I’ll spare you my mansplaining about whether or not you should pursue medicine and focus on logistics. You’re clearly an accomplished person and you have enough exposure to know whether there is potentially a road to fullfillment here for you.
1) your gpa needs work. It’s very low and as it is is may get you screened out a number of places. What did your grade trend look like?
2) MCAT will be especially make or break for you given the Low gpa. Be sure to devote ample time to this and don’t take it until you’re reliably scoring high enough to get accepted despite low grades. It’s doable but the bar is higher for you than for others.
3) unsure how much the URM thing will help. It obviously will quite a bit, but I just don’t how much. It’s been too long since I’ve trolled MDApps to get a sense of how things were playing out currently.
4) as you’ve noticed already, you will want to consider reframing your reasons for leaving your current field. If I were reviewing an app like yours, I would be worried that you’re going to drop medicine too once you find out about the inherent baloney it has too. It’s a different flavor of baloney than the c suite, but baloney all the same. An app like yours is worrisome for someone who may not actually finish, so make sure your story convinced people otherwise. You’ve had less than a year outside a school environment and many will see your current feelings as just normal adjustment to the day in and day out tediousness of the real world.
5) your app also can’t have an whiff of mental illness and instability. This is everyone’s gut reaction when we see gross inconsistency in an application, and a highly successful PhD student turned consultant who pulled a 3.2 in undergrad doesn’t add up. Mental illness and substance abuse are huge problems in medical training so keep this in mind as you frame your story. There’s really not much allowance for treated and stable mental illness either; the assumption will be that the stress of training will push you into a crisis. This is a real problem and schools are getting more and more sensitive about it.
I do hope this works out for you and that you find a place in medicine or elsewhere that is fulfilling for you. You clearly have a lot to offer whatever field you end up in.
Yes, thanks for sparing me the mansplaining
🙂 The logistical advice is SUPER helpful and exactly what I've been looking for! I do appreciate it
🙂 I agree with many of the points - especially the importance of the GPA. To answer/comment on some of your questions:
1) Agree that the GPA def needs work. My dad died first semester freshman year and I chose to go back to school, rather than take a leave of absence. My grades were pretty bad freshman year and even first semester sophomore year, but do show a nice upward trend. My physics grades senior year were less than great, as I was researching 25+ hours a week in a high profile lab (Working directly under the director of our brain institute. We still keep in touch, but, I doubt a letter from him would be useful since I'm 4.5 years removed from undergrad). I decided to quit my job in May (rather than in a few weeks) and use the first "summer session" to get some additional classes in so that my GPA doesn't screen me out. I'll be starting my 1 year post doc with an old professor once apps are in, shortly thereafter.
2) Completely agree that MCAT will make or break my apps. I've been compiling best practices and resources for studying from some of the other SDN threads and will devote my nights, early morning and weekends 100% to studying to make the May 19 test date.
3) Yeah - I have no insight here. I've chatted with 4 URM friends, 2 of which did MPH then MD and two of which did PhD then MD, but I don't seem to be seeing any trends.
4) Framing my story in a way that doesn't seem schizophrenic is probably going to be what I need the most work on. I've even considered hiring a med school consultant for this purpose.
I studied Neuroscience (minors in Bio and Spanish) in undergrad where I did research with a high profile PI before matriculating directly to a top Neuroscience PhD program, where I published 9 papers in 4 years in very translational research, won a fellowship and founded summer internship program for first generation URMs (now institutionalized in its third year of operation). My story becomes crazy/messy in the second year of my program: I invented/patented the medical device and founded the startup. I effectively lived a double life for 1.5 years, continuing my research and also pushing my young company along. My company did achieve some milestones (funding, pitch competitions, press) before I stopped working on it for reasons mentioned above. Then, my PI let me take the summer off to spend time doing a fellowship at a Biotech Venture Capital firm, which was an interesting experience. The next year, I graduated and started healthcare consulting for big pharma. Bigger plot twist: A few months ago, I used my signing bonus and money left over from my venture to start a small business in the developmental disability space in my hometown that my aunt-in-law, who has a degree in child development, runs with the help of younger sister who is finishing law school. We have a small amount of revenue, but nothing to phone home about. (I can't deny my interest and strokes of luck so far in business, but have no desire to make it my full time job). Still trying to figure out a way to tell my story (possibly even omitting parts of the story that are just too incongruous).
5) Consulting at MBB (McKinsey, Bain, BCG) isn't that uncommon of a path for PhDs at certain programs. But nonetheless, I hear ya.
