by taking some at CC and some at UCSD. LOL, I practically live at school, if i'm not in class i'm at the library, if i'm not there i'm at work, lol. So far so good, i've been pullin perfect A's so far on the tests.

However I do have an alarming question to ask, from reading all the your responses and those on the forum, it seems that the best route to take is re-taking the pre-req's. However when I speak to some admissions counselors at diff schools, they recommend that I take higher upper division courses like: genetics, cell bio, biochemistry, physiology. Given, I did take most of the courses that they listed, I'm not sure on exactly what I should do, do I re-take the pre-reqs? or do I take upper division courses that I havent taken? I would assume it would be re-taking pre-reqs since on the applications they focus on that, I'm also sure the admissions committee take into account all the upper div courses as well from the transcript. Which is weighed more for the reapplicant? retaking pre-reqs or taking more upper div courses? So confused

 

[20/15]

Every single admissions counselor I spoke with advised me not to retake my pre-reqs but instead take "higher level" courses. One counselor said there was no point in re-taking the pre-reqs bc you've already gone over the information, and it wouldn't be challenging. Like you, I had already taken biochem, molecular genetics etc, so I asked what higher levels I could take. All of them suggested graduate level classes. You might want to check with UCSD or SD State to see if they have grad level post-bac type classes. Sometimes there are programs where you don't have to be in a particular grad or post-bac program. For example, I was able to take a grad level toxicology class at SF State without being attached to any particular program. HTH!