Non-trad pre-med / pre-dental... need advice

[Nasem]

Whats up everyone,
For the past 8-9 months, I have been doing everything I can to finish up my pre-dental requirements... Right now I am doing my post-bacc at MSU (Need to take all my chemistries and biologies Cause I never took em when I did my undergrad)...

Anyways, I have been doing a lot of shadowing with my sister (DDS) esspecially last 4 months (at least 150 hrs) along with working a fulltime job as a software designer and going to school (yeh you could say I don't have much of a life)....

Of course, being older and more mature now, I like to always visit around and see all the options I can see.... I went a head and started shadowing our family Doctor also (M.D) just to get a feeling and see what they do, and for some reason, I started to enjoy it more than Dentistry

Heres the million dollar concern:
I finished my undergrad in Computer Science and a minors in math with a sad 3.01 GPA (3 years back)..... Anyways, to make story short, I decided to go back to school for medicine and now, I am thinking of going to M.D instead of DDS....
I'll be done with all my pre-dental / pre-medical requirements by May of 2008 and I will be applying for the 2009 cycle, should I even bother with USA medical schools?
My post-pacc GPA (according to my estimations) is going to be pretty good, more than 3.6-3.7+ but when you include that with my undergrad GPA, it BAIRLY moves it up, barily touching 3.15 which is REALLY low for medical schools....

I wanna go to M.D but I feel like my younger years in undergrad are going to cost me an acceptance. Is there a website that shows ALL the medical schools along with thier acceptance rates / MCAT averages ?

thanks and sorry for making this long, I am pretty confused and don't know what to do

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[spicedmanna]

Well, your best resource for application-related statistics on US allopathic schools is the MSAR, a publication of the AAMC. You can probably take a look at it at your Premedical advising office, which likely has copies of that book. I think that PR and Kaplan also publish their own guidebooks on medical schools; these you can find at your local bookstore. I think you can also obtain some information from the USNWR website.

Although, you are correct that your UGPA is well below average for an allopathic matriculant, I wouldn't go running to Caribbean medical schools without at least trying to get accepted into a US program first. You helped your situation by maintaining a good GPA during your post-baccalaureate work. If you make it past the UGPA cut-offs for the schools in which you apply, I imagine that schools will take your entire record into consideration and look at trends and whatnot. Will it be enough to compensate for your past? I don't know.

You haven't yet taken your MCAT, and that test is going to play a big role for you, in my opinion. Thus, it goes without saying that you should study well and do well on the MCAT. Aim high.

Any US medical school will likely offer you more options than a foreign medical school. I would recommend applying broadly, to many US allopathic schools (especially to your state schools), and also to osteopathic medical schools, if you aren't attached to having an MD and agree with learning OMM. Professionally, there is no difference between the two degrees in the United States, except that DO's are trained in musculoskeletal manipulation in addition to the full scope of medicine. The averages for matriculants are somewhat lower for DO schools and they are often more forgiving of past academic history, which could work in your favor for the application process. Research osteopathic medicine to see if it is a good fit for you; if it is, then I would expand your application options to include them.

Remember to apply EARLY during the application cycle; the medical school application process tends to favor applications that are submitted early. Keep in mind that medical schools love to see community service and clinical experience. Get good letters of recommendation.

Also, keep in mind that there's still quite a bit time until the 2009 application cycle. While you will be finished with your premedical prerequistes by May 2008, you would benefit from taking additional undergraduate science classes to continue to raise your UGPA, since there's still the opportunity to do so. Try to raise that UGPA to the highest it can realistically go before you apply. Another option to further improve your application, if you aren't particularly attached to applying in 2009, is to attend a 1-yr Special Master's Program (SMP).

Good luck!

 

[ShyRem]

Take the MCAT and see how you do. That will be a big factor in your options.

 

[gdbaby]

Take the MCAT and see how you do. That will be a big factor in your options.

Shy!!!! How are you?!?!?

-gd

PS I'm a non-trad so I can go off on a tangent here

 

[Nasem]

Thanks spicedmanna for your responce

I am gonna have to sit down for a few months and think this through.... I don't wanna make a choice today that I will regret in 7 years.... Doing a carrier change is much harder done than said (Im living one right now) and I don't wanna ever do it again...

 

[ShyRem]

Shy!!!! How are you?!?!?

-gd

PS I'm a non-trad so I can go off on a tangent here

GD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm drowning in bacT and path right now. Otherwise, things have been great. We're building a garage this summer with a master suite over it (hmmm.. sounds like a great EC for an ortho residency app! ) Hubby is working lots of weekends and all graveyards (which sucks major monkey butt), but somehow amazingly I've passed all my classes so far. You?
-shy

 

[bhadarpal]

Thanks spicedmanna for your responce

I am gonna have to sit down for a few months and think this through.... I don't wanna make a choice today that I will regret in 7 years.... Doing a carrier change is much harder done than said (Im living one right now) and I don't wanna ever do it again...

Why do all Desi's write "career" as Carrier...........cycle wala

 

[NonTradMed]

Take MCAT. If you kick ass in it, you may have a chance. Also, look at DO schools. They look more highly on nontrads and accept lower MCAT scores.

 

[Nasem]

hey folks,
just an update, I did switch over to being pre-med,
by may 2008 I'll have all my pre-med requirements finished (2 chemistries, 2 biologies, and 2 organics... along with all thier labs).

I am planning on doing an addition year of post-bacc after that so that I can take more upper level science classes (I havn't decided which cycle Im going to apply for, either 2009 or 2010), but I feel if I waited until 2010, my application will be alot stronger...

As far the MD vs DO bussiness goes, after doing some research, I realized that the biggest thing I care about is Internal Medicine (and I highly doubt I'll change the way I feel about IM), so I'll be applying to both MD & DO since placement for IM residency is about just as effective for MD as it is for a DO

 

[Meatwad]

hey folks,
just an update, I did switch over to being pre-med,
by may 2008 I'll have all my pre-med requirements finished (2 chemistries, 2 biologies, and 2 organics... along with all thier labs).

I am planning on doing an addition year of post-bacc after that so that I can take more upper level science classes (I havn't decided which cycle Im going to apply for, either 2009 or 2010), but I feel if I waited until 2010, my application will be alot stronger...

As far the MD vs DO bussiness goes, after doing some research, I realized that the biggest thing I care about is Internal Medicine (and I highly doubt I'll change the way I feel about IM), so I'll be applying to both MD & DO since placement for IM residency is about just as effective for MD as it is for a DO

Sounds like a good plan.