This thread makes me smile a little bit (in retrospect now that I'm a 4th yr medical student); I had always thought about becoming a doctor, but I was sure I could never attain that dream - the thought was that I was not smart enough. Also I'm certain that I probably have an undiagnosed ADHD, that has gotten better with age.
During my first 2 semesters in CC, I attained a 2.5 GPA majoring in pre-engineering and by the time I transferred to a 4yr college, I had managed to bump it up to a 2.67; I finished my engineering degree and in a round about way, enrolled in an Engineering masters program (took some courses, busted my butt to get a 3.8 GPA, and was unconditionally admitted). I finished the Masters program with a 3.5 GPA. Now after working as an Engineer for a number of years, I decided to give medicine a try.
I went back for my post-bac at a CC - attained a 3.9 GPA bringing my AMCAS cGPA to 2.85 (sGPA:3.1) and AACOMAS cGPA ~3.4 & sGPA:3.5; my MCAT was average for accepted applicants to allo schools... so i thought at 31yrs of age, why not give it a shot and just apply. I was always interested in a highly competitive surgical subspecialty, so I thought going the allopathic route was the better option for me. The thought was to apply to allopathic schools the 1st year and if I didn't get accepted, I would apply to probably all osteopathic schools the next year.
I'm URM, so I thought, why not try all HBCU schools and about 40-something other schools -after all, it only takes one bite and I could become a doc. So in total, I applied to about 50 schools - I got 8 interviews (1 HBCU and 7 other schools plasted across the US); my interviews went well for the most part and for the most part, the adcoms just wanted to know why such a poor academic showing during my UG years - I simply told them the truth - I was young and was not a serious student. At an interview (at a school I liked a lot), one of the interviewer hadn't read my application before hand, so when he opened up my file - he did a double take at the file and proceeded to ask how and why I did so poorly. Mind you, this was about 3mins into the interview, after my spiel, he decided that he would just talk to the other interviewer while ignoring me throughout the interview. After the interviewers finished their discussion, they told me I could leave - that was the most demoralizing interview/experience I've had to date. Wasted plane ticket, wasted hotel room cost, wasted rental car and a new suite - just to be laughed at and completely ignored. But, of my 8 interviews, that was the only one that felt awkward - the rest gave me a shot, they didn't have to, but I'm glad they did. In all, I got rejected at every program except one - to my utter disbelief, one bit after-all. I got accepted to an allopathic (MD) program.
Once I started medical school, I felt that I had something to prove; I needed to shake that monkey of my back; and I did. I'm graduating from medical school in the top 10% of my class (both in grades and boards - USMLE step exams). I'm currently applying to that surgical sub-specialty and have interviews already lined up.
The moral of the story is to never give up! With every breadth, you never give up; even when everyone one around you laughs at you for being overly optimistic, listen to your heart and your head and give it your best shot. You just never know what the future holds.
