Chances with my stats?

[MyNameWasUsed]

Hello everybody, I am a biochemistry major entering my senior year and I recently decided to not apply for medical school and instead do something else (physical therapist, PA, PharmD). The reason I don't want to do medical school is because I don't think I want to give up my 22-32 and I've read many articles on how medical school will consume and devour your life. Basically its too hard for me and I want something "easier". Now I know many people will debate rather pharmacy school is easier or not etc, but I'm convinced it's easier/less stressful/less insane than medical

I am now at a crossroad between PA and PharmD and this summer I have to take the PCAT or GRE. So based on my stats, I would like to know if I have a good chance of getting into Pharmacy school as compared to PA school. Hell compare it to med school too. I am confident that I can score well on any standardized exam, but first I need to decide which path to go. Here are my stats:
-cGPA: 3.772
-sGPA: 3.738
-been volunteering at a hospital for 7 months now and will continue until graduation
-been doing lab research for 5 months now and will continue until graduation\
-certified and licensed EMT but have no work experience.
-Just got accepted into the Dissection Team (dissect the cadavers used to teach Anatomy, basically TA position)
-Former Senator for my University's student government (1 year term)
-Vice President of Communications for my fraternity (1 year term)
-Worked as a math tutor for 3 years at my University's Math center
-Student Ambassador for my University for 3 years
-Resident Hall Representative for my hall during freshmen year (kinda insignificant to me)

PS: I would gladly go to PA school, but I dont want to sell myself short if my stats qualifies me for PharmD or something else. Thanks everybody!

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[oldstock]

my original reply deleted because of trolling alert !!

 

[oldstock]

I see in your profile this
DDSapps ID:
1775
MDapps ID:
1775
so I was kinda curious and clicked on those links. When I clicked on MDapps ID: 1775, it sent me to this link
http://mdapplicants.com/profile.php?id=1775

Accepted
University of New England - "matriculating"
Edward Via Virginia College
West Virginia (D.O.)
UMDNJ - Osteopathic Medicine
Arizona College of Mid. University



Summary of Application Experience

I applied to many shcools and had success despite some reservations of my premed advisor. In the end accepted at my first choice school UNECOM and accepted to most other schools I interviewed at.



So are you trolling ??



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User #1775
(ID #01775)
(Link Page)
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Application Cycles: 2003
Demographics: Female, Caucasian
Home State: Massachusetts

Demographics & Applications
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Undergraduate College: Providence College
Undergraduate Area of Study: Biological/Life Sciences

Institution: Providence College
Area of Study: Psychology/Social Sciences
Degree Obtained: BA

Institution: Brown University
Area of Study: Nursing/Pharmacy/Medical Technology
Degree Obtained: EMT-B

MCAT: BS 10, PS 7, VR 11, P
Overall GPA: 3.42
Science GPA: 3.21

Brief Profile:
EMT-B, NREMT, RIEMT, MEEMT, Row Crew, Founded Crew team at Providence College, Honor societies for both biology and Premed(Alpha Epsilon Delta, Psi Chi)

AMCAS submitted: 2003

Applied, Rejected
Stanford University
Northwestern University
Applied, Withdrew
Jefferson Medical College
Application Complete, Rejected
Ohio University
Michigan State University (DO)
Yale University
University of Vermont
University of Rochester
University of Pennsylvania
University of Chicago
Tulane University
Pennsylvania State University
New York Medical College
Johns Hopkins University
Harvard University
Georgetown University
Dartmouth College
Cornell University
Albert Einstein of Yeshiva University
Albany Medical College
Attended Interview, Withdrew
Touro University - Mare Island
Philadelphia College - Philadelphia
Nova Southeastern University
New York College of New York Tech.
Lake Erie College - Erie
Des Moines University
Chicago College of Mid. University
University of Pittsburgh
University of Massachusetts
Temple University
Mount Sinai School of Medicine
Loyola University Chicago
George Washington University
Drexel University
Boston University
Western University of Health Sciences
Attended Interview, Waitlisted, Withdrew
Tufts University
Accepted
University of New England - "matriculating"
Edward Via Virginia College
West Virginia (D.O.)
UMDNJ - Osteopathic Medicine
Arizona College of Mid. University
Summary of Application Experience
I applied to many shcools and had success despite some reservations of my premed advisor. In the end accepted at my first choice school UNECOM and accepted to most other schools I interviewed at.

 

[MyNameWasUsed]

No, I am not trolling. When I made this profile it asked me about that stuff and I didn't know what to enter so I just inputted 4 numbers I like. I actually do not know what they mean. I think I'll fix it now. Thanks

 

[oldstock]

No, I am not trolling. When I made this profile it asked me about that stuff and I didn't know what to enter so I just inputted 4 numbers I like. I actually do not know what they mean. I think I'll fix it now. Thanks

very fishy !!

 

[MyNameWasUsed]

my original reply deleted because of trolling alert !!

I was not trolling. It was an honest mistake and I removed it from my profile now. Anyways, thanks for the reply it was helpful. The thing is, I don't really want to go to medical school at the end of the day because it's just too much work and I probably wouldn't be going for the right reasons. I just want a nice paying career that can be achieved without giving up your whole life. I thought PharmD would be a possibility but from your input, it sounded like I was wrong. What about my chances for a good PA program? I've read statistics where students of PA programs tend to be 26-28 years old on avg. Why is that? Would it hard to get into a PA program right after my BS in Biochemistry? I know I lack clinical experience, would that be a huge handicap if I were to apply for PA program right after college? I really do not want to take a year break after college, I want to keep going and achieve a career goal as soon as possible.

 

[oldstock]

I was not trolling. It was an honest mistake and I removed it from my profile now. Anyways, thanks for the reply it was helpful. The thing is, I don't really want to go to medical school at the end of the day because it's just too much work and I probably wouldn't be going for the right reasons. I just want a nice paying career that can be achieved without giving up your whole life. I thought PharmD would be a possibility but from your input, it sounded like I was wrong. What about my chances for a good PA program? I've read statistics where students of PA programs tend to be 26-28 years old on avg. Why is that? Would it hard to get into a PA program right after my BS in Biochemistry? I know I lack clinical experience, would that be a huge handicap if I were to apply for PA program right after college? I really do not want to take a year break after college, I want to keep going and achieve a career goal as soon as possible.

I will give you the benefits of the doubt here. And I am glad that you did catch my original reply.

You could pursue pharmacy but like I said in my original reply, these days you will put out almost the same time, effort, and money for the PharmD degree as what you have to put out for MD even though pharmacy admission is way easier than medical schools. Medicine is still the "king" profession of all health professions. Again, make sure you are not getting cold feet or being burned out. Just take MCAT and decide. And you still have some time to decide. Your above stats are already excellent for pharmacy schools.

I do not know about PA programs and you will have to go to PA forum to ask them. But if you want easy and short, there are also many other professions / careers that you can make good money from like nursing, accounting, computer engineering, real estate, etc. And I know many of my friends who are doing that and making 100-120K+ a year.

GL

 

[vasoolraja]

Oldstock: With all due respect, I disagree with your comment that "Medicine is still the "king" profession of all health professions" In my opinion health care professionals are a team. The services of each specialist (doctors, pharmacists, physiotherapists and nurses) are very important and significant. By assigning titles like "King" and so on, it is equivalent to belittling other professions. Nobody is a king and nobody is a soldier - every profession is important. Here is a quote by Albert Einstein:“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

 

[oldstock]

Oldstock: With all due respect, I disagree with your comment that "Medicine is still the "king" profession of all health professions" In my opinion health care professionals are a team. The services of each specialist (doctors, pharmacists, physiotherapists and nurses) are very important and significant. By assigning titles like "King" and so on, it is equivalent to belittling other professions. Nobody is a king and nobody is a soldier - every profession is important. Here is a quote by Albert Einstein:“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

I totally agree with you healthcare is a team effort. No doubt about that.

I do not mean to belittle any other health profession and I respect every member of the healthcare team, don't get me wrong on that (that was why I put "king" in a quote mark and I don't mean like medical doctors are there barking orders to other health professionals). But there is always a hierarchy / order / rank in healthcare even you would like to think it is not there. I would bet you if you do a survey now asking what health profession people like to do if they could have a chance, a majority would choose to be a medical doctor.

Why ?? My guess: medical doctors are respected and trusted by society throughout history. In addition, compared to other health professions, MDs are having the most power, freedom and flexibility and options to practice medicine (e.g. you would hear that PAs, nurse practioners / DPN, PTs, PharmDs, etc working under a MD/DO supervision but have you ever heard MDs are working under the supervision of any other healthcare professionals ??), and also having the highest potential to make money.

In short, medicine has the combination of the most (potentially) respect / prestige, power, and money. (Medicine oozes sex appeal, dare I say.) So what else there is to not like about being a medical doctors ?? if you think that other health professions surpass medicine in those terms, then I respect your opinion but honestly I would like to think otherwise. If becoming a medical doctor is not notoriously very difficult, if not the most difficult / challenging of all health professions (and this is a obvious truth ), everyone is already a medical doctor

 

[vasoolraja]

Oldstock: It is interesting to know your perspective. However, the reasons you provide are perceptions of general public and not the reasons a professional would furnish. The reasons you list are 1. majority of people prefer to be a doctor, 2. Doctors are respected and trusted by society, 3. All health care professionals work under an MD, 4. medicine has the combination of most respect/prestige, power, and money and (5. medicine oozes sex appeal). If a candidate tells these reasons during an interview for MD admissions, the outcome is easy to imagine. Likewise, if a candidate tells a PharmD admission committee that he/she prefers MD, but since it is not easy to get in he/she chose PharmD. Again, you can guess what would be the outcome of the candidate's application. The adcoms don't accept such answers because these are only perceptions of a layman and not strong reasons to pursue a profession.

If you talk about hierarchy, then in my opinion, patient is the king! MD's and other health professionals are dependent on patients. If there are no patients, health professionals cannot exist.

I never mentioned other professions surpass MD's. My point is all professions are equal. PharmD's are neither lower nor higher than a MD.

I had one professor who taught me biology. He declined his acceptance letter to medical school because he enjoys teaching biology. Similarly, I had another professor who taught me zoology and he told me that he quit medical school in the final year because he didn't really want to be a doctor.

 

[oldstock]

Oldstock: It is interesting to know your perspective. However, the reasons you provide are perceptions of general public and not the reasons a professional would furnish. The reasons you list are 1. majority of people prefer to be a doctor, 2. Doctors are respected and trusted by society, 3. All health care professionals work under an MD, 4. medicine has the combination of most respect/prestige, power, and money and (5. medicine oozes sex appeal). If a candidate tells these reasons during an interview for MD admissions, the outcome is easy to imagine. Likewise, if a candidate tells a PharmD admission committee that he/she prefers MD, but since it is not easy to get in he/she chose PharmD. Again, you can guess what would be the outcome of the candidate's application. The adcoms don't accept such answers because these are only perceptions of a layman and not strong reasons to pursue a profession.

I agree with you that very few would go into an interview and say those things I have said above. But I trust that you know the difference between an honest answer and a "political correct" one or BS. If you believe that the things I said above are of layman's perception, go and talk to more health professional people and try to get an honest answer and see what the majority would say.

And believe it or not, I did tell the adcoms in my pharmacy school interviews that I always wanted to be a medical doctor, but it had became impractical for me to pursue medicine and so I decided to settle for pharmacy. Yeah I was that silly to say all those things in my interviews, but I guess sometimes I just lost my capability of BS.

If you talk about hierarchy, then in my opinion, patient is the king! MD's and other health professionals are dependent on patients. If there are no patients, health professionals cannot exist.

you then must have misread what I said. I said medicine was the "king" profession of all health professions. By definition, the patient is not a health professional.

I never mentioned other professions surpass MD's. My point is all professions are equal. PharmD's are neither lower nor higher than a MD.

It just depends on the context. I give you an example: would you think the President of the United States is "lower" or "higher" than the Secretary of State or other members of the cabinet ??

I had one professor who taught me biology. He declined his acceptance letter to medical school because he enjoys teaching biology. Similarly, I had another professor who taught me zoology and he told me that he quit medical school in the final year because he didn't really want to be a doctor.

Your experience is n = 1 (or 2). And it is so rare but there are always some exceptions. And I am saying things in general. But c'mon, I would believe that someone would decline his or her acceptance to medical school because it just dawned on them now that all of sudden they want to pursue other professions or careers after putting out all their effort for premed and applying to medical schools, but who would quit medical school in the final year because he or she did not want to be a doctor ?? That immediately rings my BS alert (and for the record, I do not mean you but that zoology professor and I can tell you there is more to that story ).

 

[Conflagration]

I figure I should just say this out loud, but there's not really a health professional school that will be easy.

I'm not going to get into ranking semantics, but you should try to do the thing that makes you happy.

If the only thing detracting from medical school for you is the time constraint, you may really enjoy being a PA. It's a similar interaction, although you don't have stand-alone prescribing power. As a PA, you'll have to work under an MD/DO's license. Are you okay with not being the final arbitrator of care?

Pharmacy is a decent profession, don't get me wrong, but if you're looking for that in-office visiting environment, you won't get it by being a pharmacist. (Unless, of course, consulting and prescribing rights expand, but given the shambles of this weak economy, I'm not sure if that would happen. Even then, it's a different situation too.)

So, if you think everything would be perfect if you were a doctor except for the time commitment, by all means- pursue your dream. If it's how you'll be happy, isn't that time spent worth it?

As for the PCAT and GRE, they're very different tests. PCAT tests mostly science ability with some general ability sections, whereas the GRE is sort of like a college level SAT. You'll want to devote at least a month studying for them, from what I've gathered from other pre-health folks.

You have decent numbers for anywhere, although if you want to go PA, you'll want to start working as an EMT for clinical hours.

Best of luck to you!

 

[vasoolraja]

Oldstock: In my opinion, the honest and politically correct answers must match only then you can be successful in a profession. If your honest answer is money and prestige, but if your politically correct answer is helping the patients, then you can never do justice to that profession. In the long run you will feel burned out and dissatisfied.
It appears like you basically gave up the idea of going to medicine and settled for pharmacy. In my opinion, if you have good reasons to pursue medicine and if you have good GPA and MCAT scores, you should go ahead and pursue your dreams.

 

[oldstock]

Oldstock: In my opinion, the honest and politically correct answers must match only then you can be successful in a profession. If your honest answer is money and prestige, but if your politically correct answer is helping the patients, then you can never do justice to that profession. In the long run you will feel burned out and dissatisfied.
It appears like you basically gave up the idea of going to medicine and settled for pharmacy. In my opinion, if you have good reasons to pursue medicine and if you have good GPA and MCAT scores, you should go ahead and pursue your dreams.

yup, I love medicine but gave up the idea of pursuing medicine a long time ago. As an old and single parent with 2 kids, I have to make compromises. And I do like pharmacy.

But if you really analyze your "love" in anything, you can always see or trace your love to its social, historical, cultural, and biological components / roots. And if you truly think that honest answer and political correctness must match in order to be successful in a profession, I guess you have not just seen things yet or just being an idealist. Time will show you bro. But you are right about one thing that do whatever makes you happy

 

[oldstock]

interesting thread,

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/pharmd-considering-med-school.1072612/#post-15254940

 

[MyNameWasUsed]

Conflaguration thank you for the input.

Everybody keeps saying do what makes you happy and I think what will make me happy is a 40hr/week career that pays 100k+ that doesn't take a decade to achieve and after arriving at this conclusion, I would have to say MD isn't for me. If i was offered a 120k/year accountant job right after senior year (next year) vs a full ride to a top 50 med school, I would have to choose the accountant job. The thing is, I dont love helping people, but I do enjoy it. For me, I want financial stability at an early age which will give me more freedom to do what I want during my 20s (partying and clubbing, dont judge me )

Now with that said, I am planning to pursue the PA route, but I do lack HCE. I will try my best to get HCE, but there are schools that don't require it such as Touro of Nevada PA Program which is located in Las Vegas which is perfect since I'm from Vegas. My new question is: Are PA programs that don't require HCE less credited/less legit/ harder to get a job after graduation? I know this is the Pre Pharm forum and I will post my question in the PA forum (if it exist), but if anybody has any input on this, that'll be great! Thanks.

 

[DruggieDoRight]

yup, I love medicine but gave up the idea of pursuing medicine a long time ago. As an old and single parent with 2 kids, I have to make compromises. And I do like pharmacy.

Why not choose PA school then? Two years and you could make as much as a PharmD. Plus you love medicine.

 

[oldstock]

Why not choose PA school then? Two years and you could make as much as a PharmD. Plus you love medicine.

I do not like PA (I did shadow / volunteer with MDs and PAs and pharmacists before). If I did medicine, I would go all out for MD. Just my personal preference. The OP seems to like PA better. Each to their own, I guess.

 

[vasoolraja]

Oldstock: In my opinion you should go for MD. Saying that you are old and have two kids are just excuses. If you have good GPA, then all you have to do is systematically prepare for the MCAT, and it is absolutely possible to score well in the test. Our belief is our limitation! All power is in you to fulfill your desire!

 

[oldstock]

Oldstock: In my opinion you should go for MD. Saying that you are old and have two kids are just excuses. If you have good GPA, then all you have to do is systematically prepare for the MCAT, and it is absolutely possible to score well in the test. Our belief is our limitation! All power is in you to fulfill your desire!

unless you are in a situation similar to mine and having a family responsibility with kids I do not think you really know what you are talking about but I do thank you for the unsolicited advice. I have my plan and know what I am doing. Maybe I will do a MD. Who knows what is going to happen in the near future ??

 

[vasoolraja]

unless you are in a situation similar to mine and having a family responsibility with kids I do not think you really know what you are talking about but I do thank you for the unsolicited advice. I have my plan and know what I am doing. Maybe I will do a MD. Who knows what is going to happen in the near future ??

Hi, Yes absolutely, I know what I am talking about. I have a family and a kid and have a full time job. I always believe all things are possible! Anyway, I respect your decision and it was nice talking to you. I wish you all the best!

 

[oldstock]

Hi, Yes absolutely, I know what I am talking about. I have a family and a kid and have a full time job. I always believe all things are possible! Anyway, I respect your decision and it was nice talking to you. I wish you all the best!

good for you !! Apply what you always advice people and set a great example !! GL to you too

 

[demihope]

never understood why people with 3.7+ GPAs and 90th % PCATs are so worried they wont get accepted

 

[oldstock]

never understood why people with 3.7+ GPAs and 90th % PCATs are so worried they wont get accepted

First, the OP did not say whether or not he has taken the PCAT for the record. Secondly, I suspect he / she was trolling (see my posts above). You are right, with the impressive record like described above, he / she should have been very well-versed in the fields he / she was interested in and known his / her chances already. But I did give him / her the benefit of the doubt and answer some of his / her original questions. But my bet is it is a case of trolling.