Need to reinvent and need advice

[timbudz]

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Hello All,

Im 25 years old and I want to go to medical school but I have a bit of a troubled history that I need some advice on. I guess I’ll start out when I first started college. I started at a 4 year university in college in my hometown of Chicago and pretty much didn’t care about school, was only going because I was lucky enough to receive a full ride because I spent a decent amount of time in foster care growing up. The third semester, I was dismissed from the university for bad academic performance, although I did tear my ACL and MCL at the beginning of that semester which was a spring semester and I couldn’t make the hour plus commute in snow and ice on trains and buses. I ended that semester with 4 F’s on my transcript and didn’t bother to file a petition for my grades to convert them to W’s because I wasn’t interested in school and I figured I would never be going back and I was going to go into the trades. However, that summer, after talking to a lot of people I decided I did actually need to go back to school and I got accepted into a smaller 4 year university that was closer to my house. I just graduated from this university with my bachelors in accounting and I am now working as an accountant. I graduated with a 3.1 gpa from strictly this institution, not counting the grades I received from the university I was dismissed from. I took two science classes while I was still deciding what I wanted to major in, which were Gen Chem 1 which I got an A in and Bio 1 which I got a B in. Now, after working as an accountant for awhile, it’s not what I see myself doing for the rest of my life, and I’ve been watching alot of videos about med school and talking to a couple friends I have who just got into med school and it seems very appealing to me. My biggest question is should I do a DIY post bacc or try to get into a formal post bacc program, if that’s possible. On a side note, I would be working while going through all my sciences and I still need to obtain clinical experience as well as volunteer experience, etc. Or, with an institutional action and 4 F’s is it too much of a long shot? I think cumulatively including my F’s my overall gpa is around a 2.8 as of right now, but I have a very strong upward trend after being dismissed from my first university. Any other tips or comments are welcomed

 

[DocJanItor]

It's absolutely possible to recover from this position, but it will take a lot of time, effort, and probably money to do so. Before I go into how to start, a few things:

You said you just graduated and started working and now you're disenchanted with it. This happens to like 90% of the post-college population because the real world sucks compared to college. You have no power, you have no authority, and you have limited autonomy in your job. You see the way things work and how most of the time merit isn't determined by ability or hard work and it's eye opening. The funny thing is that this also happens in residency with a lot of students who go straight through med school from college. It's really just a part of growing up.

So my question to you is: Why medicine? Have you had significant exposure to the medical field? Lots of time with family or yourself in medical settings? I mean don't get me wrong, I'll take medicine every single day over accounting, but that's because it scratches my itch for several different areas of interest. Other people would rather balance a pivot table all day rather than see a drop of blood.

Are you running to medicine or away from accounting/the corporate world? If medicine, what do you like about it? And if you still really want to do it, are you willing to sacrifice 2-3 years of post-bacc and MCAT studying just to get into 4 years of med school, then followed by 3-7 (or more) years of residency to become a doctor?

 

[timbudz]

It's absolutely possible to recover from this position, but it will take a lot of time, effort, and probably money to do so. Before I go into how to start, a few things:

You said you just graduated and started working and now you're disenchanted with it. This happens to like 90% of the post-college population because the real world sucks compared to college. You have no power, you have no authority, and you have limited autonomy in your job. You see the way things work and how most of the time merit isn't determined by ability or hard work and it's eye opening. The funny thing is that this also happens in residency with a lot of students who go straight through med school from college. It's really just a part of growing up.

So my question to you is: Why medicine? Have you had significant exposure to the medical field? Lots of time with family or yourself in medical settings? I mean don't get me wrong, I'll take medicine every single day over accounting, but that's because it scratches my itch for several different areas of interest. Other people would rather balance a pivot table all day rather than see a drop of blood.

Are you running to medicine or away from accounting/the corporate world? If medicine, what do you like about it? And if you still really want to do it, are you willing to sacrifice 2-3 years of post-bacc and MCAT studying just to get into 4 years of med school, then followed by 3-7 (or more) years of residency to become a doctor?

Medicine because I actually started doing some volunteering in a hospital setting and did some shadowing with a doctor who is a friend of my family, and it really captivated me, and I stay often times past my volunteer hours because I love being there. I actually started college wanting to be a nurse but due to the cycle of events that took place it became somewhat unrealistic to become a nurse because it was going to take 4 more years after failing out and my scholarship would not have covered my tuition in nursing school, which would have set me back about 45k, so I instead switched over to accounting and graduated debt free. I kind of knew I didn’t like accounting that much once I got knee deep into it, but due to my living situation and money, and other things, it was necessary for me to finish out my bachelors ASAP so I could at least support myself decently. Also, when I was having my surgeries on my knee, it was very cool and interesting to me to see the doctors at work, and I asked them many questions about their jobs and how they liked it, how they got there etc. So I am very interested in medicine, and I am 100% willing to commit to several more years of a post bacc in order to reach the goal.

 

[Bonne Nuit]

You can overcome your poor academic history with an extremely strong post-bac GPA (get a 4.0 if you can, or at least very close to it), a great MCAT, solid extracurriculars, and a broad application strategy. All is not lost, but it may take a few years of work to put together a competitive application.

You mentioned that you have an institutional action on your record - was this because of your poor grades at your first school, or was the IA for another reason?

 

[timbudz]

You can overcome your poor academic history with an extremely strong post-bac GPA (get a 4.0 if you can, or at least very close to it), a great MCAT, solid extracurriculars, and a broad application strategy. All is not lost, but it may take a few years of work to put together a competitive application.

You mentioned that you have an institutional action on your record - was this because of your poor grades at your first school, or was the IA for another reason?

Yes this was because of my bad grades.

 

[Dave1980]

Hello All,

Im 25 years old and I want to go to medical school but I have a bit of a troubled history that I need some advice on. I guess I’ll start out when I first started college. I started at a 4 year university in college in my hometown of Chicago and pretty much didn’t care about school, was only going because I was lucky enough to receive a full ride because I spent a decent amount of time in foster care growing up. The third semester, I was dismissed from the university for bad academic performance, although I did tear my ACL and MCL at the beginning of that semester which was a spring semester and I couldn’t make the hour plus commute in snow and ice on trains and buses. I ended that semester with 4 F’s on my transcript and didn’t bother to file a petition for my grades to convert them to W’s because I wasn’t interested in school and I figured I would never be going back and I was going to go into the trades. However, that summer, after talking to a lot of people I decided I did actually need to go back to school and I got accepted into a smaller 4 year university that was closer to my house. I just graduated from this university with my bachelors in accounting and I am now working as an accountant. I graduated with a 3.1 gpa from strictly this institution, not counting the grades I received from the university I was dismissed from. I took two science classes while I was still deciding what I wanted to major in, which were Gen Chem 1 which I got an A in and Bio 1 which I got a B in. Now, after working as an accountant for awhile, it’s not what I see myself doing for the rest of my life, and I’ve been watching alot of videos about med school and talking to a couple friends I have who just got into med school and it seems very appealing to me. My biggest question is should I do a DIY post bacc or try to get into a formal post bacc program, if that’s possible. On a side note, I would be working while going through all my sciences and I still need to obtain clinical experience as well as volunteer experience, etc. Or, with an institutional action and 4 F’s is it too much of a long shot? I think cumulatively including my F’s my overall gpa is around a 2.8 as of right now, but I have a very strong upward trend after being dismissed from my first university. Any other tips or comments are welcomed

I would think formal post bacc would be the way to go. You mention working during it which IMO would sink you forever. You need to take a year off of work and ace the post bacc to have any chance at med school. Take out loans. Build up some savings first to cruise off of for the year. Whatever. We see so many people here who enrolled in a post bacc and didn't due well and are now trying to figure out how to fix the whole situation (nearly impossible).

To be blunt...I'm not convinced you can succeed academically as even a 3.1 gpa is not very good and if it was at a small local school it probably wasn't very rigorous. That's why I don't think you should try to handle working and post bacc.

 

[DocJanItor]

Medicine because I actually started doing some volunteering in a hospital setting and did some shadowing with a doctor who is a friend of my family, and it really captivated me, and I stay often times past my volunteer hours because I love being there. I actually started college wanting to be a nurse but due to the cycle of events that took place it became somewhat unrealistic to become a nurse because it was going to take 4 more years after failing out and my scholarship would not have covered my tuition in nursing school, which would have set me back about 45k, so I instead switched over to accounting and graduated debt free. I kind of knew I didn’t like accounting that much once I got knee deep into it, but due to my living situation and money, and other things, it was necessary for me to finish out my bachelors ASAP so I could at least support myself decently. Also, when I was having my surgeries on my knee, it was very cool and interesting to me to see the doctors at work, and I asked them many questions about their jobs and how they liked it, how they got there etc. So I am very interested in medicine, and I am 100% willing to commit to several more years of a post bacc in order to reach the goal.

If you have >130 credit hours and your total cGPA is well below a 3.0, you will likely need a DIY post-bacc and possibly an SMP along with it. The reason is that it just becomes too difficult mathematically to raise your GPA with more coursework to a point that would give you a good shot of being accepted to medical school. Some DO schools are more accepting of reinvention, but they all have their limits. It's extremely difficult to get your application in front of human eyes with a sub 3.0 GPA.

You have no more room for error. At this point A's should be the only thing you get. Anything C or below is unacceptable and B's should be very rare. As the great Ron Swanson once said, "Never half-ass two things; whole-ass one thing." You can try to work while you take a few credits if you aren't convinced, but if you find yourself struggling with work and a few classes then it's time to pull the plug because med school is much harder than that.

 

[stinkycheeseperson]

you need probably 3 years and some ECs

take a science class at a local school. see if you hate it

 

[Goro]

Hello All,

Im 25 years old and I want to go to medical school but I have a bit of a troubled history that I need some advice on. I guess I’ll start out when I first started college. I started at a 4 year university in college in my hometown of Chicago and pretty much didn’t care about school, was only going because I was lucky enough to receive a full ride because I spent a decent amount of time in foster care growing up. The third semester, I was dismissed from the university for bad academic performance, although I did tear my ACL and MCL at the beginning of that semester which was a spring semester and I couldn’t make the hour plus commute in snow and ice on trains and buses. I ended that semester with 4 F’s on my transcript and didn’t bother to file a petition for my grades to convert them to W’s because I wasn’t interested in school and I figured I would never be going back and I was going to go into the trades. However, that summer, after talking to a lot of people I decided I did actually need to go back to school and I got accepted into a smaller 4 year university that was closer to my house. I just graduated from this university with my bachelors in accounting and I am now working as an accountant. I graduated with a 3.1 gpa from strictly this institution, not counting the grades I received from the university I was dismissed from. I took two science classes while I was still deciding what I wanted to major in, which were Gen Chem 1 which I got an A in and Bio 1 which I got a B in. Now, after working as an accountant for awhile, it’s not what I see myself doing for the rest of my life, and I’ve been watching alot of videos about med school and talking to a couple friends I have who just got into med school and it seems very appealing to me. My biggest question is should I do a DIY post bacc or try to get into a formal post bacc program, if that’s possible. On a side note, I would be working while going through all my sciences and I still need to obtain clinical experience as well as volunteer experience, etc. Or, with an institutional action and 4 F’s is it too much of a long shot? I think cumulatively including my F’s my overall gpa is around a 2.8 as of right now, but I have a very strong upward trend after being dismissed from my first university. Any other tips or comments are welcomed

See if you can get a retroactive withdrawal for all the Fs. This is a thing at some schools.

Read this:

• Goro's advice for pre-meds who need reinvention