A stellar GPA, excellent MCAT score, clinical experience and more does not guarantee a smooth application process. I'm writing this for those who are career changers and are passionate about entering medicine to give an idea of what to look for in a school. Switching careers is hard, the investment in postbacc is a minimum of around $7,000, and at least one year of being a full time student and MCAT prep is required. Application fees and travel can get as high as $5,000-$7,000 if one completes interviews at approx. 20 schools (probably won't happen, but its a maximum). To apply to schools that weed based upon insignificant criteria that a postbacc has no control over is a waste of a postbacc/career changer's time. Three schools wasted my time and about $90 of application fees are in the gutter, but if a secondary was completed for these schools then ~$400 would have been wasted.
Some background information about me:
29M
Previous career in aerospace (~5 years)
BS Mathematics
Overall GPA ~3.7, BPMC GPA ~3.8
MCAT 38Q
Clinical Experience in an Emergency Room
Extracurriculars During Undergraduate Education (Student Gov't, Student Spirit/Athletics Booster, Academic Clubs, Honor Societies, etc).
Currently in a postbacc program for career changers, but my gen chem was completed the summer prior to postbacc at a 2 year college because of scheduling issues.
I applied to the following schools with the following current statuses:
Albany -> Awaiting LOR Confirmation
Albert Einstein -> App Complete
Boston U -> Withdrawn / Community College Unfriendly
Brown -> Secondary in Progress
Cornell -> App Complete
Columbia -> App Complete
Dartmouth -> App Complete
Harvard -> App Complete
J. Hopkins -> App complete
Mayo -> Phone Interview Complete, Awaiting On-Site Interview Decision
Mt. Sinai -> App Complete
NY Med College -> Withdrawn / Postbacc & Career Changer Unfriendly
NYU -> App Complete
U Rochester -> App Complete
Stanford -> Awaiting LOR Confirmation
U Vermont -> Awaiting LOR Confirmation
UC Davis -> Withdrawn / Generally Unfriendly
UCI -> App Complete
UCLA -> App Complete
UCSD -> Interview Scheduled
UCSF -> Letter sent starting "Unfortunately..."
Yale -> App Complete
Boston University classifies prerequs based upon institution attended. Institutions are classified as "Preferred" or "Non-Preferred." It is made tremendously clear that 2 year university work is looked down upon no matter the information learned, quality of institution or MCAT score.
NY Med College requires a LOR from a prof. in my major. For a postbacc career changer, this requires going back several years (for me 6) and finding someone located 300 miles away who taught me in my major that is willing to write a letter. Such a letter would be worthless since the person doesn't know me anymore. "I had so and so in Advanced Calculus during 2000 and he got a B+" isn't a good letter of recommendation.
UC Davis asks about activities, but only allows for one activity per section that the applicant specifies. Other activities are pre-filled with things such as Boy Scouts, Red Cross, American Cancer Society, etc. For most people this translates into a secondary application that is mostly blank. Essays are required based upon the indicated activities. For someone with a mostly blank activity list of those that UC Davis pre-specifies the essays are a total bust since there is nothing to write about.
If I were to do it over again, I would have also applied to DO schools. Because of the later deadline for primary applications I might still do this, but I'm now at a disadvantage because of rolling admissions (I'm late to asking a date to the dance). Although the average MCAT and GPA are lower, DO schools are career changer friendly with 25% of enrollment consisting of the non-traditional student. Acceptances for DO schools are also earlier and with interviews granted to the seriously considered applicants.
The weakness in my application is the lack of life science research/publications. This is true of almost any career changer/postbacc because one to two years isn't enough time to be accepted into a research laboratory and publish (unless one is very, very, tremendously, super, double-plus lucky). My impression is that DO schools are more interested in a passionate person and less interested if you are named in a publication for washing glassware.
Good luck! UAB is a great school.
