Help!!!

[Imgtnold]

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I need some advice...I am struggling with my future career choice. I have been in banking for several years since graduating from college and hate it!!! Lay-offs, etc... I have a BA in psychology and recently did a post bacc for my pre-med classes. I have an overall gpa of 3.15 and a post bacc science gpa of 3.26. I took the MCAT in January and got a 19K which really sucks!!! I am 34 y/o and have had my heart set on med school for some time. I got my EMT-B license as an undergrad and also worked as a renal tech at a local hospital. Should I take the MCAT again or get my RN and move on from there towards PA, NP or CRNA??? Am I a lost cause for med school??? Any advice???😕 🙁

 

[Scottish Chap]

I need some advice...I am struggling with my future career choice. I have been in banking for several years since graduating from college and hate it!!! Lay-offs, etc... I have a BA in psychology and recently did a post bacc for my pre-med classes. I have an overall gpa of 3.15 and a post bacc science gpa of 3.26. I took the MCAT in January and got a 19K which really sucks!!! I am 34 y/o and have had my heart set on med school for some time. I got my EMT-B license as an undergrad and also worked as a renal tech at a local hospital. Should I take the MCAT again or get my RN and move on from there towards PA, NP or CRNA??? Am I a lost cause for med school??? Any advice???😕 🙁

The MCAT is your major issue for medical school admission stateside; you should not do any other extracurricular work until you have fixed that and a nursing credential will not confer any advantage in admission. Based on what you have mentioned, that needs to be your primary focus. While is it not unheard of for people to be accepted to osteopathic schools with a MCAT score in the teens, it is very uncommon and almost cannot be relied on as a possibility.

Get together with somebody who did well on the MCAT and try to diagnose the major issue. Is it timing, confidence, speed-reading, interpretation, application, the lack of a solid science base? With the MCAT, it is usually one or more of those. If you took the MCAT before your prerequisite courses, that may be your issue. While a preparation course for the MCAT is not necessary, many people find that they benefit from the structure and the positive reinforcement of constant exposure. Think about that, too.

Good luck, and don't feel like you've no chance.

 

[Meatwad]

First off, I think almost everyone has a chance for medical school if they are intelligent, hard-working, and patient. You have a chance, but liek you said you have to do better on your MCAT and do other things to make your application more attractive. That means it will take a while, maybe a very long time; so it's very likely that it's possible, but it may take longer than you are willing to wait.

I'm not qualified to give advice on the nurse route, but from what I've heard getting an RN en route to an MD is not a smart idea. Be a nurse if you truly want to be a nurse, or else you'll waste your money because it may very well not get you into med school. You'd probably be better off doing better on your MCAT and doing a SMP.

 

[ShyRem]

I see the biggest hurdle being your MCAT. So if I were you, I'd be looking into why my MCAT was a 19K... did I not study enough? Did I lose focus and not finish the sections in a timely fashion? Did I not understand what they were asking? It might be worth it to take a Kaplan MCAT course near you. Or any other prep course.

Secondly, you need to figure out where in medicine you want to be. do you really want to be a nurse? Or do you really want to be a physician? On that latter note, are you dead set on MD, or DO, or do you not have a preference? An RN is a FAR cry from a physician, and vice versa. Are you willing to go through 4 years of med school hell and then 3-5 years of underpaid working your butt off? Or do you want a quick 2 year RN program? Or a 4 year BSN? How long are the PA programs near you?

There are a lot of questions your post raises, but I think you first need to look within yourself to see if anything is possible. Without a goal, you don't know what to work for.