Ever question if this is all worth it?

[Maigret Man]

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Fellow nontrads,

I admit I am probably just a little frazzled but do you ever wonder if all the sacrifices are worth it? I have spent the last couple of years working toward med school. My plan was to get a 4.0 GPA, a 35 on the MCAT and smoothly sail into my dream school. Needless to say reality has been different.

Here are my stats/experience:

- 31 yo, white male
- 3.55 undergrad GPA (journalism and philosophy at state university)
- 3.5 range science GPA (about half done with post-bacc at Harvard Ext.)
- Working full-time as a research assistant. Great patient contact. Good chance for a publication (as a co-author)
- Know a couple of doctors who would give me great letters of rec.
- Worked 3 months as a nursing assistant
- Done little volunteer work (but plan to do a bit this summer)
- Haven't taken MCAT yet

I know "what are my chances threads" are annoying but I am hoping other non-trads can help me out here. Am I be realistic here? Will great LORs and research experience counteract a lowish GPA (realistically my science GPA will remain about a 3.5/3.6)? I am not aiming for Harvard Med. I would like to attend an MD or DO school in the Northeast. Is this doable?

I would love it if people can share their own experiences or those of friends. Thanks!

 

[Scottish Chap]

Fellow nontrads,

I admit I am probably just a little frazzled but do you ever wonder if all the sacrifices are worth it? I have spent the last couple of years working toward med school. My plan was to get a 4.0 GPA, a 35 on the MCAT and smoothly sail into my dream school. Needless to say reality has been different.

Here are my stats/experience:

- 31 yo, white male
- 3.55 undergrad GPA (journalism and philosophy at state university)
- 3.5 range science GPA (about half done with post-bacc at Harvard Ext.)
- Working full-time as a research assistant. Great patient contact. Good chance for a publication (as a co-author)
- Know a couple of doctors who would give me great letters of rec.
- Worked 3 months as a nursing assistant
- Done little volunteer work (but plan to do a bit this summer)
- Haven't taken MCAT yet

I know "what are my chances threads" are annoying but I am hoping other non-trads can help me out here. Am I be realistic here? Will great LORs and research experience counteract a lowish GPA (realistically my science GPA will remain about a 3.5/3.6)? I am not aiming for Harvard Med. I would like to attend an MD or DO school in the Northeast. Is this doable?

I would love it if people can share their own experiences or those of friends. Thanks!

More than anything, I sense that you are tired. Realize (if you do not already) that studying to be a physician is not a sprint but a marathon, and that medical school is just the beginning. I find that taking each day as it comes helps too. I believe that gaining admission to medical school is a very realistic goal, based on your GPA and experience. Take the MCAT and try to get >28, and you should be fine if you apply widely enough. Your level of motivation--more than anything--is your key to success, and only you can control that; it can’t be given to you. Be encouraged: lesser mortals (namely me!) have made it in and there's no reason why you can't too. Feel free to PM me if you want me to be specific about my own route to medical school.

 

[QofQuimica]

Fellow nontrads,

I admit I am probably just a little frazzled but do you ever wonder if all the sacrifices are worth it? I have spent the last couple of years working toward med school. My plan was to get a 4.0 GPA, a 35 on the MCAT and smoothly sail into my dream school. Needless to say reality has been different.

Here are my stats/experience:

- 31 yo, white male
- 3.55 undergrad GPA (journalism and philosophy at state university)
- 3.5 range science GPA (about half done with post-bacc at Harvard Ext.)
- Working full-time as a research assistant. Great patient contact. Good chance for a publication (as a co-author)
- Know a couple of doctors who would give me great letters of rec.
- Worked 3 months as a nursing assistant
- Done little volunteer work (but plan to do a bit this summer)
- Haven't taken MCAT yet

I know "what are my chances threads" are annoying but I am hoping other non-trads can help me out here. Am I be realistic here? Will great LORs and research experience counteract a lowish GPA (realistically my science GPA will remain about a 3.5/3.6)? I am not aiming for Harvard Med. I would like to attend an MD or DO school in the Northeast. Is this doable?

I would love it if people can share their own experiences or those of friends. Thanks!

If I could go back ten years and give my 20-year-old self advice, I would have told her to apply for MSTPs. As things are now, it looks like I'll be taking about 14 years to finish my MD/PhD instead of 7. 😛 But of course, we can't go back. The only thing you can do is to make your application as strong as you possibly can, judiciously pick school whose programs sound good and where you think you will have a reasonable chance, and give it a try. There are many, many people with imperfect stats who get accepted to med school, and there are also some people with excellent ones who don't get in anywhere because they can't explain coherently why they want to go into medicine. If you are sure that medicine is what you want to do, make a list of things that you need to accomplish to make yourself a stronger candidate, and start working toward your goal of medical school one step at a time. You will be amazed at how fast the time flies by. 🙂

 

[njbmd]

Fellow nontrads,

I admit I am probably just a little frazzled but do you ever wonder if all the sacrifices are worth it? I have spent the last couple of years working toward med school. My plan was to get a 4.0 GPA, a 35 on the MCAT and smoothly sail into my dream school. Needless to say reality has been different.

Here are my stats/experience:

- 31 yo, white male
- 3.55 undergrad GPA (journalism and philosophy at state university)
- 3.5 range science GPA (about half done with post-bacc at Harvard Ext.)
- Working full-time as a research assistant. Great patient contact. Good chance for a publication (as a co-author)
- Know a couple of doctors who would give me great letters of rec.
- Worked 3 months as a nursing assistant
- Done little volunteer work (but plan to do a bit this summer)
- Haven't taken MCAT yet

I know "what are my chances threads" are annoying but I am hoping other non-trads can help me out here. Am I be realistic here? Will great LORs and research experience counteract a lowish GPA (realistically my science GPA will remain about a 3.5/3.6)? I am not aiming for Harvard Med. I would like to attend an MD or DO school in the Northeast. Is this doable?

I would love it if people can share their own experiences or those of friends. Thanks!

Hi there,
What are your chances? Well, realistically, they depend on the school to which you apply and your competition in any given year. What you can do is maximize your MCAT score, make your application as complete and competitive as possible and apply. Your GPA is within the range of many schools so apply to many and add a dream school or two. Who knows? Your dream school may like what they read and love you when they meet you during interview and accept you. The sure thing is that you NEED to believe that you can do this or else you won't.

I can spit all kinds of statistics out at you in both directions but it's up to you to either pursue what you want and have worked for or not. I can tell you that people have gotten into Harvard Med or your state school with 3.5/3.6 GPAs but just because it has happened before does not mean that it is going to happen to you or not happen for you. Get your stuff together, study hard and thoroughly prepare for the MCAT, cast a wide net and move forward with your dream. The worse that can happen is that you don't get in and undeterred (because medicine is what you want, right?) you reapply and keep pursuing your dream.

njbmd 🙂

 

[scpod]

I would love it if people can share their own experiences or those of friends. Thanks!

I spent 1982 thru 1985 in a daze. I was in college and people tell me that I had one hell of a time. The problem is that I don't remember a whole lot about the experience. The only two things that I cared about were beer and women. I had plenty of those, but I didn't go to class a whole lot. Twenty years later, I decided to change things. To make a long story short (don't you just haye cliches!) I'll be in med school next year. I spent more than a year prepping myself to return to classes before I actually did it, but I have made nothing but A's since I went back. My MCAT is nowhere near Q's, but it's a lot higher than the average of the school I chose to attend.

You know, people like us (who have some life experience) are actually in demand these days, I think. Your stats are good enough to get you in somewhere, if you are not exceedingly particular. Still, you need to spend some time on the MCAT. You won't get into the top schools, but that doesn't matter; you can still become a doctor, regardless of where you go. Can you deal with that?

 

[Law2Doc]

Fellow nontrads,

I admit I am probably just a little frazzled but do you ever wonder if all the sacrifices are worth it? I have spent the last couple of years working toward med school. My plan was to get a 4.0 GPA, a 35 on the MCAT and smoothly sail into my dream school. Needless to say reality has been different.

Here are my stats/experience:

- 31 yo, white male
- 3.55 undergrad GPA (journalism and philosophy at state university)
- 3.5 range science GPA (about half done with post-bacc at Harvard Ext.)
- Working full-time as a research assistant. Great patient contact. Good chance for a publication (as a co-author)
- Know a couple of doctors who would give me great letters of rec.
- Worked 3 months as a nursing assistant
- Done little volunteer work (but plan to do a bit this summer)
- Haven't taken MCAT yet

I know "what are my chances threads" are annoying but I am hoping other non-trads can help me out here. Am I be realistic here? Will great LORs and research experience counteract a lowish GPA (realistically my science GPA will remain about a 3.5/3.6)? I am not aiming for Harvard Med. I would like to attend an MD or DO school in the Northeast. Is this doable?

I would love it if people can share their own experiences or those of friends. Thanks!

No one can give you anywhere close to odds until your MCAT is in the books. Try to goose up your postbac grades a bit -- you want to be getting "mostly A's" if that's at all possible. If you finish that program strongly, have a good showing on the MCAT, get good LORs (including academic ones), write strong and compelling essays, have good interviews and apply very broadly, all systems should be go.