I'm a non trad music major who decided about 2 years ago that I wanted to be a doctor after graduating and some serious reflection. I started college as a premed and did well for a year and a half (3.9 GPA), but switched to music as that was/is a major passion of mine. I completely forgot about medicine and I spent the next 3.5 years practicing as much as possible, learning multiple new instruments, gigging, etc. I really wanted to make it as a professional musician and I worked hard at that goal. Here I am getting ready to apply to medical school though. It's been a strange journey.
I'm not sure where to apply. My stats are decent and I think I have an interesting story (more on that below), however I'm very much not the average premed.
I figure I'll apply to a number of places around the country and see what happens. I currently live in the west and I'd love to stay out here. I'd like to apply to every western school I have a chance at. Even though I'm a big outdoors guy I also think living in a major city (NYC for example) would be cool for a few years too. I'm trying to make a list and I'm not that opposed to most places in the country.
So far I have:
Vermont
Colorado
Utah (maybe a donation? I dunno)
Here's some info
cGPA and sGPA as calculated by AMCAS or AACOMAS: 3.79 cGPA, 3.75 sGPA
MCAT score(s) and breakdown: 516 (128/127/130/131)
State of residence or country of citizenship (if non-US): I'm originally from Vermont, but I've lived in Colorado for the past two years.
Ethnicity and/or race: Half black/half white (but I'm racially ambiguous)
Undergraduate institution or category: University of Vermont
Clinical experience (volunteer and non-volunteer):
Volunteer: just started at a hospital 4 hours a week. Hoping for 100-200 hours.
Non volunteer: ~1500 hours working as a scribe in a surgical subspecialty
I'll have ~2000 hours working as a ski patroller at a major western resort by the time I apply. We do a lot of different stuff, but medical is a big compenent of it. I'll probably have close to 150-200 patient encounters by the time I'm done. I'll likely see everything from minor orthopedic trauma, to altitude sickness to cardiac arrest. I realize it isn't quite clinical, but ill still be providing basic medical care/evaluations to people and transporting them to higher care.
I'm also going to try to get a ER tech job over the summer/fall
Research experience and productivity: zip/nada. I was a music major and at this point I won't be able to get any.
Shadowing experience and specialties represented:
Around 40 hours split between family medicine, hospital medicine, emergency medicine, orthopedic surgery and general surgery
Non-clinical volunteering:
5 hours tutoring an inner city high school kid who lived in government housing (hours are low due to frequent cancelations/conflicts). Wondering if I should even include it?
~300-400 hours volunteering for a sexual assault hotline (talking to survivors in distress, going to SANE exams etc.)
Anything else not listed you think might be important:
Not sure if this all matters but I'll be the first person in my family to go into medicine. Both of my parents only graduated high school and I'm an only child.
Also my parents had significant health issues while I was growing up. Both of them have been disabled since I was 13. My mom had two big strokes during a surgery to fix an aneurysm. These led to a massive personality change along with her loss of ability to care for herself. It felt like I lost my mom for many years until I came to terms with it in my 20s.
My dad is a combat veteran and he had a whole host of issues including ptsd, depression, borderline personality disorder, chronic pain, neurological issues etc while I was growing up. He was in a wheelchair for most of my teenage years and I bore the brunt of a lot of his mental/physical pain. He also became legally addicted to opiates during the throw 100 oxys at everything and anything heyday, which helped nothing.
Both of these things obviously had a profound effect on me and are part of the reason I'm interested in medicine. I spent a lot of time in hospitals growing up, but I think it gave me a semi-unique viewpoint to what patients and their familes go through. I don't think a lot of med students have that experience. I plan to write about these things for some of my essays, but in a deeper way than just "woe is me."
Anyway I'm not sure where I should apply and what tier of school I "qualify" for. Help would be appreciated.
I'm not sure where to apply. My stats are decent and I think I have an interesting story (more on that below), however I'm very much not the average premed.
I figure I'll apply to a number of places around the country and see what happens. I currently live in the west and I'd love to stay out here. I'd like to apply to every western school I have a chance at. Even though I'm a big outdoors guy I also think living in a major city (NYC for example) would be cool for a few years too. I'm trying to make a list and I'm not that opposed to most places in the country.
So far I have:
Vermont
Colorado
Utah (maybe a donation? I dunno)
Here's some info
cGPA and sGPA as calculated by AMCAS or AACOMAS: 3.79 cGPA, 3.75 sGPA
MCAT score(s) and breakdown: 516 (128/127/130/131)
State of residence or country of citizenship (if non-US): I'm originally from Vermont, but I've lived in Colorado for the past two years.
Ethnicity and/or race: Half black/half white (but I'm racially ambiguous)
Undergraduate institution or category: University of Vermont
Clinical experience (volunteer and non-volunteer):
Volunteer: just started at a hospital 4 hours a week. Hoping for 100-200 hours.
Non volunteer: ~1500 hours working as a scribe in a surgical subspecialty
I'll have ~2000 hours working as a ski patroller at a major western resort by the time I apply. We do a lot of different stuff, but medical is a big compenent of it. I'll probably have close to 150-200 patient encounters by the time I'm done. I'll likely see everything from minor orthopedic trauma, to altitude sickness to cardiac arrest. I realize it isn't quite clinical, but ill still be providing basic medical care/evaluations to people and transporting them to higher care.
I'm also going to try to get a ER tech job over the summer/fall
Research experience and productivity: zip/nada. I was a music major and at this point I won't be able to get any.
Shadowing experience and specialties represented:
Around 40 hours split between family medicine, hospital medicine, emergency medicine, orthopedic surgery and general surgery
Non-clinical volunteering:
5 hours tutoring an inner city high school kid who lived in government housing (hours are low due to frequent cancelations/conflicts). Wondering if I should even include it?
~300-400 hours volunteering for a sexual assault hotline (talking to survivors in distress, going to SANE exams etc.)
Anything else not listed you think might be important:
Not sure if this all matters but I'll be the first person in my family to go into medicine. Both of my parents only graduated high school and I'm an only child.
Also my parents had significant health issues while I was growing up. Both of them have been disabled since I was 13. My mom had two big strokes during a surgery to fix an aneurysm. These led to a massive personality change along with her loss of ability to care for herself. It felt like I lost my mom for many years until I came to terms with it in my 20s.
My dad is a combat veteran and he had a whole host of issues including ptsd, depression, borderline personality disorder, chronic pain, neurological issues etc while I was growing up. He was in a wheelchair for most of my teenage years and I bore the brunt of a lot of his mental/physical pain. He also became legally addicted to opiates during the throw 100 oxys at everything and anything heyday, which helped nothing.
Both of these things obviously had a profound effect on me and are part of the reason I'm interested in medicine. I spent a lot of time in hospitals growing up, but I think it gave me a semi-unique viewpoint to what patients and their familes go through. I don't think a lot of med students have that experience. I plan to write about these things for some of my essays, but in a deeper way than just "woe is me."
Anyway I'm not sure where I should apply and what tier of school I "qualify" for. Help would be appreciated.
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