Advice

[nims1901]

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I’m going to keep some of the details out of this for personal reasons….
Growing up my family was on welfare and both my parents could not hold a job because of their drug and alcohol addictions. My father left when I was 5 and I never heard from him since. Shortly after, my mother and I were homeless during my high school years. My senior year I was unable to finish because I was forced to get a fulltime job to support myself. The school gave me an option to repeat my senior year or take the GED. I chose to take the GED
After I completed my GED I enrolled into community school and left home because in that environment I saw myself going no where. I worked full time during my first two years of community college and maintained a 3.2 average.
After I completed those two years I applied to a local 4 year university where I am currently graduating in May with a B.S in Business with a minor in Biology. I have maintained a cumulative GPA of 3.3 and have scored 1120 on the GRE’s. I applied to a well known post bac where I am going to finish taking the rest of the prereqs.
I honestly do not regret anything that has happened to me. In fact, without these experiences I don’t think I would have the drive to apply to medical school. I have volunteered at an E.R, Surgical Clinic, as well as 2 years of non-science related research at my university. I am also president of nationally known Management club at my school. I have an amazing letter of recommendation from an MD who vividly illustrates my past experience. He and I have become so close that he let me spend one summer at his house with his family.
I really do not want any pity from the admissions department at all. I’ve read the forum about “disadvantaged students” but I am very wary of applying under that criteria. My questions are:
1) Would my GED and community college classes affect me even though I have a Bachelors degree and a relatively high GPA?
2) Should I apply as disadvantaged or just write about my experiences in my personal statement?
Thanks for all your answers in advance, I tried to keep it relatively brief.

 

[pamolive]

If I were you I would definitely apply as disadvantaged. I understand you wanting to rise above it, and not get pity/be made an exception because of it. But, this is such a competative process. You should use every advantage that you can. One thing that I've realized from going through this is that you really need to take advantage of everything that you can. Applying as a disadvantaged student will give you a better shot at a lot of schools, and I definitely think that makes it worth it. You have a lot of life experience, so I think you'll get in no problem. Good luck!

 

[RoyalFB]

1) I do not think that anything before your B.S. would negatively impact your application 👍

2) If you "qualify" for disadvantaged status then apply as such. It will not make the adcoms pity you, but it will help to explain any questions about your application. i.e. you worked full-time to support yourself, not because you are an idiot who wanted $$ to buy a car stereo instead of studying. Good luck!

 

[Nitty452]

disadvantaged status? forum about “disadvantaged students” you mean underrepersented??

This helps in the admission process?!?

 

[t-funk]

1) I highly doubt your GPA or taking community college classes will affect much if anything. Even if they did, there is nothing you can do about it now.

2) Are you planning on applying DO? I can't seem to remember if AACOMAS had a disadvantaged section but I know AMCAS did. I was also planning on applying disadvantaged but changed my mind when filling out the application due to the fact that they wanted a lot of justification and I felt better just writing about the stuff in my PS than justifying everything. I could have easily justified it, it just felt weird. From what I've heard, it depends a lot on the school whether they pay a lot of attention to disadvantaged status or not. I don't think it can hurt you, but I'm not quite sure how much it helps. Personally, I think the PS is a much more effective tool. It's up to you though.

 

[littlealex]

Yes applying as disadvantaged helps in the process. School is a lot harder when you have to work two jobs to get by.

To answer the OP: nothing in high school matters. Many of the smartest people never graduated high school (left early to goto college) and end up at amazing places.
You definitely qualify as disadvantaged, so apply as such. It's not about pity, the status exists in hopes of making the selection process more fair.

Your GPA is a little low though. Make sure to do well at your PostBac program to pull up that GPA.

 

[nims1901]

Yes, I'm applying to just D.O schools with the exception of St. Georges because my friend that is the MD Anesthesiologist is an Alum there. My BCMP is 3.1 but I'm still missing a few of the requirements. And I know it doesn't matter but I never took any breaks in college and graduated in 3.5 years, i'm only 21.

 

[prionsRbad]

disadvantaged status? forum about "disadvantaged students" you mean underrepersented??

This helps in the admission process?!?

Yes, it's called being disadvantaged. If your circumstances qualify you as disadvantaged, it can help you during the application process.

For example: My friend legally emancipated herself from her mother at age 16 (Mom was a drug addict and living in and out of shelters). She adopted her little sister, got her GED and went to community college. She didn't have the best grades because she was taking care of her little sister, working full time and going to school part time. She qualified for disadvantaged status and she damn well deserved it.

OP, if you qualify as disadvantaged then go for it. I don't think the GED and attending a community college will be looked at in a negative light.

Best of luck with everything! 🙂

 

[nims1901]

Yes, it's called being disadvantaged. If your circumstances qualify you as disadvantaged, it can help you during the application process.

For example: My friend legally emancipated herself from her mother at age 16 (Mom was a drug addict and living in and out of shelters). She adopted her little sister, got her GED and went to community college. She didn't have the best grades because she was taking care of her little sister, working full time and going to school part time. She qualified for disadvantaged status and she damn well deserved it.

Its so unfortunate, I wish it upon no one. What led me to medicine was the ability to help people in similar. Regardless of my situation i felt obligated to return the favor to society to those who have helped me in the past. If I get in I want to do Doctors without Borders.
In community college I lived in my truck and random peoples homes because i paid my tuition before getting an apartment. Seems dumb I know but I felt like I had to.

 

[t-funk]

Its so unfortunate, I wish it upon no one. What led me to medicine was the ability to help people in similar. Regardless of my situation i felt obligated to return the favor to society to those who have helped me in the past. If I get in I want to do Doctors without Borders.
In community college I lived in my truck and random peoples homes because i paid my tuition before getting an apartment. Seems dumb I know but I felt like I had to.

For similar reasons, I have always thought that I wanted to do addiction medicine, maybe have a methadone clinic. But there are so many psychiatric drugs I think I would have a problem prescribing people, philisophically. I don't know, we'll have to see.

My birth father was in the penn (I told one so-called friend this when I was 12 and she never talked to me again so I don't talk about this much.) until I was 15 due to behavior related to drug use and my step father was also on drugs throughout my childhood. I knew exactly where to find the cocaine (and hash) in my house and knew when to get away just by looking at him. He made a lot of money though and then they would find out and he would get fired over and over again. I went from steaks to thrift store over and over again my entire childhood. My mother was bipolar and ended up going to the mental hospital due to a bad manic episode when I was 16 which left me basically alone from then on. She made a lot of money too and I had a really great education so it just made it really hard for me to justify everything.

I get so excited when I hear of other people entering medicine who have had similar experiences because it is so uncommon. One of my best friend's moms died of a DO when we were 16 and she didn't even finish high school. Good luck. We need more people with experiences like yours in medicine IMHO.

 

[tkim]

One of my best friend's moms died of a DO when we were 16 and she didn't even finish high school.

I know what you meant, but it's 'OD' - overdose. I would hate to think that a DO had anything to to do with anything bad that happened. 🙂

 

[t-funk]

I know what you meant, but it's 'OD' - overdose. I would hate to think that a DO had anything to to do with anything bad that happened. 🙂

Oops. Not DO, OD. 😀

 

[tkim]

Oops. Not DO, OD. 😀

Yeah, it's much better to blame unwanted outcomes on the optometrists ... 😀