BlackWater
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- Aug 6, 2020
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Hi all,
I am a mechanical engineering graduate in a Hong Kong university this year. Medicine was never in my mind until last year, when the social movement rage through my campus, I started to become a first-aider on the street a couple of times with my medical buddies (I got a first-aid license when I was in my internship). After these experience, I feel the need to try out if medical doctor is a career that I would like to pursue.
I am interested in doing medicine in the US mainly because of my parents, they live in the US. I have researched about the things that I should do on the internet, volunteering and shadowing are all must-dos especially for a non-trad like me, and by gaining these experience, I should be able to have a clearer picture of the medical career which help me to crystallize my decision for whether I want to be a doctor or not.
Besides the volunteering and shadowing experience, I have also noticed that undergraduate GPA does play a significant role in medical school applications, it seems that the average CGPA for the admitted students was around 3.7/4.0 to 3.8/4.0, while my graduating CGPA was 3.64/4.3 (Yeah… my uni has a weird GPA scale). I start to doubt if I am competitive enough to get a place in med school, especially I have done a transfer with the faculty of engineering from another program to mechanical engineering, which had some of my credits transferred and not calculated towards my CGPA. In addition, due to the social movement and the COVID-19 in 2019 - 2020, my campus allowed a Pass/Fail option for all of our courses. I would go for all gradings but for the first semester, but I found this option logically impossible for the sake of my GPA. Since there were no proper proctoring for the first semester exams, students may cheat more easily. So I chose Pass/Fail for the first semester because I don't think this is a fair game.
Despite the fact that I haven’t done any chemistry and biology courses in my undergraduate studies, and I will need $$$ to finance my living and tuition fee, I am planning to find a job and then start a post-bac to get the pre-med courses in the US.
I have learnt that AMCAS will not calculate a CGPA and SGPA for overseas degrees for me but how will institutions evaluate overseas degrees? Is my GPA not good enough? If you were me, will you do the same or will you do anything instead? What can I do to further strengthen my application? Any advice is much appreciated!
I am a mechanical engineering graduate in a Hong Kong university this year. Medicine was never in my mind until last year, when the social movement rage through my campus, I started to become a first-aider on the street a couple of times with my medical buddies (I got a first-aid license when I was in my internship). After these experience, I feel the need to try out if medical doctor is a career that I would like to pursue.
I am interested in doing medicine in the US mainly because of my parents, they live in the US. I have researched about the things that I should do on the internet, volunteering and shadowing are all must-dos especially for a non-trad like me, and by gaining these experience, I should be able to have a clearer picture of the medical career which help me to crystallize my decision for whether I want to be a doctor or not.
Besides the volunteering and shadowing experience, I have also noticed that undergraduate GPA does play a significant role in medical school applications, it seems that the average CGPA for the admitted students was around 3.7/4.0 to 3.8/4.0, while my graduating CGPA was 3.64/4.3 (Yeah… my uni has a weird GPA scale). I start to doubt if I am competitive enough to get a place in med school, especially I have done a transfer with the faculty of engineering from another program to mechanical engineering, which had some of my credits transferred and not calculated towards my CGPA. In addition, due to the social movement and the COVID-19 in 2019 - 2020, my campus allowed a Pass/Fail option for all of our courses. I would go for all gradings but for the first semester, but I found this option logically impossible for the sake of my GPA. Since there were no proper proctoring for the first semester exams, students may cheat more easily. So I chose Pass/Fail for the first semester because I don't think this is a fair game.
Despite the fact that I haven’t done any chemistry and biology courses in my undergraduate studies, and I will need $$$ to finance my living and tuition fee, I am planning to find a job and then start a post-bac to get the pre-med courses in the US.
I have learnt that AMCAS will not calculate a CGPA and SGPA for overseas degrees for me but how will institutions evaluate overseas degrees? Is my GPA not good enough? If you were me, will you do the same or will you do anything instead? What can I do to further strengthen my application? Any advice is much appreciated!
