Considering career change to medicine

[vksince82]

I’m new to the board, but I’ve been reading some of the posts. I, like many here, am looking for a little advice on my chances for med-school. I’ve thought about being a doctor but have only recently considered it seriously. My freshmen year in college was terrible and I ended up transferring to another school close to home. I transferred with a 2.2 GPA after my freshmen year, but graduated with a Bachelor’s in Political Science with a 3.4 GPA, overall 3.1 GPA (including my transfer credits). Then I attended grad school and earned a Master’s in Urban Planning with a 3.76 GPA. I’ve been working as a professional transportation planner for the past two years.

I haven’t taken a science or math course in almost ten years. The only classes I took were the basic general courses like Biology for non-majors and Statistics which sadly I scored a C and B respectively. What are my chances and what advice would you offer a motivated non-traditional student with a not-so-great academic history? From what I’ve read so far on this forum I seem to be in the same boat as many other people, who’ve been told that they have a slim to decent chance. I guess in my case it would also depend on how well I do on the prereqs.

I was particularly inspired by a thread about low GPA success stories.

Thanks

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[Nasrudin]

I’m new to the board, but I’ve been reading some of the posts. I, like many here, am looking for a little advice on my chances for med-school. I’ve thought about being a doctor but have only recently considered it seriously. My freshmen year in college was terrible and I ended up transferring to another school close to home. I transferred with a 2.2 GPA after my freshmen year, but graduated with a Bachelor’s in Political Science with a 3.4 GPA, overall 3.1 GPA (including my transfer credits). Then I attended grad school and earned a Master’s in Urban Planning with a 3.76 GPA. I’ve been working as a professional transportation planner for the past two years.

I haven’t taken a science or math course in almost ten years. The only classes I took were the basic general courses like Biology for non-majors and Statistics which sadly I scored a C and B respectively. What are my chances and what advice would you offer a motivated non-traditional student with a not-so-great academic history? From what I’ve read so far on this forum I seem to be in the same boat as many other people, who’ve been told that they have a slim to decent chance. I guess in my case it would also depend on how well I do on the prereqs.

I was particularly inspired by a thread about low GPA success stories.

Thanks

2 separate considerations. Motivation. And Strategery.

Motivation. Thing is I used to hate doom and gloom attempt to de-motivate me. But at my age considering the money involved. Being 40 something and close to half a million in the whole with bankers rubbing their palms at my interest...well, de-motivational posters...there's something perfectly sane about them. What sort of nags at me. Is that they may have more common sense than me.

Regardless. Common sense aside. Here I go. But. You betta believe I'm re-evaluating my contented notion at a career in primary care. And that's important b/c it really should not be attempted unless you think you'd be happy in the lower paying fields given the costs of the venture and the uncertainty of out performing other nerds on the field of dork-battle.

In short. Read some things about the darker side of this game. This dissatisfaction is real. Patients are whiney and unappreciative. There's no respect. You'll be tired as f@ck. I'm really not sure if I believe in the efficacy of the whole project--medicine. But the environment is still interesting to me. And I'm looking forward to learning and being tight with my comrades. Anyway. This kind of thing sounds better coming from people with street creds. I'm kind of coming off Federline. So on to the next item.

Strategicals. This much I can help with. I've pulled it off successfully despite woeful prognostications to the contrary. Albeit not by much and not w/o some luck.

If. <!. You get all A's in your prereq's and take some other health and cience classes to fluff up your new gpa. And you score well on the MCAT. And you garner some good clinical experiences replete with good letters on your behalf. Sucks to play the game of making all new connections part of your masterplan. But play or be played. It's that simple. To use a Katt Williamsism. You pimp or be pimped. And you need to pimp as many phd and md ho's as you can in the next 2 years. Yeah volunteer. Do it to polish your soul or do it to check the box. Just make sure its another one of your ho's and the result is the same. The MCAT will be your highest price ho. the one that will really turn you some bank. So spend a lot of your game on it.

You do that. Like a cold-blooded pimp. And you'll come out on top.

And I'm not just being cheeky with using the Katt Williams methodology. I'm saying like that because there's just way too much b@ll**** in between you and your goal to be wasting any of your precious mental energy. It's cold blooded and fake the things they make us do to out peacock the competition. So treat it like it treats you. And whoop that trick!

 

[J ROD]

Take all the prereqs first and get all A's...and start volunteering with patient contact....

 

[sgtbrushes]

2 separate considerations. Motivation. And Strategery.

Your 3.1 cumulative undergrad GPA will hurt you and be difficult to bring up. Your GPA in grad school won't affect your undergrad GPA at all. Just some quick math; if you get a 4.0 in an additional 120 credits, your cumulative GPA will be 3.55. So... three years of school minimum to get to a 3.55. It's doable, but it is a long road.

Also,

Take all the prereqs first and get all A's...and start volunteering with patient contact....

If you do this and rock the MCAT, you may have a chance for Osteopathic schools.

 

[icalz]

I’m new to the board, but I’ve been reading some of the posts. I, like many here, am looking for a little advice on my chances for med-school. I’ve thought about being a doctor but have only recently considered it seriously. My freshmen year in college was terrible and I ended up transferring to another school close to home. I transferred with a 2.2 GPA after my freshmen year, but graduated with a Bachelor’s in Political Science with a 3.4 GPA, overall 3.1 GPA (including my transfer credits). Then I attended grad school and earned a Master’s in Urban Planning with a 3.76 GPA. I’ve been working as a professional transportation planner for the past two years.

I haven’t taken a science or math course in almost ten years. The only classes I took were the basic general courses like Biology for non-majors and Statistics which sadly I scored a C and B respectively. What are my chances and what advice would you offer a motivated non-traditional student with a not-so-great academic history? From what I’ve read so far on this forum I seem to be in the same boat as many other people, who’ve been told that they have a slim to decent chance. I guess in my case it would also depend on how well I do on the prereqs.

I was particularly inspired by a thread about low GPA success stories.

Thanks

Your chances are actually very good IF you take those pre-req's as stated before and ace them (a couple of B's won't hurt, but try for all A's), and then get +30 on your mcat.

The reason I say your chances are very good is because your undergrad gpa can be easily dismissed since you didn't have any intentions of becoming a doctor, and doing well on your pre-reqs now will answer any questions as to your intellectual capacity. Some schools are known for being very friendly towards non-traditional applicants. Go for it....don't give up.

 

[ArkansasRanger]

Your chances are actually very good IF you take those pre-req's as stated before and ace them (a couple of B's won't hurt, but try for all A's), and then get +30 on your mcat.

The reason I say your chances are very good is because your undergrad gpa can be easily dismissed since you didn't have any intentions of becoming a doctor, and doing well on your pre-reqs now will answer any questions as to your intellectual capacity. Some schools are known for being very friendly towards non-traditional applicants. Go for it....don't give up.

I think your logic is much more realistic. Plenty of people went to college and at some point didn't care what their grades were. I graduated with a 3.4something and could've cared less at the time if it were higher or lower. I'm sure many share that sentiment.