Eeek! What next?: Yet another non-trad needing advice!

[joliebloo]

Background:

I'm a 27 y/o female who has her BS in Nursing. I currently work in an ICU in a Level 1 trauma center. Additionally, I currently have 6 years experience as a paramedic working for a 911 service. I started out honors/pre-med at a school I chose for their 98% acceptance rate into med school. However, I was a student athlete. At the end of my freshman year I decided to transfer due to not being happy with my choice of school. The sports team I had joined was not very focused, my body was suffering, and I had the typical freshman maturity issues. All this was paired with my parent's divorce during this already difficult transition. Additionally, removing my sport from the equation, I no longer had an identitiy. In what I call my pre-life crisis I moved cross-country and when signing up for classes saw that EMT classes were offerred. My dad had been involved in rescue. On a whim I decided that if I wanted to be an EMT it was a now or never type thing. I signed up and loved it! That is how I ended up as a paramedic. When I became a paramedic I continued attending school but took many random classes (think guitar-I still can't play). Basically, I had no direction. I still wanted to go to med school but coming from a family with an engineering/education background, I had no guidance. (One of the ER docs once asked me what I was going to school for and I told him that I was studying to be well-rounded and poor) With my life-clock ticking I knew I needed to buckle down and do something, so what more logical next step for a paramedic than nursing? I have always been fascinated by flight nursing. So I went straight through a BSN program and managed to graduate cum laude, honors society, etc. Flight nursing is my current plan if the med school thing doesn't go.

I still found that I wasn't happy. I want to be a physician. I feel incomplete. It feels like there's this wall I can't get past. I feel a gap educationally. I work in a teaching hospital and it kills me that I'm not having the same experience educationally as the residents/students. Also, I want to one day be capable of having a greater role in guiding pt care, and possibly even education. Now I have enough influences and experience to realize that I could possibly go to med school.

Also as EC's go I have previously been field medical offficer/k-9 handler for a state wide search and rescue group, and involved in cave and cliff rescue. I have also assisted with search and rescue classes for a national organization.

Here's the delimma:
As far as the non-trad goes, I feel my background sounds decent.
However, to my horror I realized that most of my pre-req's come from a Community College as this was all I could afford when I was doing my academic wandering. Financially, I have been on my own after leaving all my nice academic scholarships at the private institution. (Which wasn't fun, but also, I feel like I have earned all I have achieved. This was a major problem with why I left the first college. Everything I felt had been too easy for me. )

So here I am. My total GPA is 3.716 (Nursing majors at my school have to have a 93 to make an A, so essentially a 92 in nursing gets the same credit as an 80 in business. not fair!

My new 2nd undergrad major is Biochemistry. I have a near-4.0 in BCMP as I had a B in Bio I as a true freshman and a B in some math class as a Freshman. Since that time I have made all A's in my classes including the A&P sequence, micro, gen chems, etc.

So not horrible, but I have multiple problems.

1. I can take the MCAT this spring. The problem is. All my classes except for the Organics will have been at a CC. So, do I need to just supplement my transcript at my current university with more advanced classes in my biochemistry major. This is my current plan. Or, do I need to uproot myself from my ICU and move to a state with a real post-bac program. This would be hard for me financially and professionally as far as my previous experience/back up plan goes.

2. I have no real contacts with any science professors that were not at the CC. My A&P professors were retired neurosurgeons. My micro teacher was a veterinarian that worked for the USDA doing inspections. They knew their stuff! And, all my teachers have been PhD's. (The school is a major pre-pharm institution) In the mean time, I plan on attending every chem and premed club meeting there is. I feel like I received a good education, but that the CC will not warrant a second look at any med school. Along with seeking to meet personally with a premed committee member for advice. (one is teaching my organic course) So who do I ask for LOR's? The nursing professors that are going to be very angry about my med school aspirations? Help.

3. How wierd is it going to be for me to find someone to shadow considering all the docs I know will be continuously running into my coworkers! What is the least akward way to ask them for LOR's if needed? They're all so busy with residents and all, I feel bad asking!

If I could only get some adcom to look at my appy long enough for me to tell my story! although, i guess it's probably not that much different than most non-trad's.

I'll end this post here because I could probably go on for eternity considering how much I've been fretting over what to do. Any input would be well appreciated. I'm going to try to put much preparation and prayer into the MCAT and hope for the best. But, should I even bother with it this spring? I'm not too picky about where I end up at school. I want to stay in the US, and at as good of school as possible. I don't have delusions of getting in to Harvard any time soon. (Not that my bags couldn't be packed tonight!)

Ahh so you see what a tizzy I'm in. Any input would be greatly appreciated. Once again I apologize for the length, but it only reflects the amount of time I've spent worrying over this.

Thanks in advance...

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[Mobius1985]

1. I can take the MCAT this spring. The problem is. All my classes except for the Organics will have been at a CC. So, do I need to just supplement my transcript at my current university with more advanced classes in my biochemistry major. This is my current plan. Or, do I need to uproot myself from my ICU and move to a state with a real post-bac program. This would be hard for me financially and professionally as far as my previous experience/back up plan goes.

2. I have no real contacts with any science professors that were not at the CC. My A&P professors were retired neurosurgeons. My micro teacher was a veterinarian that worked for the USDA doing inspections. They knew their stuff! And, all my teachers have been PhD's. (The school is a major pre-pharm institution) In the mean time, I plan on attending every chem and premed club meeting there is. I feel like I received a good education, but that the CC will not warrant a second look at any med school. Along with seeking to meet personally with a premed committee member for advice. (one is teaching my organic course) So who do I ask for LOR's? The nursing professors that are going to be very angry about my med school aspirations? Help.

3. How wierd is it going to be for me to find someone to shadow considering all the docs I know will be continuously running into my coworkers! What is the least akward way to ask them for LOR's if needed? They're all so busy with residents and all, I feel bad asking!

Your background is great, your clinical experience spectacular. Your GPA, despite your educational wandering, is amazing. Here are my opinions about your questions.

1. I believe that all of the above will trump the fact that your prerequisites were at a CC, provided you get a good MCAT score (aim for a least a 30). You don't need to repeat Physics and Orgo if you can relearn the basic material on your own, which for Orgo is likely considering you've done well on Biochem. Physics might be more difficult to recall, but my preference would be to retake rather than take an advanced class in the same area, and you wouldn't need to do the lab again. Why not take a practice MCAT (I think a free one is available on-line somewhere, you could ask in the MCAT forum) and see how the material looks to you. You don't need to go to the expense of a real post-bac program, rather, do any retaking on your own. Yes a four-year school is preferred, but non-trads get more wiggle room if the MCAT and background is good.

2. At the minimum, you need two science and one non-science LOR. Some schools specify or allow more. (None of my schools did.) It doesn't matter how long ago you had a given professor teach you, as long as the date on the letter is in the last year. At the top of the non-trad forum is a FAQ which includes a section on what to do about LORs if you can't produce the usual ones. Many non-trads are in the same awkward position you are in. Link is here: http://74.202.11.228/showthread.php?t=523104

3. You have plenty of clinical exposure, so whether you need to shadow or not may be a moot point. If you want to do this, consider asking a doc or two that you know if you could shadow at her/his office setting. You have enough hospital experience already. Only one-two docs would know about it then. Perhaps you don't need to tell them why you want to do it. Maybe you are just exploring office nursing, or something. You are unlikely to need a LOR from a doc. None of my schools asked for one.

I predict you will do great in the application process. Hang in there. Do it right.

 

[jrock805]

we non-trads have an uphill battle, but if you keep at it you will get in somewhere (eventually). i agree that the mcat will be key, so make sure you are hitting above 30 on amcas practice tests before you take it

 

[pianola]

(1) Mobius has good advice.

(2) Your application sounds just fine -- upper level courses could only help your application; particularly at a 4-year accredited undergraduate institution. I don't know that upper level courses are a necessity but they would certainly help.

(3) MCAT will be key. Try to do as well as you possibly can -- the MCAT will hopefully serve to validate your good grades

(4) I agree that you probably don't need to 'shadow' per se. I think ADCOMs will likely assume that you've had sufficient time to be fairly observant of what MDs do in your role as a paramedic/nurse. If you wish to shadow for your own benefit, you should absolutely do so, but it doesn't seem like a pressing necessity. If anything, I would start thinking about how you might get research experience...