AspiringGC

Good luck to the incoming applicants! GradCafe has become a little under utilized since the making of a discord. If you'd like to join other future applicants and current students in discord please do! Here's the link: https://discord.gg/6JwzcnK

Hi Lauz, I'm not sure if you're on the genetic counseling discord: https://discord.gg/y9hSAtH There's a bunch of applicants and current students there and lots of information. Per what people have posted on there, McGill actually sent out some invites on 2/25, 5 people reported receiving an interview offer from them . I'm not sure if they're still sending out offers or not. Good luck!

BU sent out some interviews on Wednesday. Not sure if they are going in waves or not, based on last year they sent over a three day span. Pitt has slowly been sending invites out since January, so I bet they aren't done yet.

Arizona and Vanderbilt also got accredited yesterday!

Unfortunately, I couldn't find a list to what places/organizations are approved for this process. But from a talk during one of my classes, it sounds like schools accredited by the European board have approval for this. It's definitely something ABGC could answer or the particular school of interest

ABGC is definitely working or already has in place maybe, allowing internationally trained GCs to sit for the board exam if they went to an accredited school recognized by ABGC. There's some more info on it here: https://www.abgc.net/becoming-certified/recognized-accrediting-bodies/

I only ever had a problem with one school not getting back to me about my status until I reached out to them. Typically rejections start going out a week after interview offers were sent up to more than a month later. By mid-March most, if not all, offers/rejections will have been sent out. I'd reach out if you're still waiting after that.

To prevent spam they have it set up where you have to add a "role" to post outside of the "general" chat. If you go to the bot-commands you can see how to do it, or post in the general chat to get help

https://discord.gg/YRUdv56 This link should work!

I use Plum Planner's Horizontal Student in the 7x9 size. I like it because it's very customizable, you can start on any month you'd like and get as little as 6 months all the way up to 18 months. There's little "to-do" areas for each day of the week so I can write down tasks that I want to complete that day (and check off when done), plus a "priority/due today" to keep track of those things, and room to write other important things down each day. There's also a habit tracker on each week that I really enjoy, to help track studying or workouts. And of course, there's the monthly overview too so you can see the big picture. I typically just get a 6 month planner because it's thinner/to try out new style before I commit to a 12 month, but there's discounts for "upgrading" to 12 months plus. They have tons of different layouts too! I've used the ME Planner style before, but I had too many classes to fit and so it didn't work well for me. There's also an hourly layout or a general "priorities" layout that's very similar to the Horizontal student, just less academic references. https://www.plumpaper.com/shop/category/personalized-planners If anyone's interested, I can send a discount code via email for 10% off a $30 order. Just PM me.

I was in the same situation last cycle, I included it in my personal statement for every school. I tied it in to a prompt for most schools so it felt natural. It's obviously not favorable. With how competitive applications are getting, schools have the chance to be picky. Yes, they will look holistically and may look past some lower grades if the rest of the application is great. However, I highly doubt programs would count D/Fs as acceptable/passing credit for prereqs. D/Fs in foundational courses will be huge red flags that will make the program wonder if they can handle the graduate course work Personal storytime: I had two to three C's in prereqs depending on the school when I applied (and a D in ochem 2 which wasn't a prereq at any school I applied). I ended up retaking one of the courses I had a C in and received an A. Of the four schools I interviewed at, only one brought up grades and they brought up the D, which as I said wasn't a prereq for them. So, a majority of the programs were happy and not concerned with my coursework (one even said "if that were a concern, you wouldn't be sitting here right now"), but some were still concerned, even at interviews, when it wasn't a required course for them. After retaking that course, I only had one C in a prereq at the school I matched with. So it is possible to match with not all A/Bs in prereqs. If a majority of the prereqs are C's, it'd be best to retake them (or some of them) and I highly suggest retaking any prereqs with D/F grades. Schools seem to look favorable on retaken courses, it shows dedication and that you can actually learn/handle the material. If there's extenuating circumstances that resulted in the lower grades, that should be mentioned somewhere in their app as well.

Lots of the border states accept a good amount of Canadian students. But also, go through current students or past classes on program pages. Most students will have where they're from. My school has accepted Canadian students in the past, though no current students are Canadian. I would apply if you like the program. New unaccredited school typically get fewer applicants because of this fear, but I still think it's worth the "risk" if you could see yourself being happy there.

https://www.abgc.net/becoming-certified/recognized-accrediting-bodies/ This page discusses internationally trained genetic counselors. Looks like you'd just need to double check that any international program you apply to are recognized as an Accrediting Body through ABGC if you want to practice in the US.

University of Phoenix offers one that I believe someone on gradcafe took: https://www.phoenix.edu/courses/bio410.html It is an undergraduate course however. If you are looking for a different biochem class, myself and a few others on here as well took Biochem through UCSD Extension that we enjoyed! It was cheap compared to other courses I found, engaging, and I actually enjoyed it. https://extension.ucsd.edu/courses-and-programs/introduction-to-biochemistry

I think they play a big role. I had a major GPA of 2.68 when I applied last cycle (and didn’t get in). I did poorly in ochem and Biochem as well. To offset that, I took a neurogenetics class through cincinnati and I retook Biochem this cycle (got an A, better than my previous C). Factoring just Biochem in, it raises my gpa to a 2.77 I believe. My overall GPA is only decent at 3.36 (last 60 units around a 3.8 though). But I do believe retaking the course showed initiative and that I still have that upward momentum I ended college with. But prerequisite grades can be offsetted with many things as long as you have at least a C in them. I think my experience helped do that more so than retaking Biochem did. So you can get accepted with around what you posted, just make sure you have something that makes you stand out or shows that you can do upper level science classes. Feel free to PM me if you have more specific questions!