36 years old, What are my chances?

[nrs2doc]

At 35 years old, I had a renewed passion to go back to school to complete my undergraduate and pursue my dream to be a doctor. My plan was to complete prerequisites and some upper level bio classes. As a returning student, so far I have 4.0 GPA in the last 30 credits, but my overall sGPA and cGPA is not as high. I plan to take MCAT next year May and by then my GPA will be higher (with additional 30 credits). When I apply to medical school next year, I would have over 60 credits with 4.0 GPA.
My questions are; do I still need to apply to a post bacc program or should I just focus on crushing the MCAT and hope the ADCOMS are going to notice my upward trend in GPA and see my dedication to med school?

As a side note: I have worked as a nurse tech and home health aide, I have over 1000 volunteering hours (clinical and non-clinical), shadowed 3 doctors so far, co-leader of girls scout troops and will be starting research this fall semester. I've also owned a successful business for over 7 years.

My story is below if it helps with understanding my situation. Thank you.

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[nrs2doc]

^^^

 

[Shinken]

Go ahead and apply, only then will you know if you can get into medical school. If you don't apply then your chances are 0%.

I too was a nontraditional ("older") applicant, with a less-than-stellar undergrad record, since I was not expecting to apply to med school after college. After a successful, but unfulfilling, career after college, I decided to take some pre-reqs and apply to medical school. Never regretted the decision.

It will be challenging, but if this is what you want to do it will be worth it. Just do the MCAT and apply broadly, particularly your state med schools. Also apply to DO schools, which tend to look at the complete applicant instead of just numbers. Good luck and congrats on your decision to go to med school! If you want me to critique your personal essay for your application then PM me, I've read hundreds of those and can probably tell you what is silly and what is not.

If you do fail first time around, then consider a post-bacc program, but given your life experience and your upward GPA trend, your chances are pretty decent if you do well on the MCAT.

 

[workaholic181]

At 35 years old, I had a renewed passion to go back to school and complete my undergraduate and pursue my dream to be a doctor. My plan was to retake the classes I got Cs, prerequisites and some upper level bio classes. As a returning student, so far I have 4.0 GPA in the last 30 credits, but my overall sGPA and cGPA is about 3.0. I plan to take MCAT next year May and by then my GPA will be 3.2 (with additional 30 credits). When I apply to medical school next year, I would have over 60 credits with 4.0 GPA.
My questions are; do I still need to apply to a post bacc program or should I just focus on crushing the MCAT and hope the ADCOMS are going to notice my upward trend in GPA and see my dedication to med school? Will they overlook all the 10Ws (in my younger years), dropping out of college twice due to financial issues and finally graduating 18 years later?

As a side note: I worked as a nurse tech and home health aide for 2 years (12 years ago), I have over 1000 volunteering hours (clinical and non-clinical), shadowed 3 doctors so far, co-leader of girls scout troops and will be starting research this fall semester. I've also owned a successful business for over 7 years.

My story is below if it helps with understanding my situation. Thank you.

It's all about showing how the student you were is not the student you are now. 60 credits of 4.0, a decade after your past discrepancies in grades, shows that. So no, you do not have to restrict yourself to post baccs, you could be competitive for school now pending MCAT.

The other poster is right, apply to DO schools too. A physician is a physician, and DOs are increasingly matching more "specialized" residency programs. There are also MD schools that reward reinvention, as you've accomplished. It all depends at this point on the MCAT.

Good luck OP!

 

[SpoiledMilk]

@gonnif @Goro

 

[Goro]

At 35 years old, I had a renewed passion to go back to school and complete my undergraduate and pursue my dream to be a doctor. My plan was to retake the classes I got Cs, prerequisites and some upper level bio classes. As a returning student, so far I have 4.0 GPA in the last 30 credits, but my overall sGPA and cGPA is about 3.0. I plan to take MCAT next year May and by then my GPA will be 3.2 (with additional 30 credits). When I apply to medical school next year, I would have over 60 credits with 4.0 GPA.
My questions are; do I still need to apply to a post bacc program or should I just focus on crushing the MCAT and hope the ADCOMS are going to notice my upward trend in GPA and see my dedication to med school? Will they overlook all the 10Ws (in my younger years), dropping out of college twice due to financial issues and finally graduating 18 years later?

As a side note: I worked as a nurse tech and home health aide for 2 years (12 years ago), I have over 1000 volunteering hours (clinical and non-clinical), shadowed 3 doctors so far, co-leader of girls scout troops and will be starting research this fall semester. I've also owned a successful business for over 7 years.

My story is below if it helps with understanding my situation. Thank you.

A 4.0 in the last 30 credits should be enough to convince Adcoms that you can hack med school, but you'll need an MCAT of 513+ for MD, ~501+ for your state schools, and ~508+ for DO.

 

[esob]

Even with that many hrs of straight A's, you will likely get autoscreened out for MD. DO is a much better prospect but if you apply to MD, apply broadly. Last check that median GPA for MD matriculants was ~ 3.7 so you are a ways off even with the new winning streak. You would have been a great candidate for academic fresh start

 

[aformerstudent]

Med school admissions and then success after that comes down to numbers. Proceed accordingly based on that.

Nobody really cares about anything else even if they make it seem like they do.

At 35 years, you should be especially concerned about the financial burden this will put on you should you go through and even successfully matriculate.

 

[Blanky]

You have a 3.0 without any grade replacements from retakes? In either case you are doing good.

 

[Froggy25]

It is definitely possible to get into multiple M.D. schools with your GPA situation if you have a genuine journey and a decent MCAT. Gotta crush that MCAT though, first time.

 

[nrs2doc]

Go ahead and apply, only then will you know if you can get into medical school. If you don't apply then your chances are 0%.

I too was a nontraditional ("older") applicant, with a less-than-stellar undergrad record, since I was not expecting to apply to med school after college. After a successful, but unfulfilling, career after college, I decided to take some pre-reqs and apply to medical school. Never regretted the decision.

It will be challenging, but if this is what you want to do it will be worth it. Just do the MCAT and apply broadly, particularly your state med schools. Also apply to DO schools, which tend to look at the complete applicant instead of just numbers. Good luck and congrats on your decision to go to med school! If you want me to critique your personal essay for your application then PM me, I've read hundreds of those and can probably tell you what is silly and what is not.

If you do fail first time around, then consider a post-bacc program, but given your life experience and your upward GPA trend, your chances are pretty decent if you do well on the MCAT.

It's good to hear stories from other nontraditional student like yourself who overcame the odds and made it to med school. I will definitely apply to all the MD/DO schools in my state and others. Thanks for the offer to critique my personal statement. I have already put together a first draft, but it still needs a lot of tweaking. I have to figure out a way to summarize the different aspects of my life into 5300+ characters which is challenging for me at the moment.

 

[nrs2doc]

It's all about showing how the student you were is not the student you are now. 60 credits of 4.0, a decade after your past discrepancies in grades, shows that. So no, you do not have to restrict yourself to post baccs, you could be competitive for school now pending MCAT.

The other poster is right, apply to DO schools too. A physician is a physician, and DOs are increasingly matching more "specialized" residency programs. There are also MD schools that reward reinvention, as you've accomplished. It all depends at this point on the MCAT.

Good luck OP!

Thank you for your encouraging words. I purchased TBR, TPR and Exam crackers and have started reviewing and getting a feel with the practice questions. I feel like that is the highest mountain i have to climb, and I plan to crush it.

 

[el_duderino]

I was in a pretty similar situation. I crushed the MCAT, then got two MD interviews and one acceptance. One tip I would give you is to apply very broadly to both MD and DO.

 

[nrs2doc]

Even with that many hrs of straight A's, you will likely get autoscreened out for MD. DO is a much better prospect but if you apply to MD, apply broadly. Last check that median GPA for MD matriculants was ~ 3.7 so you are a ways off even with the new winning streak. You would have been a great candidate for academic fresh start

You are right about possibly getting auto-screened out based on GPA alone, but like you advised, I will apply broadly. Though I really hope I can get into a med school in my state so i don't have to take my family through additional stresses, but they are very supportive either way.

 

[el_duderino]

How much will this affect me?

 

[nrs2doc]

At 35 years, you should be especially concerned about the financial burden this will put on you should you go through and even successfully matriculate.

I agree. I am very aware of financial burdens and have a great plan to pay off all loans with cash flowing realestate income and residency income. So basically, if all goes as planned I will be debt free before becoming an Attending Physician.

 

[nrs2doc]

I was in a pretty similar situation. I crushed the MCAT, then got two MD interviews and one acceptance. One tip I would give you is to apply very broadly to both MD and DO.

Congratulations! I enjoyed reading about your progress. I hope I have an acceptance story similar to yours in a year.