Advice for a particularly different case

[ggrant21]

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Hey everyone-I'm glad to see such a supportive and knowledgeable community exist. Well, if anyone has any advice I would appreciate it, I have a pretty long story to share:

I enrolled in a state school here right after High school where I continued to attend for 2.5 years taking intro bio, calc I etc. I made a few wrong decisions and ended up failing out at about the 2.5 year mark somehow achieving to fail Chem. 1 twice, and Chem 2 twice among a number of withdrawals.
--
Since then, I took two years off to support myself and returned to school. I'm 24 now at a city school earning a 3.85 gpa and am now taking Chem. I again as well as anatomy I.
--
My question is
1) What do you make of my situation?
2) Is there a shot in hell I can make it into medical school?
3) If yes, what would be the appropriate course given that I will graduate in a semester with only chem. I&2, physio. 1&2, and calc/intro bio that's about 4 years old.
-An addendum: Should I consider a post-bac year?


Thank you everyone for your time,

GG

 

[Knocked Up]

1) Enroll in an MCAT prep course

2) Take the MCAT

3) The MCAT is all that matters in medical school admissions

4) Come back and let us know how you did on the MCAT, the "chance me" thread will be of vital assistance at that point

 

[patineurMD]

1) Enroll in an MCAT prep course

Don't do this. Prep courses are a waste of time and money.

You need to get all of your prereqs met before you even touch the MCAT. Honestly, it sounds like you're going to need to take this year to finish your degree (2011-2012), the next year to finish your prereqs (2012-2013) , and the next year to take the MCAT and apply (2013-2014).

Here's what I would do (this is just my personal opinion):
Finish out this school year with good grades.
Take orgo 1&2, physics 1&2, and bio 2 the next year. See what kind of research/volunteering/shadowing you can get involved in both of these years.
Take the MCAT in May of 2013. You should be able to study well during that spring semester if all you're taking is orgo 2 and physics 2.
Submit AMCAS early June (you can get it verified by submitting to one school only if you want to wait until the MCAT scores come back).
Then you'll want to plan a year of "fun" while you're interviewing various places. That's where I am now and I have to tell you it's such a relief not to have any academic obligations to fulfill while writing secondaries and traveling to interviews.

Basically, if you want to go to med school and you are willing to work hard enough, yes, you can go to med school. Your 3.85 is great, so keep it up and I'm sure you'll do well. 👍

 

[sector9]

Hey everyone-I'm glad to see such a supportive and knowledgeable community exist. Well, if anyone has any advice I would appreciate it, I have a pretty long story to share:

I enrolled in a state school here right after High school where I continued to attend for 2.5 years taking intro bio, calc I etc. I made a few wrong decisions and ended up failing out at about the 2.5 year mark somehow achieving to fail Chem. 1 twice, and Chem 2 twice among a number of withdrawals.
--
Since then, I took two years off to support myself and returned to school. I'm 24 now at a city school earning a 3.85 gpa and am now taking Chem. I again as well as anatomy I.
--
My question is
1) What do you make of my situation?
2) Is there a shot in hell I can make it into medical school?
3) If yes, what would be the appropriate course given that I will graduate in a semester with only chem. I&2, physio. 1&2, and calc/intro bio that's about 4 years old.
-An addendum: Should I consider a post-bac year?


Thank you everyone for your time,

GG

1. If you can retake the classes that you failed and do well in them, then you will be a great candidate for osteopathic med school
2. Of course. DO schools have a grade forgiveness policy for your GPA where you can retake courses that have demonstrably similar course content and equal or great credit hours. MD schools don't have the same system (ALL grades are included in your GPA) but you still could have a chance at MD schools if you have a strong enough upward trend and prove yourself on the MCAT
3. You need to take the med school prereqs and complete all of them with a minimum of a C. At the very minimum, that means a year of bio with labs, a year of gen chem with labs, a year of ochem with labs, a year of physics with labs, a year of english. Some schools have additional requirements like upper level bio (some specify a course like genetics), biochem, humanities, etc. It sounds like you haven't completed all these courses so you need to do that, either before you graduate or as a postbacc
Addendum: Perhaps. See answer #3

Additionally, how are your ECs coming along? Some things we want to know about: medical/clinical volunteering, nonmedical volunteering, research, shadowing, teaching/tutoring, leadership

 

[FrkyBgStok]

You gotta finish the prereqs, no two ways about that. And it is awesome that you have a 3.8 gpa now, but that doesn't matter a whole lot. What really matters is your gpa including every class you have ever taken. What is that gpa? You said you failed out? How bad we talking? Figure out that gpa and let us know so we can give you accurate advice on how to proceed.

 

[aSagacious]

3) The MCAT is all that matters in medical school admissions

I would also ignore the above statement.

 

[LizzyM]

Flunking out is an "institutional action" which you will need to report on your application and which will get you an additional layer of review but I fear that so many Fs will give you such a horrible gpa that all the "upward trend" in the world will not make up for it.

I concur with the poster who recommended osteopathic schools. They take a more holistic approach to application review and they practice grade replacement so those Fs disappear when you retake a course.

Do not take the MCAT until you have prepped including many practice tests. You can not risk a bad score on top of your poor gpa.

 

[tiedyeddog]

1)
3) The MCAT is all that matters in medical school admissions

......no

 

[ggrant21]

First of all-

Guys i'm here because I NEED your advice and support. Navigating these waters are treacherous and I just would like some collective consensus. Obviously, taking the mcats given I haven't taken orgo sequence or physics sequence is silly. Or is it?
--
So...we all agree a post-bacc year would be appropriate? How else would I do it, i'm a fall semester senior who hasn't taken orgo or physics, and bio 1 sequence and calc I in almost 5 years?
--
So what's my plan? My spring semester is coming up and the classes under my belt are so far: anatomy II w/ lab, Chem 2 with chem. 1&2 lab. I'm thinking Calculus I but my school also offers orgo I and physics I in the Spring strangely.
--
Lastly if anyone has any post-bacc experience please share, I don't really care if its particularly relevant, but since it is an option i'd like whatever personal information I could glean.

Thanks again everyone! You're killing it.

 

[LizzyM]

First of all-

Guys i'm here because I NEED your advice and support. Navigating these waters are treacherous and I just would like some collective consensus. Obviously, taking the mcats given I haven't taken orgo sequence or physics sequence is silly. Or is it?
--
So...we all agree a post-bacc year would be appropriate? How else would I do it, i'm a fall semester senior who hasn't taken orgo or physics, and bio 1 sequence and calc I in almost 5 years?
--
So what's my plan? My spring semester is coming up and the classes under my belt are so far: anatomy II w/ lab, Chem 2 with chem. 1&2 lab. I'm thinking Calculus I but my school also offers orgo I and physics I in the Spring strangely.
--
Lastly if anyone has any post-bacc experience please share, I don't really care if its particularly relevant, but since it is an option i'd like whatever personal information I could glean.

Thanks again everyone! You're killing it.

Do not take the MCAT until you have taken all of the pre-reqs for medical school and you have prepped for several months with numerous practice tests. If you aren't scoring at least 27 on the practice tests, don't waste your time and money taking the MCAT. With your poor gpa you need a very high MCAT, plus excellent grades going forward, to have any credibility as an applicant.

The more courses you take in the future, the more credits you have to counterbalance the poor showing in courses taken in the past. You should also consider that a particularly heavy load of science classes in a single term could be too heavy and will sink your ship altogether. Thus, I would suggest taking not more than 2 pre-req courses in the coming term and to take whatever you need to graduate or some light courses to fill in (if you've otherwise taken all that is required to graduate). After you have graduated, take the remaining required courses as a post-bac student. This need not be in a formal post bac but could be one at a time in a community college or other night/weekend college program. I am not optimisitic but if you can discover what you were doing wrong that caused you to flunk in the past (time management issues, poor math skills, a learning disability, an undiagnosed illness, poor study strategies) and address those issues, then you might have a shot.

 

[Morsetlis]

First of all-

Guys i'm here because I NEED your advice and support. Navigating these waters are treacherous and I just would like some collective consensus. Obviously, taking the mcats given I haven't taken orgo sequence or physics sequence is silly. Or is it?
--
So...we all agree a post-bacc year would be appropriate? How else would I do it, i'm a fall semester senior who hasn't taken orgo or physics, and bio 1 sequence and calc I in almost 5 years?
--
So what's my plan? My spring semester is coming up and the classes under my belt are so far: anatomy II w/ lab, Chem 2 with chem. 1&2 lab. I'm thinking Calculus I but my school also offers orgo I and physics I in the Spring strangely.
--
Lastly if anyone has any post-bacc experience please share, I don't really care if its particularly relevant, but since it is an option i'd like whatever personal information I could glean.

Thanks again everyone! You're killing it.

If there were a foolproof collective consensus, we would all be in med school.

As it is, there are most reliable advices, and then there are advices, and then there are unreliable advices.

I'd trust the advice of the person with Advisor under their face.