So I am currently a senior finishing up my lest semester of undergraduate work in a business-related degree. I have worked as a certified personal trainer and group fitness instructor for the previous 2 years which is what really opened my eyes and showed me that health professions are more my passion than business administration.
Awesome. With a focus on primary care, fitness background will work well in this burgeoning era of preventative medicine. Business-related degree can be a plus if you show interest in health administration down the read.
Since that time i have accumulated 45 hours shadowing physicians in primary care and ortho.
How is this time structured? Adcoms tend to prefer longer batches of hours. For example, shadowing a primary care from 8-5, twice per week over a month or two (150 hours) is much better than 2 hours a day, 5 days a week, for 12 months (500 hours). The reason being is that shadowing goes beyond observing the doctor-patient interaction, it's also about understanding the daily rigors and demands of the physician's lifestyle, and when you fill out your primary, the schools will be looking for this understanding when you write about your shadowing experience. Also, see if you can diversify. Get that 8-5 from a primary care, but spend some time with other docs, like pediatrics, geriatrics, cardiology, gastro, etc.
The post-bacc program requires 200 clinical volunteer hours so I will be receiving a minimum 200 additional hours.
As far as non-clinical volunteer work I have roughly 40 hours volunteering for an athletic league for individuals with disabilities, 10 hours volunteering with special olympics, and 10 hours volunteering as a mentor at a local underprivileged elementary school.
During this post-bacc program I am cutting way back on personal training to focus solely on academics, clinical exposure, and a little bit of non-clinical volunteering where I can.
Your non-clinical volunteer work looks solid, and a good departure from the usual soup kitchen/homeless outreach things I usually see. If you can at least double (pref triple) those hours over the next year, I think it'll be really solid.
See if you can volunteer at some local hospitals or senior living facilities. You're looking to focus on patient interaction, so pushing wheelchairs and assisting the elderly would work well here. Cleaning gurneys not so much.
I feel as if a 3.70+ post-bacc / science GPA, 3.60-3.80 undergraduate / cumulative GPA, and my experiences would make me competitive enough to apply during the 2019-2020 cycle if I have a competitive MCAT score to match.
You're absolutely correct here. That's a very strong GPA, and with an MCAT of maybe 508-515 would net you a lot of interviews.
One of the things I would recommend is work on your primary application. While you're not looking to apply this upcoming cycle, I would say you should go through the process of creating the AMCAS account and starting to fill up the application. It's free to fill out, and you can get a feel for what the application is requiring, especially when it comes to the EC portion. You can start planning out how to list and catagorize your ECs and what to write about them. You get to select which ones are most meaningful, and tell a short story about each one that needs to be strong and impactful.
I went to a school that was on a trimester system, so I had to deal with that while inputting my transcript grades. Practicing helped make it go easier the second time around because I didn't have to look up how to fill each box out.
You also get a chance to start thinking about and writing your personal statement. You ideally want to have this done by next spring so it can be edited thoroughly by people who are qualified to edit med school application personal statements before May.
Also, your AMCAS account is ready for when it comes time to sign up for an MCAT in October.
Another thing is to sign up for an MSAR account and start researching prospective schools. Most apply to at least 20, many up to 30-40, some up to 50 (if you have $2000 to blow on primaries). Secondaries can range from $50-100 each, sometimes more. Med school apps are very expensive, which is why I recommend many to try and nail this process the first time around, even if it means taking another gap year.
