Advice for a hopeful premed

[AyeMandaPanda]

Hello everyone,

I will start this off by stating that this post is actually quite nerve-wracking to make because it is opening me up to hear responses that might confirm the current level of anxiety that I am increasingly starting to feel as I get closer to finishing my degree.

If you are willing, I would greatly appreciate help from those here with more experience than myself in regards to advice/criticism/reality checks about my current pre-med stats. I will try not to be overly wordy so that I avoid walls of text for those that are not interested in hearing a long winded (likely heard a million times before) life story, but am more than happy to answer any questions that arise due to me not giving enough details.

I am an undergrad majoring in psychology that returned to school when I turned 24 after previously completing culinary school and becoming a chef. I graduated high school back in 2012 and needed to first attend community college since my old high school gpa was a 1.7 and I had not taken either the ACT nor the SAT. I attended the CC from 2019-2020 for my general education requirements to transfer and applied at my current university for fall 2020 classes. Since then, I have managed to produce the following stats in hopes to get into any medical school that will have me:

cGPA: 3.8
sGPA: 3.6
Includes: chem 1, chem 2, organic chem 1, organic chem 2, bio 1, bio 2, algebra, statistics, trigonometry (still planning to take biochemistry, physics 1&2, human A&P, and a few more science classes to hopefully boost this up)

MCAT:
not taken yet (I plan to study and take it next summer after I am done with school)

Shadowing:
not completed yet (I have plans to shadow this summer and next)

Research:

• 1 full year of research pertaining to cognitive psychology that I will continue until spring of next year (Fall 2021 - Spring 2023)
• 1 semester of research in another lab that is led by my organic chemistry 1&2 professor that I will continue to work in until spring 2023 as well
  • -with this one I am being listed as one of the authors on the paper being published regarding organometallic catalyst production. There will be between 1-3 papers published hopefully by the time I finish, and the overall goal/purpose of this research is alternative targeting methods to pneumonia treatment outside of antibiotics

Leadership Experiences:

• My school has a selective leadership program I was admitted to that oversees group projects related to volunteering at local community partner sites. In addition to this, students who continue to work within the program become leaders/instructors for new groups coming in as freshmen.
• Current remote employment as a director of sales in my families business while I attend school
• Previous work experience running pastry departments in kitchens as a pastry chef

Volunteer Experiences:

• Roughly a year volunteering with my local animal shelter every Saturday from 9am - 5pm (as well as adoption day events)
• Yearly volunteer with St. Jude's marathon fundraising run in the medical tent
• Volunteer with various city events around the holidays for underprivileged children in commonly high crime areas
• Volunteer work with my leadership program class which includes a new project that helps improve the site each semester (this one I built a 2 tier 16ft shelf for a Habitat for Humanity store that needed more space for example)

Likely Letters of Recommendations:

• My organic chemistry 1&2 professor that is also over our current research project
• The post-doc that I work with in that same chemistry lab
• The head of my cognitive psychology based research projects
• The head of my leadership program
  • I would also hope to get one from a future physician I shadow, but that is uncertain

As far as I can remember, that is a general summary of what I have done that might hopefully be interesting to medical school. There are likely more experiences with volunteer/leadership in mind, but I haven't gotten the time yet to sit down and sort them all out fully.

With all of that said, I am worried I do not have anything near where I need to be to have a decent chance at med school mainly due to my science gpa being only a 3.6 (not likely to change much) instead of close to my cumulative 3.8 (which will likely raise roughly .06-.08 with the last year of classes I take). Is this a legitimate worry for me to have, and if so, could getting a good MCAT (upper average looked for not necessarily amazing since I'm trying to be realistic in my capabilities) make up for it? Are there also any suggestions that you might have for me going forward regarding anything/everything I've mentioned so far? I have not gotten feedback before this point since my school does not have a great pre-med advisor and my family never graduated college, so I'm hoping that you lovely people could point the way with your advice.

I appreciate your time

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[voxveritatisetlucis]

Welcome to the forum.

If that is your real picture, I would advise changing it (better to be anonymous tbh)

Also nobody can really give chances without an MCAT score

Looking pretty good otherwise. Don’t let the sGPA fall anymore if possible.

 

[AyeMandaPanda]

Welcome to the forum.

If that is your real picture, I would advise changing it (better to be anonymous tbh)

Also nobody can really give chances without an MCAT score

Looking pretty good otherwise. Don’t let the sGPA fall anymore if possible.

Thank you for the welcome!
I understand about the lack of an MCAT score not really giving a lot to go off of yet since it would immediately ruin everything if it was low. I was mainly hoping to get more general advice about anything I might be seriously lacking that I was not privy to before. As for the sGPA, it should only go up if anything, but I do not expect it to be a lot with my time to take more sciences being only a year.

As for my picture, it is myself, but I did not think of too many issues with having it since I only plan to post vague details related to academic material. If I stop and consider it from someone's viewpoint with a more malicious goal though, I could see where that could cause problems. I appreciate the heads up and will change it once I'm home for the day.

 

[candbgirl]

Take down your picture. Annonimity is important.
Do you have any clinical experiences with the sick, injured or dying? You need 200+ hours of this activity. It can be paid or volunteer.
Shadowing is important. So be sure you get about 50 hours total and make sure you have some with a primary care doc.
Nonclinical volunteering focusing on the unserved/underserved in your community is important. Medicine is a service profession and you have to be very comfortable dealing with people very unlike yourself.
When do you plan to apply?
Take some time and read through the WAMC threads and see what others are doing or have done to build their applications. You only want to apply one time with the best, most competitive application possible.
Much will depend on your MCAT so don’t take it until you are ready. A good time is when you are consistently scoring at or above your target score on a series ofvFL practice tests.
Good luck.

 

[AyeMandaPanda]

Take down your picture. Annonimity is important.
Do you have any clinical experiences with the sick, injured or dying? You need 200+ hours of this activity. It can be paid or volunteer.
Shadowing is important. So be sure you get about 50 hours total and make sure you have some with a primary care doc.
Nonclinical volunteering focusing on the unserved/underserved in your community is important. Medicine is a service profession and you have to be very comfortable dealing with people very unlike yourself.
When do you plan to apply?
Take some time and read through the WAMC threads and see what others are doing or have done to build their applications. You only want to apply one time with the best, most competitive application possible.
Much will depend on your MCAT so don’t take it until you are ready. A good time is when you are consistently scoring at or above your target score on a series ofvFL practice tests.
Good luck.

Thanks for the detailed post. I will definitely be sure to account for these tips going forward (I just marked them down on my list that i use to keep me on track to my goal). I plan to apply at the beginning of the application cycle in 2024 after finishing up everything else this and next year. I do not have any clinical experience volunteering, only non-clinical at the moment that I plan to focus on increasing this fall. Would you count volunteering in an assisted living facility within the parameters of clinical experience? Because if so, then I'll choose one of the local facilities as my community partner to help in my leadership class.

I definitely did not plan to take the MCAT until I achieved stellar results on the practice exams, and even then I am terrified of it because there is so much riding on that performance being close to perfect. Would you recommend any particular company (or groups of them) to buy the prep materials from?

 

[chilly_md]

Moved to appropriate forum as OP is not seeking a school list and won’t apply this cycle.

You can look through the MCAT forums for suggestions on study plans.

 

[Lifeblood_20]

Hello! You sound like someone with real-world experiences outside of school and also improved very much in academics since high school. Would love to learn some cooking from you.

Your GPA is not "nowhere close enough for med school." Just make sure to check MSRA (Medical School Admission Requirements™ for Applicants) to make sure your GPA and MCAT (when you get a score) are within a reasonable range of that school's average. Preferably, 50-75% or better.

As a non-traditional student, you will be asked why you want to pursue medicine instead of continuing the path of culinary. This is where having some experience shadowing doctors or working in healthcare would help. Volunteering in an assisted living facility is a meaningful experience, but may not be the most clinical depending on where you work (is it a medical facility, or more of a nursing home? if it's the latter, you would be working with seniors who happen to live there, not exactly patients). I recommend finding volunteering positions or employment (medical scribe, assistant, etc) at a hospital or clinic near you.

If you haven't, also check out the forum for Nontraditional students:

Nontraditional Students

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