Engineering + JD = chance at admission?

[Engilaw123]

Hello, all.

I am a second year law student with a BS in biomedical engineering. Originally, I had hoped to go to medical school, but began suffering from depression and didn't feel I was in a good enough place to start med school. Consequently, I have taken reasonable steps towards medical school in my earlier education (e.g., national youth leadership forum on medicine, 2+ years volunteering at a hospital), and have tailored law school towards "health law" (generally). I have about 2 years experience at an intellectual property law firm in IP prosecution and litigation, some of that experience being in biomedical type patents.

At this point in my life (my depressive issues having been resolved), I regret not going to medical school, especially in view of my law classes (there seems to be a recurring marked divide between science and the law, especially in many lawmakers' understanding of health science, and the idealist in me wants to retire to healthcare reform).

I have talked to admissions staff at two local med schools, and found that I need only to take three additional courses to meet all prerequisites for med school (the old school type with no psych). This is not an issue. Further, I realize that I would have to take the MCAT by next September to meet the application deadline to go straight from law school to med school. This is not a problem either.

My problem is that my undergraduate GPA was 3.1. I have heard that law school grades are not considered by medical schools, so while this is higher (not by much after year 1, but likely to increase), I am unsure if I will have trouble getting into an MD program because of that, even with high MCAT scores (as I had with the JD program, with high LSAT scores).

Additionally, I have heard horror stories about the amount of work required in medical school. I have heard comparisons to law school and engineering, all of which claiming medical school to be more of a time commitment. However, neither my BS in biomedical engineering nor my JD (thus far) have required much more than basically showing up for class and studying my ass off come exam time. Is that going to change in med school?

Anything else I should consider?

Thanks a ton for your help!

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[GreenDuck12]

Welcome to the forums.

After typing the response to your post below I realized that you really, really, really have a lot of research to do. The answers to all of your questions have been answered before. I did not include all the details but you'll get the idea.

First and foremost, undergraduate and graduate GPA are calculated and evaluated separately. Medical schools heavily weigh an applicants cGPA from undergrad, and sGPA from undergrad to gauge an applicants overall performance and performance in science coursework. Performance in graduate school, while noted, is not factored as heavily as graduate programs tend to have higher rates of grade inflation. The impact this has for you is that while you may have a stellar GPA from law school, it will be considered separately from your undergraduate GPA. Taking post bac classes to complete the pre-reqs will factor into your undergraduate GPA. The problem right now is that you undergraduate GPA is far outside the range for allopathic and osteopathic medical schools. My guess is that you will definitely have trouble being admitted to an MD (allopathic) program because of our GPA, even if you were to earn a 99th% MCAT score. Do research on osteopathic schools and their grade replacement policies and retake classes to increase you undergraduate GPA. When you are closer to the range of an accepted DO applicant, apply.

Second, you absolutely will have to take the MCAT and should NOT bank on earning a high a score. The typical range for an allopathic candidate is the equivalent of scoring higher that 80% of other test takers. This means for every 10 people who take the test, 7 do not earn a competitive score. The MCAT is a test you should only take once and should not take before you are ready.

Third, it sounds as though you are trying to enter medical school directly from law school. This poses a problem as completing the pre-reqs and putting together a competitive application takes a lot of time. This forum is filled with the woes of applicants who applied before they were "ready." Getting into medical school requires that you have all of your ducks in a row: GPA, MCAT, Volunteer hours, Shadowing hours, Clinical experience. The last three are especially important for you because you are coming directly from law school. This tells ADCOMs that you aren't sure about what you want to do. You have to convince them that you belong in medical school and will be happy in the profession for another 30+ years.

Fourth, talk to a medical school student/ resident/ fellow about how hard it is.

 

[DrMidlife]

I need only to take three additional courses to meet all prerequisites for med school

Incorrect with a 3.1. Incorrect that you don't have to consider the "new" prereqs that include humanities & soc. You can't get good advice from normal premed advisers or from med schools when you have a low GPA. You need to do a lot more than 3 classes, and you need to get a lot of A's, to have a chance at med school. There are no guarantees that you will get accepted even if you succeed at that remediation.

I realize that I would have to take the MCAT by next September to meet the application deadline to go straight from law school to med school.

Incorrect that you're going straight from law school to med school, because of your GPA, and incorrect that you can take the MCAT as late as September and have a chance in the app season in process at that point. You should not attempt the MCAT prior to building a large pile of A's in undergrad science, nor prior to doing rigorous test prep, and you generally need your MCAT score in hand before June.

neither my BS in biomedical engineering nor my JD (thus far) have required much more than basically showing up for class and studying my ass off come exam time.

Incorrect, because you have a 3.1 GPA. You did not succeed in terms of premedical performance. Some consideration for the difficulty of engineering coursework might happen, but in general there is too much competition to get into med school for you to show up with damage. In general, a history of depression, regardless of how well it's handled now, is not considered a valid reason for lack of academic success, because med school is generally depressing and med schools need you to keep up.

Is that going to change in med school?

With a 3.1 you should assume that med school will be extremely time consuming, frustrating, and overwhelming, moreso than for the kids who always did well in school and have been piling up medical experience since they were 5.

What you do now: search SDN for "low GPA" and find the info in those who have trodden this path before you.

Best of luck to you.

 

[atomi]

I don't understand how you are justifying not applying for medical school because you were too depressed but not depressed enough to go to law school instead. That doesn't make any sense. To an outsider, it sounds like you did not work hard enough in college to have a good shot at med school, so you went to law school instead, you don't appear to be working especially hard there (just cramming for exams), and now you have regrets about not doing what you want (medicine) but are worried that you will have to work too hard if you do it and you are trying to explain all the red flags away with the vague term "depression."

I have no idea if any of this is true, but this is what it sounds like and you should realize this.

Bottom line, your GPA is not good enough for an American medical school. You will need a formal post-bacc if you want to do this and some self reflection to decide if you're willing/able to put the work in. You also need to realize that your performance in law school absolutely will be judged by med school admission committees. They will want to see a strong work ethic from any non-trad no matter if they were in grad school or not. It's not like you can get a 4.0 in college, work part time at pizza hut for 10 years, and then apply to med school with zero issues because your pizza hut tenure didn't come with a GPA attached to it.

 

[Goro]

Your GPA is lethal for any MD school and a lot of DO schools, including mine, CCOM, BCOM, CUSOM, AZCOM, Western, KCU, PCOM and the Touros.

I suggest repeating all F/D/C science coursework and aiming for DO programs.

But if you're boning for the MD, you need to ace an SMP or post-bac, and MCAT as well.

You'll also need to justify the jump from Law to medicine and convince Adcoms that you're not merely fleeing a poor job environment.

The cliche that med school is "like drinking from a fire hose" is not true.

It's really like "like drinking from a fire hose while running after a fire truck"

We will take you to your intellectual limits.

And make sure that your depression is REALLY well under control. Is your doctor/therapist/psychiatrist on board with this? Med school is a furnace and I've seen it break even healthy students.

Hello, all.

I am a second year law student with a BS in biomedical engineering. Originally, I had hoped to go to medical school, but began suffering from depression and didn't feel I was in a good enough place to start med school. Consequently, I have taken reasonable steps towards medical school in my earlier education (e.g., national youth leadership forum on medicine, 2+ years volunteering at a hospital), and have tailored law school towards "health law" (generally). I have about 2 years experience at an intellectual property law firm in IP prosecution and litigation, some of that experience being in biomedical type patents.

At this point in my life (my depressive issues having been resolved), I regret not going to medical school, especially in view of my law classes (there seems to be a recurring marked divide between science and the law, especially in many lawmakers' understanding of health science, and the idealist in me wants to retire to healthcare reform).

I have talked to admissions staff at two local med schools, and found that I need only to take three additional courses to meet all prerequisites for med school (the old school type with no psych). This is not an issue. Further, I realize that I would have to take the MCAT by next September to meet the application deadline to go straight from law school to med school. This is not a problem either.

My problem is that my undergraduate GPA was 3.1. I have heard that law school grades are not considered by medical schools, so while this is higher (not by much after year 1, but likely to increase), I am unsure if I will have trouble getting into an MD program because of that, even with high MCAT scores (as I had with the JD program, with high LSAT scores).

Additionally, I have heard horror stories about the amount of work required in medical school. I have heard comparisons to law school and engineering, all of which claiming medical school to be more of a time commitment. However, neither my BS in biomedical engineering nor my JD (thus far) have required much more than basically showing up for class and studying my ass off come exam time. Is that going to change in med school?

Anything else I should consider?

Thanks a ton for your help!

 

[Law2Doc]

Agree with what's been said above, but would add that based on my own experience med school requires a lot more work and is harder to do well in than law school, so if you aren't exactly acing law school, you may be in for a rude awakening. Also a lot of schools will be skeptical of someone jumping from mid one professional degree program to another so you are going to need a heck of a lot better story for why you are changing fields without ever practicing. But there's time for that because as mentioned above you probably have a few years to go before you are realistically ready to apply to a US allo med school. Being a JD has some cache if you also have the numbers. Being a student when you apply doesn't, and you don't have the numbers to boot. You need to look at this as a several year process of grade rehabilitation and finishing up the prereqs, before you sit for the MCAT. Which is fine because in medicine you'll have a decade of schooling and training anyhow, so it's hardly a race.

 

[QofQuimica]

Agree with the others that you are not currently a competitive candidate for medical school and will need some significant grade remediation in order to become competitive.

Given that you are halfway through law school, you have a major decision to make regarding whether to finish it out, or to quit and pursue premed for the next couple of years. Either strategy can be reasonable, but as L2D pointed out, if you are going to spend the time and money to get a law degree but never use it, that is kind of a waste and will be viewed that way by adcoms. It is your potential law experience that would be the something extra you would bring to the table, not simply having the JD degree itself.

I would also point out that you do already have a significant science background with your engineering degree, and likely more than enough science background to do any kind of health law that you care to do. Because of this, it is not clear to me whether you even need a medical degree to achieve your career goals. Do you envision yourself practicing medicine and seeing patients at all? If not, it may be best for you to finish your law degree and go into health law rather than spend what will likely be upward of a decade to complete postbac + med school + residency.