Is this Enough ??!!

[Minea1010]

O.k. since the last time I applied I have

1) Improved my MCAT score by 3 points
2) Gotten a job as a pharmacy technician
3) Shadowed three doctors (one of whom I'm still shadowing) &
4) Traveled abroad, and shadowed a doctor there

Is this enough? I want to volunteer more but my job's changing schedule doesn't allow for it and someone has to pay those secondary fees. *

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[Phlame217]

What are your GPA's and overall MCAT / breakdown scores?

Ive been a pharm tech for about a year and a half and i was told by adcoms that it didnt make much of a difference unless i was getting clinical and patient experience. Thats why i shadow whenever i can now

 

[nontrdgsbuiucmd]

Sounds like nice additional things, as mentioned above it depends on where the original weaknesses were; what feedback did schools give? If they were not consulted, how evenly spread is your MCAT now? versus before? Were you weak in clinical experience before? Was your GPA roughly at the average for accepted persons before (given it does not look like additional work done here).

Unfortunately any one way weak area can be a killer, so it's hard to say if it's enough without a more full self-evaluation of weak areas.

 

[fahimaz7]

Ive been a pharm tech for about a year and a half and i was told by adcoms that it didnt make much of a difference unless i was getting clinical and patient experience. Thats why i shadow whenever i can now

Makes good sense to me. Working at CVS isn't exactly a hospital or clinical setting that reinforces your decision to go into medical school (unless you want to form an organization that helps doctors handwriting! )

 

[Minea1010]

I actually disagree... I have learned a lot from being a pharmacy technician, (the drugs, the insurances problems.... all things doctors have to deal with).... I don't see how it is not clinically related.... volunteering at a hospital on the other hand taught me nothing more than how to play monopoly better....

 

[gman33]

I actually disagree... I have learned a lot from being a pharmacy technician, (the drugs, the insurances problems.... all things doctors have to deal with).... I don't see how it is not clinically related.... volunteering at a hospital on the other hand taught me nothing more than how to play monopoly better....

You can learn a lot being a pharm tech, but few schools will view this as the type of clinical experience they are looking for. They want to see you interacting with sick patients in a health care facility. The main thing is they want you to be sure you like dealing with sick people. If you don't have 200+ hours of this experience; make time for it.

 

[DrMidlife]

I actually disagree... I have learned a lot from being a pharmacy technician, (the drugs, the insurances problems.... all things doctors have to deal with).... I don't see how it is not clinically related.... volunteering at a hospital on the other hand taught me nothing more than how to play monopoly better....

If you can't smell patients, it's not clinical experience. I'm quoting LizzyM, who is an adcom who posts a lot in pre-allo.

If there's truly nothing to do in your hospital gig than play games, then you need to either (a) get a different volunteer gig or (b) try harder to find something helpful to do. Volunteering isn't about being entertained and interested - it's to get you familiarized with vomit and rules and provider roles in a clinical setting (again, clinical means patient care).

And your GPA, and/or feedback from last app cycle? These would be very relevant to your question.

Best of luck to you.

 

[Minea1010]

O.k. My OGPA : 3.57 SGPA: 3.33
1st MCAT 25M
2nd MCAT 28O.....

what do you think?

P.S. Dr.MIdlife - your avatar scares me

 

[dragonfly99]

If you want to know what I think, I think the GPA is lowish,
and the MCAT is also a little bit low.
Those are probably your biggest problems in terms of admission. Sometimes people say it is the volunteer experience, but IMHO it's the numbers that can make or break you for the most part. If the 3.33 is from an engineering major at MIT, they might forgive it, but if not, the adcom is wondering, "Will this person/can this person do the academic work of medical school?". And they just have so many applicants that they are looking for reasons to throw out/trash applications.

This is just one idea, but yours is the kind of application that I would think has a shot, but I would have a backup plan. - you seem like the kind of applicant that would be perfect for a postbac program. I don't have experience with those, but it seems from other posts on here that there are some that have a very high placement rate into medical schools for people who successfully complete them. It might be better to consider one of those that to keep spinning your wheels trying to figure out what to do, as an outsider looking in.

Also, for applying to med schools this year, apply to some of the ones where the average MCAT score is 9 point something, and that don't have an average GPA of 3.8. It's just kind of harsh but those 11.9 MCAT, 3.8 GPA average places just tend to throw a lot of applications in the trash. It also doesn't matter that much where you end up going - all the schools will make a doctor out of you. I went to one of those supposed "top 5" US News World Report places and I can tell you the teaching and learning isn't necessarily any better (or even as good, sometimes) as some supposedly lesser ranked schools....

 

[Minea1010]

I agree with the last paragraph of your reply completely.... I went to a very good undergrad school (top 20) and got a lot of classes being taught by graduate student instructors... and with very high difficulty levels (i know since I transfered from a less "top" school)....

I should mention that I have two majors and a minor, + disadvantaged/minority status, + more than 300 hours of volunteer/shadow work....

anyone have a school they would suggest that accepts out of state students?

 

[dragonfly99]

OK, Minea,
they might cut you some slack for a double major plus a minor, plus coming from a well known university (it sounds like you do).
Does your university have a premedical advisor? He/she might have advice about which schools have taken a lot of people from your undergrad school.

St. Louis University and Chicago Medical School/Rosalind Franklin took lots of out of state folks, last time I looked. Both have high tuitions. I think Georgetown (Washington, DC) likes folks with a lot of volunteer experiences and they are interested in ethnic diversity, so you might try them. Again, high tuition there...

You might like to try applying to some of the new medical schools. I know that there is at least one (maybe two?) new schools in Florida that are going to accept their first new classes next fall. I don't remember if these are both state schools, or how they fell about accepting out of state students. Best to ask before you apply, since you don't want to waste your money.

I say go for it and apply this year...maybe consider taking a science class this semester, or even something like psychology, and acing it. Got to buff that GPA...

 

[Kaustikos]

If you can't smell patients, it's not clinical experience. I'm quoting LizzyM, who is an adcom who posts a lot in pre-allo.

If there's truly nothing to do in your hospital gig than play games, then you need to either (a) get a different volunteer gig or (b) try harder to find something helpful to do. Volunteering isn't about being entertained and interested - it's to get you familiarized with vomit and rules and provider roles in a clinical setting (again, clinical means patient care).

And your GPA, and/or feedback from last app cycle? These would be very relevant to your question.

Best of luck to you.

I can almost guarantee that pharmacy technician jobs provide more patient interaction than at 50% of volunteer jobs at hospitals and clinics that premeds do. I would gladly argue that these technicians jobs are more worthwhile to a pre-med than most volunteering jobs at hospitals. You think they don't interact with patients? Who brings the prescriptions? And considering the fact that retail pharmacies offer free consults (so to speak), you'll see a lot of people/patients with problems asking for help. Clinical means patient care - what do you think you're doing at a pharmacy?

 

[Minea1010]

I agree, plus you get to see how much influence insurance companies have on the treatment offered by the physician, as well as drug names and uses, ... control substance abuse...etc.... I really got a lot more out of it than volunteering at a hospital... -