GPA: 2.75, Going back to school...

[Jujin]

Greetings all,

An abbreviated version of my life story. Started undergrad in 2004 and was given an ROTC nursing scholarship. I ended up not liking the nursing field and left the program in 2007, my junior year of college. There would have been no way I could take 4 years of the nursing profession in the Army so I had no alternatives. Graduated with a 2.75 in liberal studies just to complete my degree so I could receive my commission and move on. Entered active duty in 2010, deployed in 2011, and have left active duty a few months ago. I now have full GI Bill benefits and am considering using it to either find a pre med post bacc program (looking at drew and fordham) or possibly just taking the courses myself. I have not taken the MCAT nor have I done any volunteer work recently. I'm sure all the work I've done in undergrad doesn't count anymore. When the time comes I plan on applying to all medical school I can on the east coast as well as USUHS. FWIW I know some applicants that have gotten into USUHS with 3.2 GPAs. What do you guys think I have to do to make myself competitive for med school? Will my prior work experience, although not medical related, do anything for me? Do they look at non trads the same as trads when it comes to admissions? I realize I have a low GPA and chalk it up to being lazy and stupid during my undergrad years. I didn't prioritize my future and I'm paying for it now (literally). I've accepted the err of my past ways though and am willing to put in whatever time is necessary to correct it.

A little bit about my bio:
27 y/o
Male
Filipino so that puts me in the Asian category which, from what I've researched, puts me at a severe disadvantage in admissions.
2.75 GPA only attended one university
3 years of work experience not medical related

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[gyngyn]

Your disadvantage is your gpa (not your ethnicity). DO grade replacement is your chance for redemption.

 

[TriagePreMed]

You need to be careful with what you're doing. For starters, you left nursing. Why is that? While the job of a physician is not the same as nursing, healthcare careers have things in common. If those that made you leave overlap with medicine, you are making the wrong career change. Also, I don't see any volunteering or shadowing. How is it that you know medicine is what you want to do? It seems easy to just imagine going back to school, but the truth is that it isn't.

The amount of sacrifices and being on the red line at all times is not something that should be taken lightly. You cannot afford to get a single B- or lower. Even a B is considered minimally passing at this point. My advice for any non-trad is to not consider it if there is an alternative career they can see themselves pursuing, but if medicine is your calling, you do what you have to do.

Also, you should focus on D.O. school as the person above suggested. To put all your eggs into the USUHS basket is unwise.

 

[Jujin]

You need to be careful with what you're doing. For starters, you left nursing. Why is that? While the job of a physician is not the same as nursing, healthcare careers have things in common.

I left nursing because I was disappointed in the lack of involvement with the diagnosis and treatment of illnesses. I was hoping for something more rooted in science and critical thinking but was disappointed to find out most of nursing was patient care which isn't bad but wasn't my calling. I quickly lost interest and got frustrated after the first year of nursing school and because of that my gpa suffered significantly. I think I can articulate that pretty well when it comes to application time. Also I have some shadow time when I was in undergrad but nothing significant enough to put on an application since it was less than 40 hours throughout the course of my entire undergrad and was more than four years ago.
I will definitely check out this DO grade replacement... I don't know much about it as of right now.

 

[TXKnight]

You need to be careful with what you're doing. For starters, you left nursing. Why is that? While the job of a physician is not the same as nursing, healthcare careers have things in common. If those that made you leave overlap with medicine, you are making the wrong career change. Also, I don't see any volunteering or shadowing. How is it that you know medicine is what you want to do? It seems easy to just imagine going back to school, but the truth is that it isn't.

The amount of sacrifices and being on the red line at all times is not something that should be taken lightly. You cannot afford to get a single B- or lower. Even a B is considered minimally passing at this point. My advice for any non-trad is to not consider it if there is an alternative career they can see themselves pursuing, but if medicine is your calling, you do what you have to do.

Also, you should focus on D.O. school as the person above suggested. To put all your eggs into the USUHS basket is unwise.

This. Focus on D.O. and do grade replacements. D.O. will be an uphill battle, MD seems even more.