Leaving Nursing School for Medicine, How To?

[apooji]

I recently posted on WAMC, but now I've pretty much committed to dropping out of nursing school to pursue medical school. I'll share some background then get to the question. I entered into college wanting to be a doctor but settled for nursing after withdrawing from OChem 1. Long story short, did pretty crap on biology pre-requisites but got into state nursing school which was pretty competitive (balanced out bad sciences because I am a male and did really well on the non science nursing pre requisites). I am now in my first semester of nursing school and realize that I'm gonna regret it forever if I don't go to medical school and pretty much at 22, the time is now to finish my pre-requisites (DIY Post-Bacc to fix up the science GPA), take the MCAT, and apply.

I am pretty scared that when I eventually get interviews they are gonna ask why I got into nursing school and dropped out. That's a fair question, and my honest answer is: I thought I would be happy being a nurse and pursuing FNP, found out I won't be, and so I am applying to med school. Being in my first semester, should I finish the semester and then just not return, or just withdrawal from all my classes right now?

Further, how worried should I be about the question above: why did you get into nursing school, start, and then leave?

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[Mr.Smile12]

I recently posted on WAMC, but now I've pretty much committed to dropping out of nursing school to pursue medical school. I'll share some background then get to the question. I entered into college wanting to be a doctor but settled for nursing after withdrawing from OChem 1. Long story short, did pretty crap on biology pre-requisites but got into state nursing school which was pretty competitive (balanced out bad sciences because I am a male and did really well on the non science nursing pre requisites). I am now in my first semester of nursing school and realize that I'm gonna regret it forever if I don't go to medical school and pretty much at 22, the time is now to finish my pre-requisites (DIY Post-Bacc to fix up the science GPA), take the MCAT, and apply.

I am pretty scared that when I eventually get interviews they are gonna ask why I got into nursing school and dropped out. That's a fair question, and my honest answer is: I thought I would be happy being a nurse and pursuing FNP, found out I won't be, and so I am applying to med school. Being in my first semester, should I finish the semester and then just not return, or just withdrawal from all my classes right now?

Further, how worried should I be about the question above: why did you get into nursing school, start, and then leave?

You should be worried about the question if you don't have a good answer. Why are you leaving? What's wrong with it? Does your program have you training with medical students, because there are plenty of medical schools that train with nursing students.

If you excel in the remaining prereq coursework, get some serious shadowing and community service in, and figure out why being a doctor is what you really want to do, then it doesn't really matter that you made a different choice at first. But something made you turn away from a healthcare career (in nursing), and it would benefit you to know what that is.

 

[apooji]

You should be worried about the question if you don't have a good answer. Why are you leaving? What's wrong with it? Does your program have you training with medical students, because there are plenty of medical schools that train with nursing students.

If you excel in the remaining prereq coursework, get some serious shadowing and community service in, and figure out why being a doctor is what you really want to do, then it doesn't really matter that you made a different choice at first. But something made you turn away from a healthcare career (in nursing), and it would benefit you to know what that is.

Great! I have a good internal read on my reason, but need to work on communicating this in my statement.

Is there a problem with me withdrawing from nursing school in the middle of this semester if I already know I'm gonna leave? I have 3 W's on my transcript from my undergraduate degree.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Great! I have a good internal read on my reason, but need to work on communicating this in my statement.

Is there a problem with me withdrawing from nursing school in the middle of this semester if I already know I'm gonna leave? I have 3 W's on my transcript from my undergraduate degree.

I would want to know what you will do if you dropped out. What is your plan?

 

[apooji]

I would want to know what you will do if you dropped out. What is your plan?

Start working as a scribe full time within the month (which requires me drop now), start DIY Post-Bacc classes to raise sGPA and finish pre-requisites in January.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Start working as a scribe full time within the month (which requires me drop now), start DIY Post-Bacc classes to raise sGPA and finish pre-requisites in January.

Check with your academic affairs office about withdrawing or suspending your enrollment. I don't know the policies you have to meet. Otherwise, if all of this is lined up, good luck!

 

[DO2015CA]

Do you already have a bachelors? Need one anyways to apply to med school (barring a few exception schools). A nursing 4 year degree is one of the most marketable ones. Might as well finish it and work as a nurse getting experience while taking your post-bac classes. All of my nurse classmates leaned heavily on that experience when applying to med school and were successful. To be the pessimistic one, the road to a medical degree is littered with the bones of old premeds that didn’t make it. What happens if you drop out of nursing and don’t get in? Nursing is a great backup and won’t require anymore schooling

 

[DOMD2be]

I did the same thing last August. After finishing my degree in educational psychology, I was accepted to an ABSN( 12 months), and left after a month. I had a few reasons for it:
-I felt uneasy during that month because I had settled on Nursing based on my age and based on the program’s time length.
-When I applied to the program, I was 20 minutes away from the university but then moved to over 1h30, and the daily commute became overwhelming.
-I received a scholarship from a hospital covering tuition and expenses in exchange of a 3-year commitment and I found myself being 1h45min away from my future place of employment.
I had 6 pre req courses left to take when I decided to go toward nursing. I am starting a BS in Biology this upcoming spring, and hopefully apply in 2025.
Good luck to you!

 

[McLovin_]

Hey feel free to message me. I left nursing school ~2 years ago, once we started clinicals, and just got accepted this cycle. It definitely came up in most of my interviews.