Foreign for me?

[DoctorC++]

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I'm 26... majored in C.S. and now I'm doing this pre-med thing. I'm pretty discouraged about american schools. My grades are pretty horrible and I'm not sure if I even have a chance at american schools.

Grades:
Bio 1: C
Phys 1: B
Phys 2: B
Chem 1: B
Chem 2: A
Org Chem 1: B

I'm currently studying for the April MCAT. I'm thinking I'm going to have to make something like a 30 to be considered since my grades are plain crappy. I thought about re-taking my Bio 1 class to improve the grade.

I'm also just taking 1 or 2 courses a semester. I'm worried if that will affect me in the end since I'm just making average grades. I'm hoping I can explain to the schools that I had a hard time juggling work/school/family (paralyzed father) but I'm not sure if they are going to believe me.

 

[njbmd]

I'm 26... majored in C.S. and now I'm doing this pre-med thing. I'm pretty discouraged about american schools. My grades are pretty horrible and I'm not sure if I even have a chance at american schools.

Grades:
Bio 1: C
Phys 1: B
Phys 2: B
Chem 1: B
Chem 2: A
Org Chem 1: B

I'm currently studying for the April MCAT. I'm thinking I'm going to have to make something like a 30 to be considered since my grades are plain crappy. I thought about re-taking my Bio 1 class to improve the grade.

I'm also just taking 1 or 2 courses a semester. I'm worried if that will affect me in the end since I'm just making average grades. I'm hoping I can explain to the schools that I had a hard time juggling work/school/family (paralyzed father) but I'm not sure if they are going to believe me.

Hi there,
The question that begs to be asked is: What are you going to do in medical school? Medical school is 20X more demanding (time wise)than undergraduate and you cannot work. If you are struggling with time demands at this level, you are going to have more of a struggle with a very demanding medical curriculum in the future.

A foreign medical school may be easier to get into but the material is not any easier and you have the financial issue (unless you are wealthy) to deal with with no guarantees that you will do well enough to practice anywhere except in that foreign country. What will you do with your paralyzed father and other financial obligations while you are in a foreign medical school?

You have a C and some Bs in your pre-med courses. You haven't failed any of them and I see that you have not taken the MCAT. Unless you have some serious "damage control" meaning a very poor undergraduate GPA to try to raise, you are not particularly out of range for many medical schools in this country. As you have stated, you need a good MCAT score (by no means a guarantee) but I do not see where re-taking a course that you passed but earned a C is going to help you much unless you need refreshment of the material that was presented. Getting into medical school is not 4.0 GPA, 30 MCAT and nothing less will do so you re-take classes until you have those statistics.

It is not about you just "getting into" medical school but about how you will "stay there", successfully navigate the curriculum and get through residency and into practice. All of these things are greatly time consuming and you currently have some major obligations that are preventing you from getting higher grades. Also, you will be out of the workforce until residency and after medical school, you are making below minimum wage (80-hour work week for between $30K-$45K for three to five years) while in residency. Have you made provisions for how you will handle your obligations during these times?

People who fail out of medical school do not do fail because they are not smart enough do the work. People in medical school fail because something (illness, obligations, procrastination, lack of interest) prevents them from putting in the time that the curriculum demands. Medical school is not about doing courses over and over until you get the grades. In medical school you have one shot to get the material mastered that you need and move on. Your post bacc performance says that you need to figure out a means of giving your present and future coursework the time that it demands and plot a strategy for doing the same for medical school.

Getting into a foreign medical school is not going to help you very much and you could find yourself with a couple of hundred thousand dollars of debt and no medical degree at the end or with a medical degree that is useless in this country.

Good luck!
njbmd 🙂

 

[Matt_McClure]

If you were considering applying DO you can retake bio and maybe a few of the "B"s and get "A"s and that's all that shows up on your transcript.

 

[sophiejane]

You're doing just fine. B's are good. Study hard for the MCAT. Apply to schools that are historically friendly to non-traditional students, and they will weigh the fact that you stilll managed to get B's while caring for a family and an ailing father, and take all that into account. You just have to get an interview, so whatever you can do to make yourself stand out on paper is a good thing.

I do think you will have more success with DO schools because they really are more friendly in general to folks like you (and me!). They appreciate your life experience and are willing to forgive a C here and there because in exchange they get someone with maturity who will make an excellent doc in the end.

I made mostly B's, a few A's, even a C and one D on core science prereqs (3.0 science, 3.7 overall), got a very average MCAT score (24), managed to get an interview because I was persistent, and then had an excellent interview, and I have been in the top half of my class for the first 2 years, with an excellent performance on the wards so far. I passed both the allopathic and osteopathic step 1 boards with an above average score. A mediocre performance in premed classes does not equal failure in medical school. You will have to take out loans and dedicate your daylight (and many nighttime) hours to study, but you will do fine. You might not be a neurosurgeon, but you'll be a good doc.

You can do this--you just need to been seen and heard by the right committee.

Take care and best of luck to you. (Don't go foreign! And don't retake classes you got B's in, for crying out loud! That's crazy!)

 

[blee]

From a grades standpoint, you're doing alright. I was a CS major as well and graduated with a much worse GPA, both overall and BCPM. I re-took the pre-reqs as part of my MCAT prep and got into five medical schools as of today. Oh, and I was 26 when I started my career change.

If you really want this, and if you're up to it, you can do it. I'm not saying it's easy, though.