Non Traditional Prospective Student Advice

[SaladinChamcha]

I have suddenly decided not to attend a top 5 law school due to declining job prospects. I have an undergrad GPA of around a 3.65 but have no science background. I am very seriously considering enrolling in a post-bac program for the fall of 2012. What should I be doing this year to prepare (aside from applying to programs)? I would assume that taking science classes at the local CC or university would be useful. I am fully aware that I have a long uphill climb ahead of my if I want to accomplish this!

As it currently stands, I also have no volunteer or work experience in the health care field. Is med school a pipe dream already? Any advice is very much appreciated.

Thanks!

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[Law2Doc]

I'm 24 and have suddenly decided not to attend a top 5 law school due to declining job prospects. I have an undergrad GPA of around a 3.65 but have no science background (aside from one bio class I took). I am very seriously considering enrolling in a post-bac program for the fall of 2012. What should I be doing this year to prepare (aside from applying to programs)? I would assume that taking science classes at the local CC or university would be useful. I am fully aware that I have a long uphill climb ahead of my if I want to accomplish this!

As it currently stands, I also have no volunteer or work experience in the health care field but spent two years as a Teach for America corps member. Is med school a pipe dream already? Any advice is very much appreciated.

Thanks!

Careful with the community college courses if you plan to enroll in a formal post-bac program -- many require you not to have taken the sciences already. Also you need a much better story about why you are bailing from law school other than bad job prospects. That is not a good reason to go to med school. Med schools won't want you if it seems like you just want to be a professional and don't care what kind. Your first order of business, long before any of the coursework, is to get out there and shadow and volunteer. Find out what medicine is all about. And do that first. Med schools are going to want to see that you looked before you leaped, not that you started down the road of premed and only then did you start learning what medicine is all about. So spend the time to volunteer and shadow, and decide if this is really for you and why. take your time with it. Create a good track record of exploring this option before you start down the coursework road. And come up with a good reason of why medicine other than because law has tanked. Nobody wants another fields leftovers.

 

[SisterDisco08]

Just so you know, there are a handful of post-baccs that begin during the winter too

 

[theseeker4]

I'm 24 and have suddenly decided not to attend a top 5 law school due to declining job prospects. I have an undergrad GPA of around a 3.65 but have no science background (aside from one bio class I took). I am very seriously considering enrolling in a post-bac program for the fall of 2012. What should I be doing this year to prepare (aside from applying to programs)? I would assume that taking science classes at the local CC or university would be useful. I am fully aware that I have a long uphill climb ahead of my if I want to accomplish this!

As it currently stands, I also have no volunteer or work experience in the health care field but spent two years as a Teach for America corps member. Is med school a pipe dream already? Any advice is very much appreciated.

Thanks!

I agree with what was said above; a declining job market in law is NOT a good reason to switch to medicine. Why do you want to be a doctor? As you work on answering that to yourself, begin job shadowing doctors and volunteering at hospitals/clinics so you can actually see what the medical field is like.

Once you do this for a while, and have a good reason to give yourself for pursuing medicine, look into courses. You will need 2 semesters of chemistry, 2 semesters of organic chem, 2 semesters of biology and 2 semesters of physics. Many medical schools require a full year english courses, statistics, calc I and II, biochemistry, cell biology, A&P, microbiology, or some combination thereof.

You can apply to a formal post bach program, or you can do your pre-reqs freestyle, though if you attend a school with a "pre-med committee" most medical schools require a LOR from the committee which may be difficult to obtain without being in a formal post-bach.

As far as your prospects, your GPA is in the competitive range already, and if you rock A's in all of the science courses and get a high MCAT score, you will be a very strong candidate. The MCAT will be taken after all of the pre-reqs are complete, and the pre-reqs shouldn't be started until you are sure you want to pursue medicine, and know why you want to pursue medicine. Good luck.

 

[Aborja]

Hi, I am an English major and was considering applying at a post bacc pre-med program also. I'm wondering if anyone here has experience in taking the fast route-- taking/studying for the MCAT then applying directly to a medical school. Is this possible? I've been working in the healthcare industry for over 5 years, and when I first started college, I was in the pre-med route, so I took some core courses in the past.
Thanks!

 

[DrArete]

I'm 24 and have suddenly decided not to attend a top 5 law school due to declining job prospects. I have an undergrad GPA of around a 3.65 but have no science background (aside from one bio class I took). I am very seriously considering enrolling in a post-bac program for the fall of 2012. What should I be doing this year to prepare (aside from applying to programs)? I would assume that taking science classes at the local CC or university would be useful. I am fully aware that I have a long uphill climb ahead of my if I want to accomplish this!

As it currently stands, I also have no volunteer or work experience in the health care field but spent two years as a Teach for America corps member. Is med school a pipe dream already? Any advice is very much appreciated.

Thanks!

Whatever the job market, if you go to a top 5 law school and get at least passing grades, you will do well. If you get good grades at a top 5, then you can have your pick of both corporate $$ jobs and some interesting govt/foundation/international stuff.

 

[murfettie]

eh.. yeah.. everyone i know from top 5 have a really lucrative job, and are flushed with money at 27..
a top 5 law school graduate at 27 has a much better earning potential than a becoming a full pledged doctor at 34.

 

[yankswin2011]

eh.. yeah.. everyone i know from top 5 have a really lucrative job, and are flushed with money at 27..
a top 5 law school graduate at 27 has a much better earning potential than a becoming a full pledged doctor at 34.

If you're at a "Top 5" law school (i.e. Harvard, Stanford, Yale, etc.), the declining job prospects won't affect you as much -- you can run for President if you have a lot of ambition.... The declining job prospects really affects people who go to average to mediocre law schools. I'm not saying that every Harvard law grad is employed but the chances of employment is pretty high, generally speaking. No matter the economy - people in Top 5 schools generally scored near perfect on the LSATs with near perfect GPAs -- they are some of the brightest, sharpest individuals you will ever meet (and probably some of the quickest thinkers on their feet) so I'm confident that such type A people will find a way to get employed -- I don't think they are the type of people that will let circumstances get the better of them. Getting into a Top 5 (or Top 14 or so) law school is similar to getting into any medical school (minus Carribeans, DOs, etc).

Obviously, in a bad market, the Harvard grad might not get the $160K job out of law school but I'm pretty damn sure he or she will get something that pays decent -- so long as the Harvard grad is willing to put his pride aside to take a $100K job, but if what you're truly after is "Big Money", then you're safest best is medical school.

 

[LCSULLA]

mmmmm

 

[Law2Doc]

Hi, I am an English major and was considering applying at a post bacc pre-med program also. I'm wondering if anyone here has experience in taking the fast route-- taking/studying for the MCAT then applying directly to a medical school. Is this possible? I've been working in the healthcare industry for over 5 years, and when I first started college, I was in the pre-med route, so I took some core courses in the past.
Thanks!

There are no short cuts. You need to have all the prereqs. There are twice as many applicants as seats for med school so they don't make exceptions, they just move to the next person.

 

[isoquin]

It's still very much possible, but why do you want to go to medicine? The sense you're getting from these responses is going to come up in the application process. People will grill you as to why you suddenly went in a completely different direction, and you'll need a really good reason past "looked lucrative." Med and law school are quite different as well. It's not just different course material but the same general idea. So first step is: why do you want to go into medicine? If you can't answer that well, it is a pipe dream.

 

[yankswin2011]

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[DrMidlife]

People will grill you as to why you suddenly went in a completely different direction

No they won't. Finishing undergrad and then deciding to pursue medicine is very common. Having a law school acceptance would only show up on a med school app if you decide to put it in your essay (which I hope won't fit because that essay is chock full of good reasons they should let you into medical school).

What is missing, as others have said, is significant exposure to the practice of medicine. Get into a hospital and/or clinic. Shadow docs. Read about healthcare policy. Meet the obese diabetic hypertensive smokers, and their parents and children, who will be your clientele.

Wanting the money and the prestige is also very common. Which is why med schools, and good formal premed postbacs, require a ton of clinical exposure before they'll take you seriously.

Best of luck to you.

 

[yankswin2011]

"

 

[yankswin2011]

No they won't. Finishing undergrad and then deciding to pursue medicine is very common. Having a law school acceptance would only show up on a med school app if you decide to put it in your essay (which I hope won't fit because that essay is chock full of good reasons they should let you into medical school).

Well, it depends -- on one hand, if you leave it blank and there's a gap of time -- then it might come up during an interview as to what you did during this period of time. But on the other hand, if you were doing something else while applying to law school, you can probably leave it off and no one will ever know.

 

[DrMidlife]

Well, it depends -- on one hand, if you leave it blank and there's a gap of time -- then it might come up during an interview as to what you did during this period of time. But on the other hand, if you were doing something else while applying to law school, you can probably leave it off and no one will ever know.

Oh it sounds like I'm saying to hide it - I see. What I meant to get across was that it's common to have gaps between undergrad & med school, and imho as long as you're not just playing xbox and living with your parents, you won't really be expected to defend your path.