- Joined
- Jul 15, 2014
- Messages
- 27
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Hi Everyone,
I hope all is well. Any advice would be appreciated as I am trying to gain an understanding of a particular situation. During finals of my second year of undergrad my dad was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer and was given only 6 months max to live. During the summer of 2013( after my 2nd year)and all of Fall 2013( my third year of undergrad), I was his primary caretaker and toward the end of the fall of 2013 he passed away, a semester which I was a full time student taking 14 credit hours with 2 sciences. I remained full time for the remainder of the 2013-2014 academic year ( fall and spring). Therefore, I finished 3 years as a full-time student, even taking summer terms. I began to have a difficult time with grieving the loss of my father addition to my mother moving across the nation, many family responsibilities related to the situation ect. My life was all over the place emotionally and with my families affairs. I decided it was an intelligent decision to take the Fall 2014 semester off to get to a healthy place emotionally and help my mother and younger brother as they were having an incredibly difficult time.During this semester off I worked, pursued hands on clinical experience( which I am still involved with) , and non clinical volunteering. I used this time off wisely in my opinion and recollected myself for the most part.
. I returned to school the following semester in the Spring of 2015 and got straight A's, taking biochemistry and an upper level Bio, TA of an upper level bio lab, many EC's ect. With that backstory, I believe I will be taking 10 semesters to graduate as opposed to 8. This is not including my semester off, so it will be " an extra 1.5 yrs" in college if you are including my semester off. The reasons for this extra time are managing the things involved with the loss of my father, changing the focus of my minor ( a part of my interdisciplinary studies major) and some of the courses I need to take to finish my degree are sequential so I can't just take a full 15 credit course load in one semester and finish, and some of these courses are only available at specific times. I will have 110 credits after this semester and I am applying to medical schools in June 2016 ( after my 5th year) . I have a strong application and my cGPA is a 3.921 and my s GPA is a 3.929. I have finished all of my prerequisite courses in addition to Immunology, Molecular Cell, Genetics, Biochemistry, and an upper level Biochem Independent research project course.I only have 1 more upper level bio course left to fulfill my major. My Undergrad timeline will look like this:
Fall 2011- full time
Spring 2012- fill time
Summer 2012- 1 class
Fall 2012- full time
Spring 2013 - full time
Fall 2013-full time - Dad passed away
Spring 2014- full time
Fall 2014- Took semester off
Spring 2015- Full time
Fall 2015-3 courses
Spring 2016-3 courses
Summer 2016- APPLY -1 course
Fall 2016- 2 courses- GRADUATE
My goal is to get accepted to a top program, I am taking my MCAT this April and am already scoring the equivalent to a 30 on the new exam. Given my gpa , strong experiences, and a solid MCAT score, and applying early,will taking this extra time to finish be noticed or matter at all? A lot of people take about 5 years these days and my reason is personal matters and the sequential scheduling of courses. I want to take Anatomy as one of my last courses next fall so that it is relatively fresh when I hopefully matriculate a year later, and I of course will have graduated 9 months prior to matriculating into a program.
Thanks ! Sorry for the long post. And don't didn't mean to sound like a gunner with the dropping numbers and all the details, just wanted to give a relatively accurate description of whats going on. Thanks guys !
I hope all is well. Any advice would be appreciated as I am trying to gain an understanding of a particular situation. During finals of my second year of undergrad my dad was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer and was given only 6 months max to live. During the summer of 2013( after my 2nd year)and all of Fall 2013( my third year of undergrad), I was his primary caretaker and toward the end of the fall of 2013 he passed away, a semester which I was a full time student taking 14 credit hours with 2 sciences. I remained full time for the remainder of the 2013-2014 academic year ( fall and spring). Therefore, I finished 3 years as a full-time student, even taking summer terms. I began to have a difficult time with grieving the loss of my father addition to my mother moving across the nation, many family responsibilities related to the situation ect. My life was all over the place emotionally and with my families affairs. I decided it was an intelligent decision to take the Fall 2014 semester off to get to a healthy place emotionally and help my mother and younger brother as they were having an incredibly difficult time.During this semester off I worked, pursued hands on clinical experience( which I am still involved with) , and non clinical volunteering. I used this time off wisely in my opinion and recollected myself for the most part.
. I returned to school the following semester in the Spring of 2015 and got straight A's, taking biochemistry and an upper level Bio, TA of an upper level bio lab, many EC's ect. With that backstory, I believe I will be taking 10 semesters to graduate as opposed to 8. This is not including my semester off, so it will be " an extra 1.5 yrs" in college if you are including my semester off. The reasons for this extra time are managing the things involved with the loss of my father, changing the focus of my minor ( a part of my interdisciplinary studies major) and some of the courses I need to take to finish my degree are sequential so I can't just take a full 15 credit course load in one semester and finish, and some of these courses are only available at specific times. I will have 110 credits after this semester and I am applying to medical schools in June 2016 ( after my 5th year) . I have a strong application and my cGPA is a 3.921 and my s GPA is a 3.929. I have finished all of my prerequisite courses in addition to Immunology, Molecular Cell, Genetics, Biochemistry, and an upper level Biochem Independent research project course.I only have 1 more upper level bio course left to fulfill my major. My Undergrad timeline will look like this:
Fall 2011- full time
Spring 2012- fill time
Summer 2012- 1 class
Fall 2012- full time
Spring 2013 - full time
Fall 2013-full time - Dad passed away
Spring 2014- full time
Fall 2014- Took semester off
Spring 2015- Full time
Fall 2015-3 courses
Spring 2016-3 courses
Summer 2016- APPLY -1 course
Fall 2016- 2 courses- GRADUATE
My goal is to get accepted to a top program, I am taking my MCAT this April and am already scoring the equivalent to a 30 on the new exam. Given my gpa , strong experiences, and a solid MCAT score, and applying early,will taking this extra time to finish be noticed or matter at all? A lot of people take about 5 years these days and my reason is personal matters and the sequential scheduling of courses. I want to take Anatomy as one of my last courses next fall so that it is relatively fresh when I hopefully matriculate a year later, and I of course will have graduated 9 months prior to matriculating into a program.
Thanks ! Sorry for the long post. And don't didn't mean to sound like a gunner with the dropping numbers and all the details, just wanted to give a relatively accurate description of whats going on. Thanks guys !
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