Looking for some advice

[DOHopeful40]

---

Members do not see this ad.

Hey there,

I'm a current senior looking for advice regarding my chances at DO schools. I will be applying next cycle (June 2017) so I will have a little over a year before I apply. I plan on becoming an EMT or a scribe for my gap years and am taking the MCAT in June.

My current sGPA is roughly a 3.3 and my cGPA is a 3.5 but I have a few blemishes. I have a C+ in Bio I from freshman year, a C+ in Orgo I, a W in Orgo II but I took it the summer after and got an A, a C in genetics and an unfortunate F in calc last semester that I am retaking now and expect a B in.

As for EC's, I have about 50 hours volunteering at a hospital, 60 hours at a soup kitchen, 2 semesters of TA'ing for two different classes and research from this semester that will hopefully get my name on an abstract.

So I am looking for some advice on what to do next. Do you think I should retake Bio I, Orgo I and Genetics? How do you think ADCOMS are going to look at an F in calc senior year and a B after a retake?

Thank you!

 

[kelminak]

GPA's fine, I'd retake the Cs to get an easy GPA boost. The calc is whatever, you're not going to be doing calc in med school. My bigger concern is that your ECs are pretty weak. EMT takes a bit of training and I think you'd be wasting your time with that. A lot of scribe programs look for a 2 year commitment (not that they can really hold you to it). I think you'd be better off doing more volunteer work. Are you still volunteering, or did you do it for 50 hours and stop? Can you elaborate on that a little bit? You could volunteer for 5 hours a week at a hospital and build up 250+ hours, which would be a much better number. Have you done physician shadowing and got a LOR?

Obviously everything hinges on the MCAT and can make or break things.

 

[ERinspired]

I plan on becoming an EMT or a scribe for my gap years and am taking the MCAT in June.

Speaking from 2+ years as an EMT-B and AEMT, this is a great way to get clinical exposure to medicine! It's also one of the most intense. Make sure you consider the kinds of situations you'll be getting into running 911 calls (situations that most doctors never want to/have to deal with) and evaluate if it's right for you before you commit to spending the year doing it. Another caution I have for you is the length of time you're doing it for. It takes a long time to be comfortable on a 911 call. And even after you are comfortable, you find new things to learn each shift. A year might not be enough to make the most of the experience.

As for EC's, I have about 50 hours volunteering at a hospital, 60 hours at a soup kitchen, 2 semesters of TA'ing for two different classes and research from this semester that will hopefully get my name on an abstract.

I would definitely boost these EC's. Most people have more than double this clinical volunteering time. Looking at doing some shadowing and especially try to find a DO (and consider a long enough time frame that they might write you a letter of recommendation). Capitalize on the research and do more if you can.


Overall, you need to do well on your MCAT and get more clinical experience. I'll leave the retake advice to those who know more about it, but you should know that AACOMAS allows grade replacement.

 

[ERinspired]

GPA's fine, I'd retake the Cs to get an easy GPA boost. The calc is whatever, you're not going to be doing calc in med school. My bigger concern is that your ECs are pretty weak. EMT takes a bit of training and I think you'd be wasting your time with that. A lot of scribe programs look for a 2 year commitment (not that they can really hold you to it). I think you'd be better off doing more volunteer work. Are you still volunteering, or did you do it for 50 hours and stop? Can you elaborate on that a little bit? You could volunteer for 5 hours a week at a hospital and build up 250+ hours, which would be a much better number. Have you done physician shadowing and got a LOR?

Obviously everything hinges on the MCAT and can make or break things.

This is true. If you manage to do a summer program, that will be about 4 days/week for 2 months plus ride-along/clinical hours and prepping for certification exams. If you do it during the school year it will be 2 days/weeks during a semester with the same extra demands. This does not leave a lot of time to get experience to put on an application with just 1 gap year. (see my earlier post)

 

[DOHopeful40]

Thanks for the replies! I agree that my EC's are very weak and plan on spending the next year trying to improve them.

Are you still volunteering, or did you do it for 50 hours and stop?

Those 50 hours are from over the course of a semester and a half. The hospital I was at said they had too many volunteers when I tried to come back the following fall so I had to stop. I am still volunteering at the soup kitchen on a semi regular basis though. I am definitely going to start looking for a weekly volunteer position to get over the 250+ mark. I have shadowed a DO ER physician and have a DO family medicine doc and an MD orthopedic surgeon lined up when I get home but don't have a letter currently.

A year might not be enough to make the most of the experience

Since I'm not applying until next summer i'll have two years to work as the EMT but only one year to put on my application. Does only doing it for one year look bad on applications even if I plan on doing it for the year after I apply?

 

[ERinspired]

I have shadowed a DO ER physician and have a DO family medicine doc and an MD orthopedic surgeon lined up when I get home but don't have a letter currently.

That's good. Make sure you track the hours you already have and try to get a letter of rec from someone that you shadow in the future.

Since I'm not applying until next summer i'll have two years to work as the EMT but only one year to put on my application. Does only doing it for one year look bad on applications even if I plan on doing it for the year after I apply?

I definitely would not say it looks "bad." Any kind of clinical experience looks good and working in EMS has a service component that also looks great on applications. However, when you fill out an application, it will ask for "to-date" totals of hours spent. Which if I am understanding your timeline correctly will be something like one semester of schooling for your EMT license and one semester of work. Then you'll submit your application that summer and continue to work throughout the application cycle. I'm not sure that one semester of work will really give you the kind of rich experiences that you'll need to take about in applications/interviews. (If it helps you, you can PM me and I can send you a part of my personal statement that discusses the experiences I've had.)

Side bar: If you do decide to go the EMS route, the best experience you can get is on a 911 ambulance. Often, especially at the EMT-B level and in big cities, these will be in suburbs or more rural areas where you are considered a volunteer and paid minimum wage only or just a call stipend. There will be more opportunities for better pay to work with private ambulance companies doing inter-facility transports. These are not really good "enriching" experiences and most people get bored with this/don't like it at all. Your best bet with a limited amount of time is unfortunately not the best paying. There are also jobs as an ED tech with EMS certifications, but you usually won't get these with no experience and usually they want a higher certification level than EMT-B (meaning AEMT or EMT-P).

 

[Goro]

Getting that B in calc after an F will be a good accomplishment.

Hey there,

I'm a current senior looking for advice regarding my chances at DO schools. I will be applying next cycle (June 2017) so I will have a little over a year before I apply. I plan on becoming an EMT or a scribe for my gap years and am taking the MCAT in June.

My current sGPA is roughly a 3.3 and my cGPA is a 3.5 but I have a few blemishes. I have a C+ in Bio I from freshman year, a C+ in Orgo I, a W in Orgo II but I took it the summer after and got an A, a C in genetics and an unfortunate F in calc last semester that I am retaking now and expect a B in.

As for EC's, I have about 50 hours volunteering at a hospital, 60 hours at a soup kitchen, 2 semesters of TA'ing for two different classes and research from this semester that will hopefully get my name on an abstract.

So I am looking for some advice on what to do next. Do you think I should retake Bio I, Orgo I and Genetics? How do you think ADCOMS are going to look at an F in calc senior year and a B after a retake?

Thank you!

 

[DOHopeful40]

Thank you for your replies!