need advice about my application

[geoexplorer]

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Hi. I am a 30 year old physical therapist, married, and 6 months pregnant (very happy), who recently moved from NJ to Los Angeles (husband got a job here). I have been seriously thinking of applying to medical school for a year, and need constructive criticism regarding my application stats. I plan to apply in 2008 for 2009.
My undergrad (bio major) GPA was 3.89, science: 3.85, BUT my undergrad school combined my GPA with the GPA of my 1st year masters in PT program so now it is 3.49. They did this because my masters program was combined with my undergrad program for the first year only. My first question (Q1) is will this be adverse for my application? Should I explain the situation or request my school to re assess my gpa?
As far as experience goes I had acquired over 250 hours of volunteer work on cardiac floor and PT floor of two major hospitals prior to graduating in BS in 98. Then after finishing masters I have worked in acute, subacute, hospital, outpatient, SNF, home health, long term care settings as a PT, and I even ran my own private practice for the past 3 years. (Q2) What experience do I need to make my application more appealing?
Oh and I was stupid enough to actually take the august mcat as a trial run without studying (got 21M) to later find out that mcat retakes are much frowned upon in applications. I wish I had read more forums. (Q3) Now as far as application timing goes should I retake in Jan or Apr?
Lastly, I am worried about LORs. Sadly it has been soooo long since I have spoken to any of my undergrad professors. (Q4) How can I go about rekindling old academic relationships? Who else can I target for LORs? Your input in answering the above 4 questions would greatly help me. Any other advice to strengthen my application would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

 

[IUgrad]

Hi, geoexplorer,

First, congratulations on the new baby! 🙂

Regarding your questions about your school combining your ugrad/grad GPA, I am inclined to think that it wouldn't affect your ugrad gpa for AMCAS or AACOMAS. When you do your primary app, you have to categorize your courses yourself. So, if you add your grad courses under your grad degree, I would think that it would be calculated as graduate GPA for application purposes. I'm not sure about this, but that would be my guess. If you want to know for sure, the best thing to do is to call AMCAS or AACOMAS and ask how it would be handled. They are the ones who ultimately calculate (standardize) your gpa for application purposes, so they are the ones to ask (not your school).

It sounds like you have a lot of healthcare experience, which is great. I'm sure your background in PT will help you, too. I don't know what else to tell you to add because you look pretty strong in that respect...

I think that you should definitely focus your efforts on retaking the MCAT before anything else, especially if you think you can improve a lot. I don't know if any schools accept Jan scores, and if they do, you'd still be pretty late for the cycle. I would recommend taking anytime between Jan-Apr and applying early next year. It is an expensive and stressful process that you don't want to repeat -- better to do it right next year, imo.

As for LOR, I'm not sure what to tell you here. Are you still in contact with any professors from undergrad? Surely there are some whom you knew pretty well at some point in your undergrad career. I was fortunate in that I took the prereqs pretty recently, so I didn't have a problem finding science LORs. I know that some schools (I don't know who off the top of my head) will accept "professional" letters for people who have been out of college and working for a few years (this is required for some schools like PSU). However, the majority of schools require science and non-science LORs. I would just start contacting professors who have the best chance of remembering you and maybe remind them of the class you took with them, etc. and update them on your goal of applying to med school. Everyone I approached was happy to help.

I hope that helps! Good luck! 🙂

 

[ruraldr]

I'm of a similar age and also worried if undergrad profs would remember me as I hadn't been in good contact with them since graduating. I sent those I had been closest with a catch-up letter about myself including a picture and indicated my interest in medical school and asked if they would be willing to write me a recommendation. I followed up with an email to each and offered to come back to campus to meet with them and talk before their writing recommendation letters. All that I asked indicated they remembered me and were willing to help me out.

 

[2008orbust]

This is my singular experience as a non-trad long out of school, but just to give you hope...

I was EDP,so I only applied to one school, but I called them and told them I was "older" and did not have contact with any old professors. I told them that at my current work as an NP in an ortho office (and also moonlighting in the local ER), MDs who supervise me could easily attest to my critical reasoning, scientific reasoning etc.. They said "sure, no problem". So ALL FIVE of my letters were from MDs that have trained and/or worked with me over the last few years in different capacities. I did not have a single letter from a school.

I am sure that this would not fly with super strict top-tier schools. But as MSU (just as my anecdotal example) they were more interested in letters from people who really know how I work/think/interact with patients than they were on making sure that my letters followed their rules.

Calling each and every school you are interested in and talking to people who are high enough up to make decisions about this can be very helpful. IF MSU had said I had to follow the LOR guidelines to a T, then my app would have sucked.

Just my two cents. Good luck!

 

[glamqueen]

Just a comment on MCAT and app timing - you have plenty of time to study hard and retake the MCAT...I'm taking it in April and planning to apply June of '08 for fall of '09...study hard, get the score up, and I would think timing would be just fine for this next cycle. NOt sure what the other poster meant by late in the cycle. Our cycle hasn't technically started yet. I would, however, plan on applying in June of '08, though. Being nontraditional myself, I plan on applying as soon as AMCAS opens, so that I have the best shot at interviews etc. (the apply early thing - very real). Good luck - you have more clinical experience than I could ever dream of...I'm jealous!

 

[Law2Doc]

Just a comment on MCAT and app timing - you have plenty of time to study hard and retake the MCAT...I'm taking it in April and planning to apply June of '08 for fall of '09...study hard, get the score up, and I would think timing would be just fine for this next cycle. NOt sure what the other poster meant by late in the cycle. Our cycle hasn't technically started yet. I would, however, plan on applying in June of '08, though. Being nontraditional myself, I plan on applying as soon as AMCAS opens, so that I have the best shot at interviews etc. (the apply early thing - very real). Good luck - you have more clinical experience than I could ever dream of...I'm jealous!

Timing is irrelevant. You don't retake the MCAT until you are scoring competitively on multiple full length practice tests. If that means you have to wait out a cycle, you have to wait out a cycle. This isn't a race and with a low first MCAT you have no choice but to pull it up to a significantly more competitive range. As for OP's concern of how her PT grades were calculated by her school, that too is irrelevant. Allo med schools only look at how AMCAS calculates your GPA, not your school's methodology. As for LOR's, you can, in fact go back and get letters form old profs or your school's premed committee years later. Lots of nontrads have. But if that ends up impossible, check with schools as to what is permitted. Bear in mind that if you have been out of school for many years (eg >7), most med schools will want to see recent science coursework anyhow, so you may have to do an informal postbac and then can use those profs as recommenders.

 

[geoexplorer]

I want to thank all of you for your input. It will help me a lot. I think a big hurdle for me is my relocation from NJ to CA. I think I'm definitely going to send out letters to my professors with a pic and then schedule a meetup with them and fly back to NJ. I'm also going to contact the MDs that were my referral sources and see if they will recommend me, but I'm sure they would have required me to shadow them. If I was in NJ it would have been so sweet to shadow them or work as as assistant for them because I'm sure most of them would have agreed.
I have been reading a lot of 30+ mcat scorer posts for study tips. That is a lot of help.
I'm gonna start contacting schools now to get information. Ofcourse being in cali my first choice is well, cali schools, but I think narrowing schools is gonna require a lot of research
I hope I don't have to go back to school for courses because I think I did really well in my sciences as undergrad. I guess I will find out when I'll contact schools. Thanks.

 

[efex101]

I agree with what LAW stated....you may want to contact ALL schools you will be applying to and ASK them if they will need "current" coursework...altough you did well in undergrad some schools will require "recent" proof of academic prowess. As you ask about coursework also ask about LOR's. Again, some schools will prefer "recent" LOR's and hence why taking some courses now may help in that end as well.
You need to do extremely well on the next MCAT for you already have one strike against you. Do NOT take this until you are scoring at least a 30 on practice MCAT.
Remember, this process is grueling and to get in you will need to do maybe more than just retaking the MCAT. Good luck.

 

[Luxian]

Lastly, I am worried about LORs. Sadly it has been soooo long since I have spoken to any of my undergrad professors. (Q4) How can I go about rekindling old academic relationships? Who else can I target for LORs? Your input in answering the above 4 questions would greatly help me. Any other advice to strengthen my application would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

Ah, yes. This problem! I'm 32 and had quite a bit of trouble drumming up academic LORs. Here's what I did. I got two very good recommendations from work -- both were supervisors of mine. Then I also got my biostat prof from my master's program to write me a recommendation so I had at least one academic rec. I also didn't want to retake my freshman year science courses in a post-bacc program. Waste two years and thousands of dollars to retake what I did perfectly well on? No way! But then what to do about having all my science courses 10 years old?

Well, the truth is it depends on the school. I've run into some problems. Emory, for example absolutely will not accept an application unless you have two science profs as LORs. But a LOT of schools will accept others and have a box for you to explain. For UVermont, you need to call the office and ask for a "waiver" but they give them out pretty freely.

The hardest part you will find is how to fit your best into applications that are designed for the average 21 year old. I laughed when I had to describe "what I had done since school" i.e. the last 10 years (!!) in two paragraphs or less!

In any case, I want to tell you there is hope. I've got three interviews so far and I've been out of school even longer than you. If you can get an academic interview, great, but make sure to include at least one LOR that talks about your wonderful capabilities now.