HPSP but not admitted to medical school?

[Ksurf]

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I was talking to my father earlier tonight, and he was saying that I shouldn't borrow money to go to medical school because I will be in so much debt, I wouldn't be able to handle it.

With that said, I was looking at ROTC/HSHP.
I know with ROTC, it's just with undergraduate, but should i do that along with HSHP?


I will have 90 credits by the end of this spring quarter, and I'm currently attending a CC to transfer to a university in Washington State, either SU or UW.

My question is what if I wanted to go the HSHP route for medical school, and i'm not accepted? What would happen?
.

I have a 3.0 cumulative atm, but haven't started my major yet or any of the medical pre-reqs, seeing I havent transffered over to a university yet.

 

[mwahnster]

If you're talking about HPSP, you aren't officially offered the scholarship until you send them a letter of acceptance, so if you pass through boards but don't get a med school acceptance, your seat will be given to someone else.

 

[WernickeDO]

Your father is right that you will incur debt by going to medical school, but you are not getting a MA in Comp Lit. Handling your debt should not be an issue. Choosing milmed and HPSP for the financial incentives is a TERRIBLE idea, and you will regret it if you do so.

 

[TheTruckGuy]

Don't pursue military medicine for the scholarship money. Depending on what specialty you pursue, you could easily make 2-3 times as much as a civilian as you would in the military. Now if you get into one of those fancy specialties, you could easily make over 5-10 times as much as a civilian. So, from a financial perspective, it's just not worth it.

But, if you really want to serve, then you should look into it.

 

[Textbookversion]

I was talking to my father earlier tonight, and he was saying that I shouldn't borrow money to go to medical school because I will be in so much debt, I wouldn't be able to handle it.

With that said, I was looking at ROTC/HSHP.
I know with ROTC, it's just with undergraduate, but should i do that along with HSHP?


I will have 90 credits by the end of this spring quarter, and I'm currently attending a CC to transfer to a university in Washington State, either SU or UW.

My question is what if I wanted to go the HSHP route for medical school, and i'm not accepted? What would happen?
.

I have a 3.0 cumulative atm, but haven't started my major yet or any of the medical pre-reqs, seeing I havent transffered over to a university yet.

Your father is wrong. Medicine pays really well still and if you live conservatively loans are not a big deal.

Start working harder in class. A lot harder. A 3.0 with 90 credits from a CC is abysmal and won't get you in a medical school in this country unless you are an under represented minority. That should be your concern, not the cost of medical school.

 

[Kingfisher]

I was talking to my father earlier tonight, and he was saying that I shouldn't borrow money to go to medical school because I will be in so much debt, I wouldn't be able to handle it.

With that said, I was looking at ROTC/HSHP.
I know with ROTC, it's just with undergraduate, but should i do that along with HSHP?


I will have 90 credits by the end of this spring quarter, and I'm currently attending a CC to transfer to a university in Washington State, either SU or UW.

My question is what if I wanted to go the HSHP route for medical school, and i'm not accepted? What would happen?
.

I have a 3.0 cumulative atm, but haven't started my major yet or any of the medical pre-reqs, seeing I havent transffered over to a university yet.

I am not trying to bash you.

90 credits at a cc with a 3.0 average translates into "indecisive" and "lazy". Now, I can feel your defenses going up after I say that, but look at it from an admissions standpoint. You would like the best students in your class. A 3.0 means that a good number of your LOWER level course grades start with a "2.something". (Or good grades with a few REALLY bad ones). Med school is where poor to marginal students (who were somehow lucky to sneak in) go down in flames and STILL rack up huge debt.

All hope is not lost. Get serious about school and turn that GPA around. Since you haven't started the "hard" stuff yet, you have a lot of work ahead of you. Hopefully you will be one of those folks that will be a success story after turning things around. 😀

 

[DoctaJMa]

If you're talking about HPSP, you aren't officially offered the scholarship until you send them a letter of acceptance, so if you pass through boards but don't get a med school acceptance, your seat will be given to someone else.

You can be offered a conditional acceptance if you dont have an acceptance in hand....meaning they can offer it to you on the condition you get accepted. And I agree with the above posters...DO NOT join for the financial reasons.

 

[deleted530324]

You mentioned ROTC. If you are on an ROTC scholarship and you are not admitted to a Medical school for the HSHP you will be required to serve your time as an officer in whatever branch doing whatever MOS you get into. Although, as I understand it, you can go straight from active duty to med school if you got in the year after, being an active duty O1 will greatly limit your time and ability to improve whatever shortcomings your first application had. That said, planning to fail isn't the greatest way to look at a future in med school. So like everyone said, improve your gpa.

Another note. It's really not too hard to choose not to commission upon graduation and pay the government back all your scholarship money. In that case though, might as well not have committed all that time in college to ROTC anyway. Keep in mind that times change, so in four years that may not be an option.

In my experience, ROTC isn't the most friendly place for pre-med students. It takes up time that could be used otherwise for extracurriculars. You can get a lot of easy A credits through the Military/Naval Science courses, though they won't go towards your "science" gpa. But I never met any midshipmen (including myself at the time) or cadets who were pre-med in my unit or at other schools. So you will pretty much be on your own.

And I just want to reiterate what everyone else has said. DO NOT commit to military service for financial reasons.

 

[NavyCy]

as I understand it, you can go straight from active duty to med school if you got in the year after,

I'd be careful of anything that sounds remotely similar to this. It sounds a lot like what I'll call "recruiter speak": Half truths at best, which in reality have very little chance of actually occurring. When I was graduating from college and deciding whether to go to medical school or to the fleet, I was told that after two years and earning my warfare qualification, I would be allowed to lateral transfer to medical corps if that is what I chose. We even pulled all the NAVADMINS and read them to see if this was true, and everything appeared to ok. Long story short, I finished my requirements and turned in my application fully expecting to be approved. The response I got from the community was the Navy equivalent of "Fat chance, get back to work Ensign." I applied twice more before my MCAT score expired just to make them tell me no, which they did. By the time I was allowed to transfer, I could have gotten out of the Navy anyway.

The point of my long and boring story is that with ROTC you will be graduating in 4 years and you will be assigned to a community at graduation. Then it is up to the community if they want to let you transfer. After sinking a year of money into you, I'd be surprised if very many communities will tax themselves to accommodate your requests. If you choose to pursue an option such as this, I would go into it expecting to complete your obligation in whatever line community you join. Then if you are allowed to transfer you'll be pleasantly surprised.

 

[deleted530324]

Exactly. Listen to NavyCy.

 

[Homunculus]

I'd be careful of anything that sounds remotely similar to this. It sounds a lot like what I'll call "recruiter speak": Half truths at best, which in reality have very little chance of actually occurring. When I was graduating from college and deciding whether to go to medical school or to the fleet, I was told that after two years and earning my warfare qualification, I would be allowed to lateral transfer to medical corps if that is what I chose. We even pulled all the NAVADMINS and read them to see if this was true, and everything appeared to ok. Long story short, I finished my requirements and turned in my application fully expecting to be approved. The response I got from the community was the Navy equivalent of "Fat chance, get back to work Ensign." I applied twice more before my MCAT score expired just to make them tell me no, which they did. By the time I was allowed to transfer, I could have gotten out of the Navy anyway.

The point of my long and boring story is that with ROTC you will be graduating in 4 years and you will be assigned to a community at graduation. Then it is up to the community if they want to let you transfer. After sinking a year of money into you, I'd be surprised if very many communities will tax themselves to accommodate your requests. If you choose to pursue an option such as this, I would go into it expecting to complete your obligation in whatever line community you join. Then if you are allowed to transfer you'll be pleasantly surprised.

did you have a medschool acceptance in hand when you applied to transfer?

i did the rotc + hpsp route. i agree there is a *lot* riding on getting into a school on your first shot, and that rotc takes time away from your primary degree(s). it's not impossible, but stressful. the way it was back then (2000) was that if you had an acceptance, you petitioned for an educational delay and it was virtually guaranteed. i say virtually because i'm sure there's a chance someone didn't get it but i've not run into anyone in that situation. i added HPSP after researching it-- which again was pretty straightforward.

to echo the previous posters though, you biggest issue isn't debt, it's getting in to begin with, for the reasons mentioned.

good luck

--your friendly neighborhood advanced camp 99 graduate caveman

 

[SirGecko]

Did you have a medschool acceptance in hand when you applied to transfer?

I did the rotc + hpsp route. I agree there is a *lot* riding on getting into a school on your first shot, and that rotc takes time away from your primary degree(s). It's not impossible, but stressful. The way it was back then (2000) was that if you had an acceptance, you petitioned for an educational delay and it was virtually guaranteed. I say virtually because I'm sure there's a chance someone didn't get it but i've not run into anyone in that situation. I added HPSP after researching it-- which again was pretty straightforward.

I think the difference here is that he was talking about lateral transfer after having already joined a warfare community. So his statement "With ROTC you will be graduating in 4 years and you will be assigned to a community at graduation. Then it is up to the community if they want to let you transfer." is not entirely true. If you don't get in or don't apply to medical school the first time around they assign you to a different community and then the statement is correct. However I did the ROTC->Med Corps transition in 2009 and it was still just an application that you filled out at the end of your junior year and you were assigned med corps instead of a line community. Definitely a LOT riding on getting that acceptance the first time around though. If the Navy trains you for something else they want to get their pound of flesh.

 

[NavyCy]

as I understand it, you can go straight from active duty to med school if you got in the year after

If I misunderstood the situation someone correct me. I certainly don't want to give people bad information. I took this statement to mean that the OP applied to med school, didn't get in, was commissioned AD, and then reapplied the next year from the fleet and was accepted to medical school. My point was that ROTC isn't going to delay your commissioning in order to reapply for medical school a second time. And once you commission in another community, the only option I know of is to lateral transfer. Does ROTC has a special allowance buried in some random NAVADMIN that allows them to lateral transfer the year after commissioning if they are accepted? I know the other commissioning programs do not, but I'm less familiar with ROTC. The other alternative is that I misunderstood the situation, and if so, my apologies.

My situation was undoubtedly not the same as we were discussing, but what struck me is the similarity between how I was told that I could lateral transfer in two years and the scenario mentioned in which the OP has seemingly heard somewhere that one could commission and lateral transfer the next year. Maybe it would suffice to say, if you are considering something such as this, make sure you have it in writing or you are likely to find your self completing 4-5 years doing something else.

Homunculus, I don't have a solid answer to give you. I flew back to the U.S. for an overnight trip to interview at USUHS (we were on deployment). While I was on the flight back to my ship, I got an email from the community saying that my permission to apply had been denied. Several weeks later, I received an email saying that USUHS was restricted in offering official letters of acceptance to AD members who didn't have an approved permission to apply. After many middle of the night phone calls from myself and my COC it became clear that I would not be cleared and my application was withdrawn administratively. In my conversations, I certainly believed that the school was only waiting on my community approval, but I can't say that for certain. Maybe I just bombed my interview and someone wanted a quick way to make me go away. 🙂

 

[Homunculus]

USUHS was restricted in offering official letters of acceptance to AD members who didn't have an approved permission to apply. After many middle of the night phone calls from myself and my COC it became clear that I would not be cleared and my application was withdrawn administratively.

dude, that sucks. sorry to hear that.

i think that's the key. an acceptance in hand is pretty powerful-- but getting there is the hard part-- and with rotc at the time i applied, it was a one time shot. acceptance = ed delay, but if you commissioned into whatever branch, you were then left to the whim of the line-- and circumstance like you had comes up (not approving the application).

take care

your friendly neighborhood hard core med corps (lol) caveman

 

[SirGecko]

If I misunderstood the situation someone correct me.

Nope I'm pretty sure you are 100% correct. This is why I'd never tell someone to do ROTC if they were certain they wanted to do med corps and wouldn't be ok delaying at least 4 years. It's possible to go straight through but if you don't get it the first time around they Navy's probably not going to release you to try again for a while. When I was applying they told me the absolute earliest they would let you is at two years and only if you were a SWO. That said I don't think anyone ever gave me the impression that it was a likely situation.

 

[deleted530324]

My question is what if I wanted to go the HSHP route for medical school, and i'm not accepted? What would happen?

Right, I meant to address this question here when I made my comment about it being a possibility to transfer from active duty. You guys have all the right advice, though.

I've a attached an excerpt from the Regulations for Officer Development regarding guidelines for Naval ROTC midshipmen applying to med school. I found this when I was thinking about med school as a Midshipman. Keep in mind this is from Naval ROTC in 2009, so I'm not sure how it might have changed or how it's different for other services.

My advice is still to go on loans and focus on pre-med activities, grades, extra-curriculars, etc. Worry about military medicine later, but if you get a chance start communicating with military physicians as early as you can so you know what to expect from that sort of lifestyle.