Hi There,
I was hoping to get as many takes as I can in regards to my chances of admission into medical school. Here's a little summary of my background:
I spent the majority of my first four years of college as an Economics major, with no real plans to pursue any job opportunities in the medical field. As such, while I did jobs and internships on the side, they were either all related to business or simply having some extra cash on the side, and in the same vein, none of my courses were science-related. My plan had always been to pursue a career in wealth management after graduation, and while I did my part to do well in other areas outside of the classroom such as networking, looking back I never really prioritized my grades in the way that I should have. Consequently, my cGPA for my first three years of college was a 2.5.
However, going into my senior year I contracted a pretty serious infection that completely derailed my life for a good nine months; throughout the course of this time, I was grossly misdiagnosed, dealt with ulcerations, chronic fatigue and malabsorption, nausea and vomiting, you name it. By the end of this period, my weight had dropped from 175 to 143 lbs, and I experienced a sharp regression from a life of steady fitness (I even worked as a personal trainer for two years in college, so optimal health has always been a focal point in my life) to being almost completely bed-ridden.
Despite the turbulent nine months I went through, I eventually received second opinions from some great doctors within the Cedars-Sinai and UCLA network, who really transformed my life, both from a physical standpoint as well as from a career one. Not only were they able to help me successfully recover and regain control of my health and life, the whole experience of collaborating with them on practically a weekly basis for months introduced me to the field of medicine in a way that I hadn't experienced before. I found myself constantly looking through research journals in the spirit of trying to do my best to optimize my health and get back on track, and also learned quite a bit through the many conversations that we had, which were quite stimulating. Needless to say, the experience was quite transformative. Over the course of my fourth year then, while I was still either ill or recovering, I began to think to myself that medicine was perhaps a much more suitable field for me, not only because I found the entire field to be incredibly fascinating, but also because of the first-hand empathy I gained from going through the experience I went through.
While I had lined up offers with different firms for post-graduation, I ultimately decided shortly before my commencement ceremony that I would try to instead dive all the way into the pre-medical route, and take a risk. As such, despite walking and having sufficient credits to officially receive my degree, I instead declared two minors (Chemistry and Natural Sciences) a couple weeks before the ceremony so as to ensure that I could sufficiently prepare myself for medical school. Beginning immediately that summer and over the course of the next tweleve months, I began to plow through my medical school prerequisities. On top of performing well in my courses, I also worked in research for one summer at UCLA, volunteered at numerous sites throughout the LA and SF areas, gathered quite a bit of hours shadowing physicians in both internal medicine and gastroenterology. Since I didn't do an official post-bacc, I've essentially just added on a fifth and sixth year of college to finish the minors and prerequisites.
My plan is to take the MCAT this upcoming May, which will be final semester of college, and also plan to apply in June. Thus far, here's a little breakdown of what my application would look like:
cPGA: 2.9
sGPA: 3.7
MCAT (as based on practice exams): 515
Physician shadowing hours: 50 (internal medicine), 50 (gastroenterology)
Research: one summer (3 months) at UCLA
Volunteering: 300+ in a variety of areas, including health and medicine as well as animal rescue
Five letters of recommendation (2 physicians, 2 science professors, 1 sociology professor)
I realize this post is rather lengthy, but I wanted to try my best to paint my story as best as I could. I would greatly appreciate any opinions and/or insights as to how best to maximize my application for this June, and would really appreciate any opinions on my chances for both M.D. programs (both in the U.S. and Caribbean), as well as D.O. programs. I realize that the cGPA is still low, but I'm hoping that two years of science courses (about 15 total), will be sufficient to prove that the ability is there.
Cheers.
I was hoping to get as many takes as I can in regards to my chances of admission into medical school. Here's a little summary of my background:
I spent the majority of my first four years of college as an Economics major, with no real plans to pursue any job opportunities in the medical field. As such, while I did jobs and internships on the side, they were either all related to business or simply having some extra cash on the side, and in the same vein, none of my courses were science-related. My plan had always been to pursue a career in wealth management after graduation, and while I did my part to do well in other areas outside of the classroom such as networking, looking back I never really prioritized my grades in the way that I should have. Consequently, my cGPA for my first three years of college was a 2.5.
However, going into my senior year I contracted a pretty serious infection that completely derailed my life for a good nine months; throughout the course of this time, I was grossly misdiagnosed, dealt with ulcerations, chronic fatigue and malabsorption, nausea and vomiting, you name it. By the end of this period, my weight had dropped from 175 to 143 lbs, and I experienced a sharp regression from a life of steady fitness (I even worked as a personal trainer for two years in college, so optimal health has always been a focal point in my life) to being almost completely bed-ridden.
Despite the turbulent nine months I went through, I eventually received second opinions from some great doctors within the Cedars-Sinai and UCLA network, who really transformed my life, both from a physical standpoint as well as from a career one. Not only were they able to help me successfully recover and regain control of my health and life, the whole experience of collaborating with them on practically a weekly basis for months introduced me to the field of medicine in a way that I hadn't experienced before. I found myself constantly looking through research journals in the spirit of trying to do my best to optimize my health and get back on track, and also learned quite a bit through the many conversations that we had, which were quite stimulating. Needless to say, the experience was quite transformative. Over the course of my fourth year then, while I was still either ill or recovering, I began to think to myself that medicine was perhaps a much more suitable field for me, not only because I found the entire field to be incredibly fascinating, but also because of the first-hand empathy I gained from going through the experience I went through.
While I had lined up offers with different firms for post-graduation, I ultimately decided shortly before my commencement ceremony that I would try to instead dive all the way into the pre-medical route, and take a risk. As such, despite walking and having sufficient credits to officially receive my degree, I instead declared two minors (Chemistry and Natural Sciences) a couple weeks before the ceremony so as to ensure that I could sufficiently prepare myself for medical school. Beginning immediately that summer and over the course of the next tweleve months, I began to plow through my medical school prerequisities. On top of performing well in my courses, I also worked in research for one summer at UCLA, volunteered at numerous sites throughout the LA and SF areas, gathered quite a bit of hours shadowing physicians in both internal medicine and gastroenterology. Since I didn't do an official post-bacc, I've essentially just added on a fifth and sixth year of college to finish the minors and prerequisites.
My plan is to take the MCAT this upcoming May, which will be final semester of college, and also plan to apply in June. Thus far, here's a little breakdown of what my application would look like:
cPGA: 2.9
sGPA: 3.7
MCAT (as based on practice exams): 515
Physician shadowing hours: 50 (internal medicine), 50 (gastroenterology)
Research: one summer (3 months) at UCLA
Volunteering: 300+ in a variety of areas, including health and medicine as well as animal rescue
Five letters of recommendation (2 physicians, 2 science professors, 1 sociology professor)
I realize this post is rather lengthy, but I wanted to try my best to paint my story as best as I could. I would greatly appreciate any opinions and/or insights as to how best to maximize my application for this June, and would really appreciate any opinions on my chances for both M.D. programs (both in the U.S. and Caribbean), as well as D.O. programs. I realize that the cGPA is still low, but I'm hoping that two years of science courses (about 15 total), will be sufficient to prove that the ability is there.
Cheers.
