Hi everyone,
I've searched around but haven't really found anything specific to my situation. I am currently in Japan accompanying my husband on a 3-year tour (Navy), which should end summer 2017. Med school had been a thought of mine throughout college but I kind of bumbled around and it just never happened at the time. I graduated from Northwestern in 2012 with BA in Psychology (4.4 GPA) and joined Teach for America. Was on track to finish an MA in Ed. but cut the TFA commitment short by a semester when my husband joined the Navy. I technically didn't have to do this, but I decided to move with him to his first station. I have 21 hours of grad school with a 4.0 GPA there but those courses are hardly applicable to med school. I have no pre-reqs other than stats and I guess the social sciences.
I'd been trying to figure out how to get to med school given that I'm out of the country and don't have access to pre-reqs, and was looking around on UCSD's site (San Diego is a distinct possibility for our next station) and noticed that they changed their pre-reqs... to none. So it seems like theoretically if I take the MCAT here in Japan and do really well on it, I could apply to UCSD without having taken any pre-reqs. I understand that in order to do well on the MCAT it helps to have taken the pre-reqs.
Looking for advice and insight into my situation: I have the ability to devote myself full-time to studying for the MCAT, which I would need to take before summer 2016 in order to apply for Fall 2017. I know this would be very challenging. I would need to self-study all of the content, plus all of the test-specific strategies, etc. The highest level of science background I have is AP Bio and AP Physics in high school but that feels like a while ago. I could also volunteer at the base hospital through Red Cross and in general there are a lot of volunteering opportunities with the military. With a very high level of motivation, how feasible is this? What's up with UCSD not having any pre-reqs? Too good to be true? Theoretically if I did well on the MCAT, would I be competitive having not taken the pre-reqs and being 4-5 years out of school?
My husband would be able to get stationed for at least 2 years in San Diego, and 2 more years in SoCal if not in San Diego. So that's the 4 years of med school, and the reason I am looking at UCSD and also wanting to go straight into it rather than doing a postbacc or something. Because if I took 1-2 years for that, my husband would likely not be in SoCal for the duration of med school.
Thoughts? Thanks in advance.
I've searched around but haven't really found anything specific to my situation. I am currently in Japan accompanying my husband on a 3-year tour (Navy), which should end summer 2017. Med school had been a thought of mine throughout college but I kind of bumbled around and it just never happened at the time. I graduated from Northwestern in 2012 with BA in Psychology (4.4 GPA) and joined Teach for America. Was on track to finish an MA in Ed. but cut the TFA commitment short by a semester when my husband joined the Navy. I technically didn't have to do this, but I decided to move with him to his first station. I have 21 hours of grad school with a 4.0 GPA there but those courses are hardly applicable to med school. I have no pre-reqs other than stats and I guess the social sciences.
I'd been trying to figure out how to get to med school given that I'm out of the country and don't have access to pre-reqs, and was looking around on UCSD's site (San Diego is a distinct possibility for our next station) and noticed that they changed their pre-reqs... to none. So it seems like theoretically if I take the MCAT here in Japan and do really well on it, I could apply to UCSD without having taken any pre-reqs. I understand that in order to do well on the MCAT it helps to have taken the pre-reqs.
Looking for advice and insight into my situation: I have the ability to devote myself full-time to studying for the MCAT, which I would need to take before summer 2016 in order to apply for Fall 2017. I know this would be very challenging. I would need to self-study all of the content, plus all of the test-specific strategies, etc. The highest level of science background I have is AP Bio and AP Physics in high school but that feels like a while ago. I could also volunteer at the base hospital through Red Cross and in general there are a lot of volunteering opportunities with the military. With a very high level of motivation, how feasible is this? What's up with UCSD not having any pre-reqs? Too good to be true? Theoretically if I did well on the MCAT, would I be competitive having not taken the pre-reqs and being 4-5 years out of school?
My husband would be able to get stationed for at least 2 years in San Diego, and 2 more years in SoCal if not in San Diego. So that's the 4 years of med school, and the reason I am looking at UCSD and also wanting to go straight into it rather than doing a postbacc or something. Because if I took 1-2 years for that, my husband would likely not be in SoCal for the duration of med school.
Thoughts? Thanks in advance.
