So I've posted here one other time about my journey to apply to medical school. At this time I'm planning to apply next cycle (2024). I'm 32 years old, have a previous bachelors in Kinesiology, and have been taking post-bacc classes for 2 years to fill in missing pre-reqs. I work full time in a non-medical field, and have about 30,000+ hours of work experience in customer service/sales/some management level roles.
At this point I've completed all but 3 classes (2 which aren't even prereqs, just specific requirements for a school I plan to apply to). I have a 4.0 post-bacc gpa, which has helped to bring up my sGPA to around a 3.65. I have a cGPA of about 3.88, and I just started to study for the MCAT this week, with plans to test in March/April 2024 (I work full time so it's slow going).
For ECs I've been volunteering at a free clinic as often as I can get on the schedule (usually 1x per week). I'll have been there 1.5 years by the time I apply. I have about 110 hours, and hope to have 300 by June 2024. I work directly with patients during this time, either doing vitals or helping providers during appointments. It's extremely meaningful experience and I have memorable interactions with many patients each time I go.
I do also have 250 hours of clinical experience from my undergrad when I worked as a PT aide, not sure if this is too old to matter or be included. It was definitely not meaningful experience, except to help me figure out that I did not want to be a PT
I volunteer at a women's shelter every weekend, and should have 400+ hours there by the time I apply. I will have been there over 4 years when I apply and this is probably my most meaningful experience, that led me back to the path of trying to go to medical school.
I am starting shadowing one physician next week and will hopefully get 20-30 hours there. Is it standard to ask for a letter of rec from a physician you shadow, even if its less than 50 hours?
I am also hoping to get some rural shadowing in in the next year because my goal is to do rural family medicine....but shadowing is the most challenging because I have to take PTO from work to work around the schedules.
As far as letters go, I have one science professor writing me a letter , I know I can get a letter from 1 or more people at the women's shelter, hoping to get a letter from the clinic (manager) and I know I will get a glowing letter from my full time job manager. I'd love to get a physician letter but the nature of the clinical volunteering makes it really difficult to build enough of a relationship with one specific physician to ask for something like that.
Anyway, I guess the point of my post is....how do you know you are doing enough? Before I started volunteering at the free clinic, I felt pretty confident in my plans, based on what I've read online and what I've heard from the limited people in my life that know anything about this process (feeling lost about this process as a non-trad is so real). My advisor assures me I'm doing all of the right things....but then when I talk to students at the clinic they are doing SO MUCH more than me. They will have 1000s of hours of clinical experience, research, shadowing, founding non-profits, etc....it makes me exhausted just thinking about it. I think I have some unique hobbies/experiences, and jobs that I've held that will help me in the medical school process, as well as extensive experience as a patient navigating the healthcare system. But does it matter?
Will schools *actually* care that I am a non-trad, working full time, with life experience and other unique things to bring to the table outside of not having the coolest, most impressive pre-med extra curriculars? I think as this process gets closer to the end, I'm feeling more insecure....like I should be doing more, but I sincerely don't know how I possibly could. I'm already spending 80+ hours a week between work, school and volunteering and I'm exhausted.
I'm also honestly not a great networker, and not great at speaking up for myself to get opportunities. The young students around me just seem to know when and how to ask for opportunities and as an older millennial who was raised to put my head down and just do a good job and "hope" to get noticed, I'm definitely discovering that it's not serving me. I would also love some tips for overcoming this and learning how to be assertive, but in a way that is polite and respectful.
At this point I've completed all but 3 classes (2 which aren't even prereqs, just specific requirements for a school I plan to apply to). I have a 4.0 post-bacc gpa, which has helped to bring up my sGPA to around a 3.65. I have a cGPA of about 3.88, and I just started to study for the MCAT this week, with plans to test in March/April 2024 (I work full time so it's slow going).
For ECs I've been volunteering at a free clinic as often as I can get on the schedule (usually 1x per week). I'll have been there 1.5 years by the time I apply. I have about 110 hours, and hope to have 300 by June 2024. I work directly with patients during this time, either doing vitals or helping providers during appointments. It's extremely meaningful experience and I have memorable interactions with many patients each time I go.
I do also have 250 hours of clinical experience from my undergrad when I worked as a PT aide, not sure if this is too old to matter or be included. It was definitely not meaningful experience, except to help me figure out that I did not want to be a PT
I volunteer at a women's shelter every weekend, and should have 400+ hours there by the time I apply. I will have been there over 4 years when I apply and this is probably my most meaningful experience, that led me back to the path of trying to go to medical school.
I am starting shadowing one physician next week and will hopefully get 20-30 hours there. Is it standard to ask for a letter of rec from a physician you shadow, even if its less than 50 hours?
I am also hoping to get some rural shadowing in in the next year because my goal is to do rural family medicine....but shadowing is the most challenging because I have to take PTO from work to work around the schedules.
As far as letters go, I have one science professor writing me a letter , I know I can get a letter from 1 or more people at the women's shelter, hoping to get a letter from the clinic (manager) and I know I will get a glowing letter from my full time job manager. I'd love to get a physician letter but the nature of the clinical volunteering makes it really difficult to build enough of a relationship with one specific physician to ask for something like that.
Anyway, I guess the point of my post is....how do you know you are doing enough? Before I started volunteering at the free clinic, I felt pretty confident in my plans, based on what I've read online and what I've heard from the limited people in my life that know anything about this process (feeling lost about this process as a non-trad is so real). My advisor assures me I'm doing all of the right things....but then when I talk to students at the clinic they are doing SO MUCH more than me. They will have 1000s of hours of clinical experience, research, shadowing, founding non-profits, etc....it makes me exhausted just thinking about it. I think I have some unique hobbies/experiences, and jobs that I've held that will help me in the medical school process, as well as extensive experience as a patient navigating the healthcare system. But does it matter?
Will schools *actually* care that I am a non-trad, working full time, with life experience and other unique things to bring to the table outside of not having the coolest, most impressive pre-med extra curriculars? I think as this process gets closer to the end, I'm feeling more insecure....like I should be doing more, but I sincerely don't know how I possibly could. I'm already spending 80+ hours a week between work, school and volunteering and I'm exhausted.
I'm also honestly not a great networker, and not great at speaking up for myself to get opportunities. The young students around me just seem to know when and how to ask for opportunities and as an older millennial who was raised to put my head down and just do a good job and "hope" to get noticed, I'm definitely discovering that it's not serving me. I would also love some tips for overcoming this and learning how to be assertive, but in a way that is polite and respectful.
