Advice needed: Should I go to UPenn or NIH?

[JaeTare]

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Hi Everyone,

I am new to this forum and I would appreciate your advice:

I am currently a senior at a top five ranked university and I will be graduating in a few weeks. My undergraduate majors are Spanish and Psychology, and my cumulative GPA is 3.72. I've taken 2 easy biology courses and 4-5 upper-level biology electives that I found interesting but I never attempted or completed any pre-medical courses.

A year ago, my goal was to become a research-oriented clinical psychologist. Thus, I applied to the postbac IRTA at the National Institutes of Health (https://www.training.nih.gov/programs/postbac_irta). They took forever--months--to get back to me, so I thought I was rejected. However, I was surprised to learn recently that I had been accepted and they want me to start around 8/1.

Meanwhile, while I was waiting to hear back from the NIH, I had come to believe (for many reasons; PM me if you want to know) that medical school would a better fit for me. I applied to the Penn postbac program and had a phone interview last Wednesday. The interviewer asked me what I would do if I weren't accepted and I told her honestly that I'd probably work for 1-2 years at the NIH.

The interview, in turn, was honest with me and encouraged me to take the NIH position and then come to Penn to do the postbac.

I got my official Penn postbac acceptance a few days ago. Now I am truly confused about what to do. I've always been a rather indecisive person.

Should I go work at NIH and then do the Penn postbac?

Or should I turn down NIH and do the Penn postbac right away?

Or should I forget about Penn and try to take pre-medical classes on my own while I work at NIH?

Thank you,

JaeTare

 

[thlaxer]

Hi Everyone,

I am new to this forum and I would appreciate your advice:

I am currently a senior at a top five ranked university and I will be graduating in a few weeks. My undergraduate majors are Spanish and Psychology, and my cumulative GPA is 3.72. I've taken 2 easy biology courses and 4-5 upper-level biology electives that I found interesting but I never attempted or completed any pre-medical courses.

A year ago, my goal was to become a research-oriented clinical psychologist. Thus, I applied to the postbac IRTA at the National Institutes of Health (https://www.training.nih.gov/programs/postbac_irta). They took forever--months--to get back to me, so I thought I was rejected. However, I was surprised to learn recently that I had been accepted and they want me to start around 8/1.

Meanwhile, while I was waiting to hear back from the NIH, I had come to believe (for many reasons; PM me if you want to know) that medical school would a better fit for me. I applied to the Penn postbac program and had a phone interview last Wednesday. The interviewer asked me what I would do if I weren't accepted and I told her honestly that I'd probably work for 1-2 years at the NIH.

The interview, in turn, was honest with me and encouraged me to take the NIH position and then come to Penn to do the postbac.

I got my official Penn postbac acceptance a few days ago. Now I am truly confused about what to do. I've always been a rather indecisive person.

Should I go work at NIH and then do the Penn postbac?

Or should I turn down NIH and do the Penn postbac right away?

Or should I forget about Penn and try to take pre-medical classes on my own while I work at NIH?

Thank you,

JaeTare

From your post, it seems that you're currently leaning more towards becoming a doctor rather than a research-oriented clinical psychologist. Are you convinced that medical school is what you want to pursue? If so, I would either go with Option #2 or 3. It doesn't make much sense imo to do option #1 since either way you will have plenty of research opportunities for you to pursue (at Penn or at the NIH). You will go into medical school with less research training by doing #2 or #3, but it's not uncommon at all for med students to take a year off for research, so you can always "make up" for this later on if you want to.

Personally, I would choose #2 (Penn) over #3 (NIH). The NIH opportunity sounds very neat; however, it is a full-time commitment. It might be hard to juggle this job while also getting good grades in your pre-reqs (and getting good grades should be your chief concern if you are serious about getting into a medical school!). At Penn, you'll at least have the option of doing part-time or no research if you find that you're struggling in a particular class, whereas this doesn't seem like an option at the NIH 'post-bac' plan. Just my thoughts.

 

[HopesandDreams]

forget about Penn and try to take pre-medical classes on my own while I work at NIH?[/U]

JaeTare

this. you only need a handful of classes... with a little bit of hustle and utilizing summer sessions you could fulfill your pre-reqs and get paid 30k instead of paying 20k or something to do it at penn.

 

[deleted248403]

this. you only need a handful of classes... with a little bit of hustle and utilizing summer sessions you could fulfill your pre-reqs and get paid 30k instead of paying 20k or something to do it at penn.

+1 unless you want to link, and then Penn is worth it.

If you dont want to link, take the NIH job and take classes at a good 4-year university (not a CC)

 

[JaeTare]

Thank you everyone. I really appreciate your thoughts on this.