Need help....

[rgmerck]

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Hello all, my name is Robert. I am a non traditional student at the young age of 38 years. I am married with 2 children right now and I have been in EMS since 2001. I have a bachelor's degree in Emergency Medical Care from Western Carolina University and like others, I did not excel at the beginning. I started at Tulane University in 1996 while playing football on scholarship and I left Tulane with a very low GPA. I went to Western Carolina and still did not do greatly, but I graduated and as of 3 years ago I had an undergraduate GPA of 2.5 with a few retakes mixed in there. I decided at that time to go back and retake some classes since it had been well over 5 years since College. I decided to go back and take prerequisites again at the local Community college while I worked my 3 jobs (1 Full time Paramedic job 24 on, 48 off, 1 Part Time Paramedic job PRN, and I teach part time EMS at the college). I have retaken General Bio 1/2, Physics 1, A&P 1/2, Psychology, Sociology, etc. I have since taken 8 classes and have made A's on all. My current overall GPA is now a 2.8 and I am in two more classes now. I will not be able to go over a 2.9 due to all my credit hours already. My D.O. GPA will probably be a hair over 3.0. I have inquired with St. George's since I heard their GPA system is very similar to a D.O. with repeat courses. With my 14 years in EMS, my retaking classes, etc (MCAT was taken in January of 2015 and awaiting scores but not feeling good about it) is there anything else I should do to try and boost my application. I am hoping to stay in the U.S. as I am concerned about my two small kids and school, etc, and I am deciding between D.O. and M.D. I already know what field I want to pursue as I want to continue in Emergency Medicine and I would like to work in an ER and maybe start my own Urgent Care or 24 hour Emergency Center. What can I do to boost my application?

 

[EParker37]

If you were referring to St Georges in the Caribbean, the advice here is going to be steer clear. This may not be the advice you want to hear, but have you given any consideration to bridging to RN and exploring NP/CRNA or applying to PA? You might have an outside shot at a DO school @gyngyn and @Goro will probably have better advice on that front. But a 3.0 is going to be incredibly difficult to overcome, even for DO schools. The other thing to consider is the time and money investment of medical school, you would be spending a lot of time away from your spouse and kids. With a bridge program or even PA school, you would be done much quicker, have a stable career and not have a large amount of debt. I would spend some time with the spouse and really weigh your options seriously.

 

[Goro]

OP, your easiest path is to retake all F/D/C science coursework and let AACOMAS' grade replacement policy do it's magic. If you can get your cGPA > 3.0, then you have a chance at DO schools, especially if you apply broadly and do well on the MCAT.

Do NOT apply to any Carib diploma mill unless you want to be unemployed and deeply in debt.

If you were referring to St Georges in the Caribbean, the advice here is going to be steer clear. This may not be the advice you want to hear, but have you given any consideration to bridging to RN and exploring NP/CRNA or applying to PA? You might have an outside shot at a DO school @gyngyn and @Goro will probably have better advice on that front. But a 3.0 is going to be incredibly difficult to overcome, even for DO schools. The other thing to consider is the time and money investment of medical school, you would be spending a lot of time away from your spouse and kids. With a bridge program or even PA school, you would be done much quicker, have a stable career and not have a large amount of debt. I would spend some time with the spouse and really weigh your options seriously.