Hello All,
Hoping I get some some good suggestions and feedback on what my next steps might be given I am a non-traditional student that is quite a bit off the typical non-trad beaten path. I graduated from Life University with a dual bachelors in Biopsychology and Biology (a large Chiropractic college and yes it is regionally accredited). I attended there because I thought I wanted to do the Doctor of Chiropractic program only to discover after fully immersing myself in the profession that it wasn't for me. I ended up declining my acceptance about 6 months before I was going to graduate with my UG degrees and begin the DC program and due to the cost of transferring schools 6 months before graduating with my bachelors decided to stay and finish. The upside to going there was at the time the undergrad programs were so small that I was able to take a majority of my upper-level science classes (Histology, Embryology, Neurophys, Immunology, Biochem, Endocrinology, etc.) with the DC students and although graded slightly differently did very well in them.
Before going to Life University I had several years of terrible grades: from 2006-2010 I had about a 2.3 GPA. After graduating at the end of 2015 from Life University with my dual degree I was able to raise my cumulative to a 3.06 GPA and my science GPA is around a 3.35. Life considers grade replacement I ended up with a 3.771 graduating GPA from that institution. I managed to do very well in the undergrad program with 1-2 jobs throughout, and being heavily involved in ECs: Founded an undergrad club, setup 2 school wide events to volunteer at a garden whose produce goes to the needy, volunteered my extra time in school as a Dental Assistant for a low income health clinic, and volunteered at the schools orientations and other events when I had free time. I also worked as a Dental Assistant as one of the jobs while in school and between the volunteering and private practice I have about 275 hours of DA experience (although several years old, hopefully would still count as good Clinical experience). Through being a Dental Assistant I can say I do not want to be a Dentist, and after shadowing a DO at the clinic I volunteered at can say with 100% confidence I want to be a DO physician.
I am planning to take the MCAT next year around March and have been working to setup more shadowing opportunities (I shadowed a DO at the clinic I volunteered at but she did not write letters of recommendation for anyone who shadowed her). Due to having a family (a wife and 2 kids), a full time job, and now with COVID19 going on, I have also been looking at Masters programs like the MS in Microbiology & Cell Science (University of Florida) or USF's MS Medical Sciences program so I could continue working and support my family. I have also considered just applying to an SMP program like VCOM or LECOM, but that option would mean having to pick up my family, sell our house, quit my job, and move as the closest program is 3.5 hours away and is the only one in my state. As many have pointed out on SDN SMPs are a big risk which makes the consideration even tougher and hard to drag my family with me to take such a big risk and put us in a situation where we'd be struggling financially without my income.
Besides doing well on the MCAT and getting more shadowing and volunteering hours, what should my next step be to get a better chance of getting into DO school? Not to bash the school as I had a great experience there and my advisor was fantastic, but I have received criticism of where I attended my undergraduate education and would really hate for that to take away from the fact that I pulled myself up from GPA ruin and managed to do well despite a lot of my upper-level classes being difficult. Any advice would be great, as I really want to attend DO school and ultimately be a Physician but it's not as easy for me to drop everything and take the chance on an SMP program given my circumstances.
Hoping I get some some good suggestions and feedback on what my next steps might be given I am a non-traditional student that is quite a bit off the typical non-trad beaten path. I graduated from Life University with a dual bachelors in Biopsychology and Biology (a large Chiropractic college and yes it is regionally accredited). I attended there because I thought I wanted to do the Doctor of Chiropractic program only to discover after fully immersing myself in the profession that it wasn't for me. I ended up declining my acceptance about 6 months before I was going to graduate with my UG degrees and begin the DC program and due to the cost of transferring schools 6 months before graduating with my bachelors decided to stay and finish. The upside to going there was at the time the undergrad programs were so small that I was able to take a majority of my upper-level science classes (Histology, Embryology, Neurophys, Immunology, Biochem, Endocrinology, etc.) with the DC students and although graded slightly differently did very well in them.
Before going to Life University I had several years of terrible grades: from 2006-2010 I had about a 2.3 GPA. After graduating at the end of 2015 from Life University with my dual degree I was able to raise my cumulative to a 3.06 GPA and my science GPA is around a 3.35. Life considers grade replacement I ended up with a 3.771 graduating GPA from that institution. I managed to do very well in the undergrad program with 1-2 jobs throughout, and being heavily involved in ECs: Founded an undergrad club, setup 2 school wide events to volunteer at a garden whose produce goes to the needy, volunteered my extra time in school as a Dental Assistant for a low income health clinic, and volunteered at the schools orientations and other events when I had free time. I also worked as a Dental Assistant as one of the jobs while in school and between the volunteering and private practice I have about 275 hours of DA experience (although several years old, hopefully would still count as good Clinical experience). Through being a Dental Assistant I can say I do not want to be a Dentist, and after shadowing a DO at the clinic I volunteered at can say with 100% confidence I want to be a DO physician.
I am planning to take the MCAT next year around March and have been working to setup more shadowing opportunities (I shadowed a DO at the clinic I volunteered at but she did not write letters of recommendation for anyone who shadowed her). Due to having a family (a wife and 2 kids), a full time job, and now with COVID19 going on, I have also been looking at Masters programs like the MS in Microbiology & Cell Science (University of Florida) or USF's MS Medical Sciences program so I could continue working and support my family. I have also considered just applying to an SMP program like VCOM or LECOM, but that option would mean having to pick up my family, sell our house, quit my job, and move as the closest program is 3.5 hours away and is the only one in my state. As many have pointed out on SDN SMPs are a big risk which makes the consideration even tougher and hard to drag my family with me to take such a big risk and put us in a situation where we'd be struggling financially without my income.
Besides doing well on the MCAT and getting more shadowing and volunteering hours, what should my next step be to get a better chance of getting into DO school? Not to bash the school as I had a great experience there and my advisor was fantastic, but I have received criticism of where I attended my undergraduate education and would really hate for that to take away from the fact that I pulled myself up from GPA ruin and managed to do well despite a lot of my upper-level classes being difficult. Any advice would be great, as I really want to attend DO school and ultimately be a Physician but it's not as easy for me to drop everything and take the chance on an SMP program given my circumstances.
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