Do I still have a chance?

[Ieatants32]

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Hi, so I want to know if I still have a decent shot at being admitted into an MD program?

Here is a little background information about me. I graduated from college in June 2014 and had an initial goal of becoming a pharmacist because my parents had always pushed me towards it. At the beginning, I thought it was an interesting field. However, during 2015, I began reading a plethora of books about medicine and had to deal with a friend undergoing chemotherapy; it was during this time that I began appreciating medicine and its impact on humanity. Therefore, it seemed natural to me to make the switch to medicine.

Fast-forward to 2016, I am starting to have a lot of self doubt about my career path. First, my amcas gpa is 3.23. My first three years in college were poor due to a lack of motivation and self-discipline. It was not until halfway in my junior year of college did I regain discipline and showed a great upward trend in my gpa. I had to retake a couple (2-3) of classes but finished with A's in all of them. Secondly, I had a huge phobia with driving, and as a result I couldn't drive myself to various extracurricular activities during my collegiate years. Luckily for me, I overcame that phobia during mid 2015 by going through various therapy sessions. Yes, I know it was stupid not to bring up this issue earlier to a therapist during my collegiate years, but I was quite embarrassed with this phobia.

Currently, I am volunteering at a hospital in their health scholar program, shadowing a doctor, studying for my MCAT, and applying for local scribe jobs. My goal is to spend 2016-2017 beefing up my extra-curricular activities. Afterwards, I hope to attend a post-bacc program by the end of 2017 before applying for medical school.

 

[Cookiess]

Sounds like you're on the right path. With what you wrote, you'll be improving your GPA through a post-bacc program and also gaining clinical experience through the hospital volunteer program, shadowing, and your scribe job. I would add in some non-medical volunteering as well as some leadership. For MD programs, you'll need to raise your science GPA to the 3.4-3.5 range and do well on the MCAT.

If you ever feel discouraged, think back to the reasons why you want to pursue a career in medicine to begin with, like your experience with your friend going through treatment. You'll be fine as long as you are able to strengthen your academics.

 

[Ieatants32]

Sounds like you're on the right path. With what you wrote, you'll be improving your GPA through a post-bacc program and also gaining clinical experience through the hospital volunteer program, shadowing, and your scribe job. I would add in some non-medical volunteering as well as some leadership. For MD programs, you'll need to raise your science GPA to the 3.4-3.5 range and do well on the MCAT.

If you ever feel discouraged, think back to the reasons why you want to pursue a career in medicine to begin with, like your experience with your friend going through treatment. You'll be fine as long as you are able to strengthen your academics.

Thank you for the advice. The gpa issue is hard to work around; I have faith that I can build my gpa up, but I am really afraid of explaining why my gpa was so low early on in undergrad. It's a mental hurdle for me since I don't know how to explain my situation to adcom properly without sounding overly repetitive.

 

[Cookiess]

Thank you for the advice. The gpa issue is hard to work around; I have faith that I can build my gpa up, but I am really afraid of explaining why my gpa was so low early on in undergrad. It's a mental hurdle for me since I don't know how to explain my situation to adcom properly without sounding overly repetitive.

If you do well in science post-bac classes (particularly upper division 4-year university level classes), you will demonstrate that you can handle rigorous science classes and I think med schools will be more accommodating of your struggles early on in undergrad because they will see that you have a strong upward trend in your science GPA.