- Joined
- Dec 2, 2018
- Messages
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I know this is a lot to ask but you seem to know a lot. I just want to get your thoughts about my student profile (comments on any or all) about the following.
I am currently 25 years old. I will receive my bachelor's degree in Chemistry(Biochemistry) with a biology minor after 8 years of undergrad. No gap years. Back to back student for all 8 years. Some semesters had at the minimum 8 credit hrs, but typically, and especially the last 50 hours, 12-16 credit hrs/sem.
My story is the following:
-went into college roughly deciding on healthcare management, youngest of 4, all 3 older siblings are doctors.
-as such, realized I wanted to do science based healthcare (doctorates)
-HORRIBLE science skills since middle school, being placed in remedial science and math from 6th-12th grade, ADHD diagnosis in 6th grade (I don’t want to mention this though)
-decides to do pharmacy as i had poor science skills and it would be easy to get in.
-Took first 3-4 years doing gen eds, working towards first bachelors in healthcare management, then after deciding on pharmacy, began working my way up from highschool lvl math chem and bio - did pretty poorly. had to take pre reqs just to be able to take pre-reqs
-started doing well by age 23 and 5th yr of undergrad. felt i was selling myself short on doing pharmacy, because i was improving alot in my science abilities, plus doing pharmacy just because it was easy seemed like a bad decision. this was confirmed as working as a certified pharm tech for 2 yrs, absolutley horrible. decided to shadow brother in laws' cousin who is a dentist, fell in love. was terrified that i could never accomplish something like this.
then came onto SDN, got some good reinforcement, some horrible reinforcement. @artist2022 really inspired me when i was 23, and ultimately decided to just go for it.
-Past 3-4 years of doing semi well to extremely well(past 50 hrs) in pre reqs + upper lvl sciences
-at current university absolutley killing it in all the really tough upper lvl science courses for Biochem, 3.91 cgpa/sgpa for past 50 hours while doing ~12-16 credit hrs/sem for 50 credit hours mostly labs the whole time. BUT first 90 hrs was a 2.6 cgpa/sgpa in absolutley low level sciences and gen eds. Most of those sciences were not pre-reqs, but were the pre-reqs to even take the pre-reqs in the first place. Safe to say, science skills starting out in college were dismal. improved greatly.
Here was the complex track of institutions I have intended. I have switched so much for no reason other than purely financial. The costs of doing 8 years of undergrad is massive, so I had to optimize as I was switching routes.
I started off at
started at state university 1 (healthcare management bachelors) —>
local comm college 1 (trying to do pharmacy pre reqs) —>
local comm college 2 (still trying to do pre-reqs)—->
biochemistry degree at state university 2
Here are the grades, sans the pre-reqs to the pre-reqs. Im talking highschool level (NOT AP) chem and pre-algebra, it was that bad when i was a freshman. somehow still got a 24 on the act, but i couldnt manage to place into college algebra when i was a freshman. i l literally got a D in math 101 as a freshman, and retook to get a C. its been a wild ride since then.
--------
Community college Pre reqs I took: (bolded are noteworthy acheivements)
Gen Bio 1 - C retook then B
Gen Chem 2 - C
Anatomy 1 - C
Calculus 1 - F retook then B
Calculus 2 - A
Organic Chemistry 1 - C
University level courses:
General Chem 1 - C
General Bio 1 - C
Physics 1 - C
Physics 2- A
Organic Chemistry 2 - A
Inorganic Chemistry - A
Cell Biology - A
Biochemistry 1 - B
Biochemistry 2 (non Pre req) - A
Immunology - A
Molecular Biology - A
Cancer Biology- A
Other upper level university courses:
Analytical Chemistry - A
Physical Chemistry 1 - A
Spectroscopy - A
Chemistry Capstone - A
Will be ending my degree with around 120-140 credits and a 3.0 at best.
Currently scoring 21s-22s on DAT BOOTCAMP, but honestly shooting for something impeccable like a 25+, and I am only taking 7 credit hours this semester so i can dedicate all the time i can allot. I have a few more months of non stop studying to try and achieve this.
EC Experience:
-Phi Sigma Kappa at first university
-founder/president Pre health club at comm college
-founder/president Pre dental club at current university
-prestigious dry lab summer research program at northwestern (a t10 school) studying racial and socieconomic disparities in healthcare
- (hopefully) strong LOR from 2 fairly distinguisehd upper lvl science prof., northwestern feinberg medicine research faculty, GP dentist
-Volunteer Hrs. (TBD)
-Shadowing Hrs. (TBD)
-peer leader for teaching the seminar section of P-Chem 1 (one of the hardest undergrad chem courses)
WORK experience:
I know this was ALOT to look through, but I am really just looking for your thoughts here on if you were hypothetically adcomms, what you would think about someone like me. Very non-traditional I know, which is why I need an opinion.
I am currently 25 years old. I will receive my bachelor's degree in Chemistry(Biochemistry) with a biology minor after 8 years of undergrad. No gap years. Back to back student for all 8 years. Some semesters had at the minimum 8 credit hrs, but typically, and especially the last 50 hours, 12-16 credit hrs/sem.
My story is the following:
-went into college roughly deciding on healthcare management, youngest of 4, all 3 older siblings are doctors.
-as such, realized I wanted to do science based healthcare (doctorates)
-HORRIBLE science skills since middle school, being placed in remedial science and math from 6th-12th grade, ADHD diagnosis in 6th grade (I don’t want to mention this though)
-decides to do pharmacy as i had poor science skills and it would be easy to get in.
-Took first 3-4 years doing gen eds, working towards first bachelors in healthcare management, then after deciding on pharmacy, began working my way up from highschool lvl math chem and bio - did pretty poorly. had to take pre reqs just to be able to take pre-reqs
-started doing well by age 23 and 5th yr of undergrad. felt i was selling myself short on doing pharmacy, because i was improving alot in my science abilities, plus doing pharmacy just because it was easy seemed like a bad decision. this was confirmed as working as a certified pharm tech for 2 yrs, absolutley horrible. decided to shadow brother in laws' cousin who is a dentist, fell in love. was terrified that i could never accomplish something like this.
then came onto SDN, got some good reinforcement, some horrible reinforcement. @artist2022 really inspired me when i was 23, and ultimately decided to just go for it.
-Past 3-4 years of doing semi well to extremely well(past 50 hrs) in pre reqs + upper lvl sciences
-at current university absolutley killing it in all the really tough upper lvl science courses for Biochem, 3.91 cgpa/sgpa for past 50 hours while doing ~12-16 credit hrs/sem for 50 credit hours mostly labs the whole time. BUT first 90 hrs was a 2.6 cgpa/sgpa in absolutley low level sciences and gen eds. Most of those sciences were not pre-reqs, but were the pre-reqs to even take the pre-reqs in the first place. Safe to say, science skills starting out in college were dismal. improved greatly.
Here was the complex track of institutions I have intended. I have switched so much for no reason other than purely financial. The costs of doing 8 years of undergrad is massive, so I had to optimize as I was switching routes.
I started off at
started at state university 1 (healthcare management bachelors) —>
local comm college 1 (trying to do pharmacy pre reqs) —>
local comm college 2 (still trying to do pre-reqs)—->
biochemistry degree at state university 2
Here are the grades, sans the pre-reqs to the pre-reqs. Im talking highschool level (NOT AP) chem and pre-algebra, it was that bad when i was a freshman. somehow still got a 24 on the act, but i couldnt manage to place into college algebra when i was a freshman. i l literally got a D in math 101 as a freshman, and retook to get a C. its been a wild ride since then.
--------
Community college Pre reqs I took: (bolded are noteworthy acheivements)
Gen Bio 1 - C retook then B
Gen Chem 2 - C
Anatomy 1 - C
Calculus 1 - F retook then B
Calculus 2 - A
Organic Chemistry 1 - C
University level courses:
General Chem 1 - C
General Bio 1 - C
Physics 1 - C
Physics 2- A
Organic Chemistry 2 - A
Inorganic Chemistry - A
Cell Biology - A
Biochemistry 1 - B
Biochemistry 2 (non Pre req) - A
Immunology - A
Molecular Biology - A
Cancer Biology- A
Other upper level university courses:
Analytical Chemistry - A
Physical Chemistry 1 - A
Spectroscopy - A
Chemistry Capstone - A
Will be ending my degree with around 120-140 credits and a 3.0 at best.
Currently scoring 21s-22s on DAT BOOTCAMP, but honestly shooting for something impeccable like a 25+, and I am only taking 7 credit hours this semester so i can dedicate all the time i can allot. I have a few more months of non stop studying to try and achieve this.
EC Experience:
-Phi Sigma Kappa at first university
-founder/president Pre health club at comm college
-founder/president Pre dental club at current university
-prestigious dry lab summer research program at northwestern (a t10 school) studying racial and socieconomic disparities in healthcare
- (hopefully) strong LOR from 2 fairly distinguisehd upper lvl science prof., northwestern feinberg medicine research faculty, GP dentist
-Volunteer Hrs. (TBD)
-Shadowing Hrs. (TBD)
-peer leader for teaching the seminar section of P-Chem 1 (one of the hardest undergrad chem courses)
WORK experience:
- graduate assistant as an undergrad for the dean's office at our College of Education
- Certified Pharmacy Technician
- (Dental Sterilization) hopeful
I know this was ALOT to look through, but I am really just looking for your thoughts here on if you were hypothetically adcomms, what you would think about someone like me. Very non-traditional I know, which is why I need an opinion.
