Lost Non-traditional student

[Prosperity991]

I'm 23 years old and graduated from undergrad with a bachelors in psychology in 2020. I have a 3.75 cgpa and a 3.6 sgpa, but my sgpa consists only of biology, general chemistry, math and a few other science classes like microbio and computer science classes. Also, I have one year of research experience as a research assistant in a psychology lab and I have been working as a covid tester for about a year now, so a little bit of clinical experience as well. However, since I decided to take science classes late, I wasn't able to complete physics, ochem, and biochemistry classes. I decided I wanted to go to medical school in my junior year so I crammed all the science classes I could up until senior year, but came up short, and when I finally graduated, I decided I wanted a break from school. I know its not the best story for medical school but I took the gap time getting clinical experience instead and now want to get back to finishing pre req school work.

Is it okay to complete the remainder of my science classes at community college then take the mcat so I can maybe apply in the 2022-2023 cycle? Friends tell me schools may perceive it negatively but I am not sure since it would save me money. If not, should I work to enroll in a formal post-bacc program with linkage opportunities and mcat prep. Linkage is really attractive to me since they eliminate the gap year and I can start med school after one year if accepted but its very competitive and post bacc programs are expensive as well so I'm not sure.

Ideally I would like to apply in the 2022-2023 cycle but I am not really sure if thats possible. Based on my current stats and story, what should I do to put me in the best position to get into medical school?

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[Bonne Nuit]

The answer to whether CC is accepted is “it depends”. Not all medical schools allow CC prerequisites and others accept them only on a case-by-case basis. 4 year credits are preferred everywhere. You need to purchase a subscription to the MSAR and see if your target schools allow CC credits before you decide.

If you don’t want to do a formal SMP, you could always take your remaining classes on a DIY basis at a 4 year. The advantage to some formal SMPs is the linkage, but they can also be very expensive and risky. DIY would likely be much cheaper than a formal postbac.

Unless you are somehow able to study for and take the MCAT, finish all your outstanding physics, organic chemistry, and biochemistry classes and get in your remaining EC hours by June of this year, you’re not going to be applying in the 2022-2023 cycle. It looks like the earliest you could realistically apply is 2023-2024.

I see that you mentioned some clinical experience and research. That’s a good start. How are you doing with your community service and shadowing hours?

 

[Prosperity991]

Thank you I will definitely look into MSAR. CC is cheaper and easier to enroll in classes quickly which is why I find it so appealing but I guess its not about what I find appealing.

I have no shadowing hours but I did about 600 hours of volunteer work in high school at a local hospital.

 

[Bonne Nuit]

Thank you I will definitely look into MSAR. CC is cheaper and easier to enroll in classes quickly which is why I find it so appealing but I guess its not about what I find appealing.

I have no shadowing hours but I did about 600 hours of volunteer work in high school at a local hospital.

You will need recent clinical hours, if you haven't been working on those already. Activities from high school don't count on your application unless you continued them throughout undergrad. Aim for at least 200 new clinical hours before you apply.

What about nonclinical volunteering? In addition to work/volunteering at a hospital, you will be expected to have a few hundred hours of community service outside of clinical environments (e.g., Best Buddies, Habitat for Humanity, food banks, etc.) by the time you apply. Make sure you're building up these hours as well.

Shadowing is a distinct category from clinical experience/volunteering. You will be expected to report both on your application. 40-70 hours of shadowing across a few specialties (and I highly recommend one of your shadowing experiences be with a primary care physician) will suffice.

 

[riverdude]

You will need recent clinical hours, if you haven't been working on those already. Activities from high school don't count on your application unless you continued them throughout undergrad. Aim for at least 200 new clinical hours before you apply.

What about nonclinical volunteering? In addition to work/volunteering at a hospital, you will be expected to have a few hundred hours of community service outside of clinical environments (e.g., Best Buddies, Habitat for Humanity, food banks, etc.) by the time you apply. Make sure you're building up these hours as well.

Shadowing is a distinct category from clinical experience/volunteering. You will be expected to report both on your application. 40-70 hours of shadowing across a few specialties (and I highly recommend one of your shadowing experiences be with a primary care physician) will suffice.

Those numbers would be ideal, but are a bit high. I’d be hesitant to say you have to have any specific amount of anything. I had about 5 hours of shadowing. Yup - 5. I did have about a year of working full time as an EMT, which I think was the best practical experience and was the best part of my non academic application. I’ve done some type of non medical volunteering my whole life so I probably put down 50+ hours there. I had zero sciences when I went back, so managed to have a 4.0 in science but a pathetic overall GPA. I had a mix of community college and university sciences - the local public university wasn’t terribly more expensive than the CC so I’d at least consider that. I don’t think it makes a difference where it came from it your not going for a super competitive med school.

This year might be tricky, but time it out and see if it is actually possible. I had to pick the cheapest path and did all my sciences and 2 MCATS in the span of about 16 months, then worked as I applied and interviewed.

Every application is different and every school is looking for different things. I didn’t have a ton of interviews but all I needed was one to pick me and I found the school that I fit best - I think they really liked non-trads from a diversity standpoint. Keep your mind open and perform well at the things you choose to devote your time.

 

[Bonne Nuit]

Those numbers would be ideal, but are a bit high. I’d be hesitant to say you have to have any specific amount of anything. I had about 5 hours of shadowing. Yup - 5. I did have about a year of working full time as an EMT, which I think was the best practical experience and was the best part of my non academic application. I’ve done some type of non medical volunteering my whole life so I probably put down 50+ hours there. I had zero sciences when I went back, so managed to have a 4.0 in science but a pathetic overall GPA. I had a mix of community college and university sciences - the local public university wasn’t terribly more expensive than the CC so I’d at least consider that. I don’t think it makes a difference where it came from it your not going for a super competitive med school.

This year might be tricky, but time it out and see if it is actually possible. I had to pick the cheapest path and did all my sciences and 2 MCATS in the span of about 16 months, then worked as I applied and interviewed.

Every application is different and every school is looking for different things. I didn’t have a ton of interviews but all I needed was one to pick me and I found the school that I fit best - I think they really liked non-trads from a diversity standpoint. Keep your mind open and perform well at the things you choose to devote your time.

I’m not sure when you applied (I see you list your status as an attending physician), but the hours I recommended represent the minimum amount expected of applicants to my school, and it has been this way for the past few cycles.

I am very intentional with what I recommend, as I am a current medical student who works in recruitment/admissions outreach with my school. The EC hours I recommend are in line with the current expectations of not only my school, but other medical schools in my region as well as the prevailing advice from active adcom members on SDN. The average matriculant to my school has something like 400 hours community service, 600 hours clinical, and 60 shadowing.

I recognize this can vary from school to school (matriculants at Rush, for example, often have over a thousand community service hours) and some leeway on certain ECs is given in exceptional situations (e.g. active duty military), but you would be very hard pressed to find a successful applicant in 2022 with <100 volunteering hours and minimal/no shadowing. That is simply a nonstarter in the current application environment.

 

[riverdude]

I’m not sure when you applied (I see you list your status as an attending physician), but the hours I recommended represent the minimum amount expected of applicants to my school, and it has been this way for the past few cycles.

I am very intentional with what I recommend, as I am a current medical student who works in recruitment/admissions outreach with my school. The EC hours I recommend are in line with the current expectations of not only my school, but other medical schools in my region as well as the prevailing advice from active adcom members on SDN. The average matriculant to my school has something like 400 hours community service, 600 hours clinical, and 60 shadowing.

I recognize this can vary from school to school (matriculants at Rush, for example, often have over a thousand community service hours) and some leeway on certain ECs is given in exceptional situations (e.g. active duty military), but you would be very hard pressed to find a successful applicant in 2022 with <100 volunteering hours and minimal/no shadowing. That is simply a nonstarter in the current application environment.

OP, I wanted to let you know that you shouldn’t lose faith or think you have to hit certain criteria to succeed. As there are hundreds of schools that can make you a doctor, for any benchmark or criteria or hour count required by one, I can find you a school that doesn’t care at all about that statistic. I can assure you a well published PhD would be accepted to multiple schools without any volunteering or shadowing hours and probably a crappy GPA and MCAT score. I can also assure you that impressive experience is variable in quality and quantity and some administrators are able to decipher this (things like being a nurse or EMT taking precedence over punching your timecard at your neighborhood family physician’s wall that you stand at watching other people work). Some are not. Is that to say you shouldn’t try to be the best candidate you can be and ignore some of these benchmarks? Of course not. You wanna have the best stats to get yourself the most interviews. But, as this is a non-trad nook of SDN, if you have some good life experiences you may not need to hit all the numbers some of these other ens will tell you. Good luck.

Moderator note: this post has been edited to adhere to our terms of service.

 

[Prosperity991]

OP, I wanted to let you know that you shouldn’t lose faith or think you have to hit certain criteria to succeed. As there are hundreds of schools that can make you a doctor, for any benchmark or criteria or hour count required by one, I can find you a school that doesn’t care at all about that statistic. I can assure you a well published PhD would be accepted to multiple schools without any volunteering or shadowing hours and probably a crappy GPA and MCAT score. I can also assure you that impressive experience is variable in quality and quantity and some administrators are able to decipher this (things like being a nurse or EMT taking precedence over punching your timecard at your neighborhood family physician’s wall that you stand at watching other people work). Some are not. Is that to say you shouldn’t try to be the best candidate you can be and ignore some of these benchmarks? Of course not. You wanna have the best stats to get yourself the most interviews. But, as this is a non-trad nook of SDN, if you have some good life experiences you may not need to hit all the numbers some of these other ens will tell you. Good luck.

Moderator note: this post has been edited to adhere to our terms of service.

Thank you so much for your candid response! Also, it's relieving to hear your non traditional path as a not so perfect applicant. I definitely hear what you're implying at in terms of the quality of experience and criteria requirements. I know little about whether cutoffs are a real thing but in my opinion quality life experiences definitely make a more relatable doctor.

My major focus right now will be on finishing the pre requisites classes with the best possible grades. I'm rusty with school so my priority is a decent MCAT score and decent gpa for the remainder of my prerequisites. I have been reading around and its seems like many schools are accepting prerequisites from community college. I think I will most likely have a mix of both for my application like you did.

 

[riverdude]

I wanted to fill in a few things that go left out of my last comment. “Anchoring” is a term often used in academic medicine - meaning having believed you have found the correct conclusion to your data (diagnosis) and are acting accordingly, but not accepting other possibilities. It can be due to a number of things, including misinformation or overconfidence in one’s own abilities and or knowledge. Most institutions I have been involved with try to prevent things like anchoring in one way by instilling the idea that medicine is lifelong learning - meaning you could always learn more and somewhat inherently always be wrong. Anchoring can lead to complications of missed diagnoses and could lead to patient harm. Why do I mention this, you (probably don’t) ask? One, just a good thing to have in your head for the sake of your patients. But, two,
I have seen for over a decade people give specific numbers you have to hit to be a good med school candidate and will give advice as if there are hard lines that apply to all schools. From a numbers standpoint you could say the average accepted applicant did x amount of hours doing x - or most medical schools want x amount. The majority of successful applicants may fit those numbers. However, I often see people “anchor” into the idea that these are the definitive numbers and those that do not meet them will have a nonstarter application. A lot of these numbers are generalized, are different per “tier” of institution, or region specific. Not only that, but being non-trad means you are not like the majority and will skew quite a bit how to interpret how your numbers fit in; and will make it difficult to predict your chances or what you really need to do to get interviews. What non-trads have going for them is their uniqueness, and in an ever more competitive process the unique can be the thing that stands out. This may have changed over time, even though years ago when I was applying I heard all these same arguments posted by others today, but if anything it is more important now than it used to be to have a unique application. Highlight what you have going for you that is different (like the research) and don’t get too bent out of shape about hitting the numbers that the trads feel they need to hit to fit in or stand out.

 

[riverdude]

Thank you so much for your candid response! Also, it's relieving to hear your non traditional path as a not so perfect applicant. I definitely hear what you're implying at in terms of the quality of experience and criteria requirements. I know little about whether cutoffs are a real thing but in my opinion quality life experiences definitely make a more relatable doctor.

My major focus right now will be on finishing the pre requisites classes with the best possible grades. I'm rusty with school so my priority is a decent MCAT score and decent gpa for the remainder of my prerequisites. I have been reading around and its seems like many schools are accepting prerequisites from community college. I think I will most likely have a mix of both for my application like you did.

I think that’s a good game plan. My focus when I went back was 4.0 in every class - knowing I had to show my new “me” was dedicated and capable. It also helped in that I learned study habits and endurance to help tackle the beast of Med school. Again - good luck. You are welcome to direct message me if you have any more specific thoughts/questions.

 

[Bonne Nuit]

@Prosperity991, I think you have a good postbac game plan. While you prep for your application, I want to strongly encourage you to keep hanging out around SDN and look at all the resources available here. I was an extremely nontraditional applicant (ten years older than you are right now when I applied!), I had no premed advisor but I found a wealth of knowledge here that got me to where I am today.

The nontraditional forum was quite useful on its own, but I want to specifically recommend to you the school-specific threads, the "What Are My Chances?" forum, and even the reapplicant threads. You can gain a lot of insight into what your target schools want to see in applicants by hanging out in the school specific discussions. Definitely start reading through the school threads for this and last year's cycle for the programs in your state. I additionally found the WAMC/reapplicant threads extremely useful in helping plan what TO do and what NOT to do. For example, I didn't know that it disadvantaged you to apply late in the cycle until I saw several reapplicant threads about that very topic. I learned so much by researching how other nontraditionals who came before me found success.

You already know about the MSAR, and this is probably the single most important resource a premed can have when it comes to prerequisite planning and making your MD school list after you have your MCAT score. Since the MSAR only covers MD schools, you might consider making your own spreadsheet/notes about the admissions requirements for DO schools. For example, many DO schools want to have a LOR and shadowing experience with a DO physician, and it could be helpful to start planning some of that out now.

Good luck to you!