Electrical Engineer to Med School

[brewstersangle]

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I'm currently an electrical engineer in corporate America. I have been working for 3 years, will be finishing up my masters in electrical engineering, and was part of an engineering leadership program through work. I do enjoy my engineering job (problem solving/ design), but it is missing the personal interaction aspect that I desire. I am strongly passionate about helping others, who are less fortunate than me. I'm wondering if I am able to get into a medical school (MD) with my credentials and what I should be doing to increase my chances of getting accepted.

My undergraduate GPA is a 3.3, but this is due to receiving a few C's in non-engineering electives, such as music, accounting, etc. My graduate GPA will be close to a 3.5; I was working 60 hour weeks in addition to grad school. On my GREs, I received a 720 in Math, poor verbal score of 490, and a 5 out of 6 in writing.

I'm hoping that my engineering background, work experience, and MS in engineering will help me as I will provide (hopefully) interesting discussions. The leadership program I went through was very rigorous and very well-known in the industry. It has given me a breadth of engineering knowledge. By background, I'm an electrical engineer, but I have learned enough through the program that I'm a competent mechanical engineer (as I've been told). Medical schools may not even care about this.

My plan is to volunteer at a hospital for a year, and then apply to a post bacc program to complete pre-reqs (I really only have taken physics + math) and to increase my GPA. I do plan on applying to the more well-known post bacc's, understanding that I will need a 4.0 if I am accepted into the post bac and earn a very high MCAT (36+?). However, reading through forum and my low GPA is not very comforting.

 

[Balantidiumcoli]

https://www.aamc.org/download/321518/data/2012factstable25-4.pdf

Data >> Gabbing strangers my friend.

 

[SOOyC52H1Sof]

i have a GPA right around yours and I'm a mechanical engineer. Just took the MCAT yesterday.

You always have the option of D.O, so your GPA is not really a factor, unless your heart is set on MD.

 

[sdmspro]

As always with my two cents, YMMV, but I also was a non-traditional applicant/engineer. I interviewed at my state school but wasn't accepted. I took the opportunity to meet with the dean of admissions. The dean said the reason that I ultimately wasn't accepted was that I didn't wow in the interview (have to cut someone) and didn't sufficiently articulate to the admissions committee my desire to switch from engineering to medicine. I retooled my personal statement, emphasizing the points you mentioned (desire for personal interaction, my experience gained with patients from ER and free med clinic) and was accepted the next application cycle. My advice is definitely find a way to get these points through in your personal statement and be able to defend them well in an interview - especially since you just finished your MS engineering. -- Why do a MS engineering if you want to go to med school? -- Make sure people who do not know you well (not friends/family) review your personal statement before you submit. If you can convince them of your desire to transition from engineering to medicine, you should have a good chance with an admissions committee.

While it may not be possible to get such information from med school admissions departments before you apply, I asked the dean about my cGPA, as it was lower than the average applicant. He said they took into consideration that an engineering major is a lot more difficult than an english major, or even a bio major, etc. From all I've read and understood, SMPs are really for people who have good MCAT scores and low GPAs. You could definitely get away with taking just the pre-reqs at a local college, if you're comfortable with doing extra studying on your own if you feel you're still weak in areas. I enrolled at my local college and took bio, orgo, biochem, genetics (genetics seemed to come up a lot in MCAT practice). What I ended up paying for those classes was a lot less than a SMP.

As a side note, the dean mentioned that he has known personally several non-traditional engineering students through the years and they have made overall great med students. He said he always found our background/education/training to be a great foundation for the course loads in med school and our ability to analyze/problem solve to be an asset. He said one weakness he has seen, though, was an initial tendency to approach a patient and his/her illness as just another set of variables in an equation to solve rather than approaching the patient as a person.

 

[Captain Sisko]

i suspect op went through an entry level leadership program where a masters is included, that's probably why they did it.

if the op's handle means what i think it does, in context, we have a surprisingly similar background. if interested, pm me and we'll talk more.

 

[brewstersangle]

Thank you for the replies. Captain Sisko, you are correct. I will PM you sometimes this week!