Pre-vet thinking pre-med (US-NY)

[slamm27]

Hello! I'm hoping I don't get chewed apart for this as it's my first time posting on SDN...

Ok here we go:
So most of my high school career and college career has been geared towards medicine/the sciences, specifically pre-vet. I've always love animals... have about 250 hours of veterinary experience (this is low) and I ride horses and always have owned animals blah blah blah, your average pre-vet student. From high school to my freshman year of college, I was dead-set on veterinary school. In college I never really gave too much thought about human med (it's not that I don't like humans). I looked into biomedical engineering, biostatistics etc. but for some reason I felt like I was forcing myself to like those things, and they weren't really a passion of mine. Something about the science behind medicine really flips that switch for me. So, I went back to focusing on vet school. Although, not until recently, I am having second thoughts due my advisors warnings about the substantial amount of debt I will be in and lack of compensation etc (he has students that went on to vet school and are now struggling to make ends meet)... which slightly bothers me. I also do not believe that going to your dream job everyday necessarily makes up for not being able to pay your bills because most of your hard earned money is going towards $200,000+ student loans. (If you don't understand this, have a look at the starting salary for a vet and some of the pre-vet forums). Anyway, I've always been interested in the physiology of disease and illness. I honestly could see myself in either vet med or human med, and thats why I think I'm going to shadow some doctors and see what a human doc does all day. There's a lot more to it than what I just said, but I don't want to bore you.

My stats:
Senior at a small SUNY school, NYS resident (I am also taking a gap year)
Major: Biomedical Sciences, double minor in Chemistry and Mathematics
GPA: ~3.58 cGPA and 3.45 sGPA (yes... they're slightly low)
GRE: Took it and didn't do as well as I needed to.... granted I didn't study as much as I should've before I took it so I would need to retake for vet school.... not sure how that relates to how I would do on the MCAT.

EC's & other:

• Equestrian club for four years, have had a position for 2 years (media and advertising)
• Horseback riding (15+ years), volunteering at local barn for four years, on and off participation in biology and pre-med clubs (they're not all that organized or well put together)
• Volunteered at a large equine hospital last summer (+160 hours) and received college credit towards an internship, where I wrote 7-10 page papers every week on a medical ailment or disease I saw that week.
• Intramural soccer 2 years, broom ball this semester
• I am currently a supplemental instruction leader (fall 2015 and spring 2016) which is basically like a TA where you attend lower level bio classes and hold extra help sessions.
• Research on a virus mainly afflicting immunocompromised individuals. Fall 2015 - present (trying to publish... and also presenting findings at a little research fair my school puts on every spring... but its not that exciting, not a conference or anything like that)
• Veterinary internship in high school (~120 hours)

My EC's really aren't that extensive.... I've been slightly indecisive throughout college. Thats why I haven't really gone to far with volunteering because my interests have been all over the place... but now I believe 100% its either vet or med. Just need to get more shadowing and volunteering in both to decide. Also, trying to find a vet to let me shadow in my small college town is worse than pulling teeth...

So, what I really want to know is, what should my target MCAT score be? Also, lets say I do average/slightly better than average on the MCAT.... do I have a chance at MD? What about DO?

Thank you so much if you read all of this. I'm looking for any kind of feedback really. Keep in mind I'm taking a year off to sort this out, but I could use some insight. I know it might be hard convincing admissions that I'm no longer looking at vet... but when I have the resources to actually decide I will cross that bridge. Can't really decide until I've got some decent shadowing hours, but I don't believe the medicine aspect will be entirely different from vet. Also, my mother is a nurse so she helps me understand the realm of human med a little bit.

Overall- I just don't want to waste my time/money if I'm not all that competitive for MD or DO with my GPA.... (thinking schools like Upstate, downstate, stony brook)

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[Skydive Fox]

Hello! I'm hoping I don't get chewed apart for this as it's my first time posting on SDN...

Ok here we go:
So most of my high school career and college career has been geared towards medicine/the sciences, specifically pre-vet. I've always love animals... have about 250 hours of veterinary experience (this is low) and I ride horses and always have owned animals blah blah blah, your average pre-vet student. From high school to my freshman year of college, I was dead-set on veterinary school. In college I never really gave too much thought about human med (it's not that I don't like humans). I looked into biomedical engineering, biostatistics etc. but for some reason I felt like I was forcing myself to like those things, and they weren't really a passion of mine. Something about the science behind medicine really flips that switch for me. So, I went back to focusing on vet school. Although, not until recently, I am having second thoughts due my advisors warnings about the substantial amount of debt I will be in and lack of compensation etc (he has students that went on to vet school and are now struggling to make ends meet)... which slightly bothers me. I also do not believe that going to your dream job everyday necessarily makes up for not being able to pay your bills because most of your hard earned money is going towards $200,000+ student loans. (If you don't understand this, have a look at the starting salary for a vet and some of the pre-vet forums). Anyway, I've always been interested in the physiology of disease and illness. I honestly could see myself in either vet med or human med, and thats why I think I'm going to shadow some doctors and see what a human doc does all day. There's a lot more to it than what I just said, but I don't want to bore you.

My stats:
Senior at a small SUNY school, NYS resident (I am also taking a gap year)
Major: Biomedical Sciences, double minor in Chemistry and Mathematics
GPA: ~3.58 cGPA and 3.45 sGPA (yes... they're slightly low)
GRE: Took it and didn't do as well as I needed to.... granted I didn't study as much as I should've before I took it so I would need to retake for vet school.... not sure how that relates to how I would do on the MCAT.

EC's & other:

• Equestrian club for four years, have had a position for 2 years (media and advertising)
• Horseback riding (15+ years), volunteering at local barn for four years, on and off participation in biology and pre-med clubs (they're not all that organized or well put together)
• Volunteered at a large equine hospital last summer (+160 hours) and received college credit towards an internship, where I wrote 7-10 page papers every week on a medical ailment or disease I saw that week.
• Intramural soccer 2 years, broom ball this semester
• I am currently a supplemental instruction leader (fall 2015 and spring 2016) which is basically like a TA where you attend lower level bio classes and hold extra help sessions.
• Research on a virus mainly afflicting immunocompromised individuals. Fall 2015 - present (trying to publish... and also presenting findings at a little research fair my school puts on every spring... but its not that exciting, not a conference or anything like that)
• Veterinary internship in high school (~120 hours)

My EC's really aren't that extensive.... I've been slightly indecisive throughout college. Thats why I haven't really gone to far with volunteering because my interests have been all over the place... but now I believe 100% its either vet or med. Just need to get more shadowing and volunteering in both to decide. Also, trying to find a vet to let me shadow in my small college town is worse than pulling teeth...

So, what I really want to know is, what should my target MCAT score be? Also, lets say I do average/slightly better than average on the MCAT.... do I have a chance at MD? What about DO?

Thank you so much if you read all of this. I'm looking for any kind of feedback really. Keep in mind I'm taking a year off to sort this out, but I could use some insight. I know it might be hard convincing admissions that I'm no longer looking at vet... but when I have the resources to actually decide I will cross that bridge. Can't really decide until I've got some decent shadowing hours, but I don't believe the medicine aspect will be entirely different from vet. Also, my mother is a nurse so she helps me understand the realm of human med a little bit.

Overall- I just don't want to waste my time/money if I'm not all that competitive for MD or DO with my GPA.... (thinking schools like Upstate, downstate, stony brook)

One of my friends recently switched from pre-vet to pre-PA for similar reasons. It's not too uncommon, actually, for people to switch from pre-vet to a prehealth profession that is geared towards humans instead.

As far as trying to predict MCAT performance based on GRE, that's just not possible except for maybe possibly the verbal reasoning portions. The MCAT is a whole other beast from the GRE (have taken both).

Given your major, you probably already have a solid foundation in most MCAT material, but start studying for it ASAP. They recommend putting in a couple hundred hours of studying in for it (~200+). Your GPA is kinda low and extracurriculars not too eye-catching, but with a 90th percentile (~511+) MCAT score you might have a small shot at some lower tier MD schools. DO schools are definitely a good possibility with an above average MCAT score, however.

Shadow a lot of doctors in various settings and figure out if you can dig it. I wouldn't rely too much on your mother's views since a nurse's perspective won't really be representative of a doctor's perspective.

 

[MDProspect]

Hello! I'm hoping I don't get chewed apart for this as it's my first time posting on SDN...

Ok here we go:
So most of my high school career and college career has been geared towards medicine/the sciences, specifically pre-vet. I've always love animals... have about 250 hours of veterinary experience (this is low) and I ride horses and always have owned animals blah blah blah, your average pre-vet student. From high school to my freshman year of college, I was dead-set on veterinary school. In college I never really gave too much thought about human med (it's not that I don't like humans). I looked into biomedical engineering, biostatistics etc. but for some reason I felt like I was forcing myself to like those things, and they weren't really a passion of mine. Something about the science behind medicine really flips that switch for me. So, I went back to focusing on vet school. Although, not until recently, I am having second thoughts due my advisors warnings about the substantial amount of debt I will be in and lack of compensation etc (he has students that went on to vet school and are now struggling to make ends meet)... which slightly bothers me. I also do not believe that going to your dream job everyday necessarily makes up for not being able to pay your bills because most of your hard earned money is going towards $200,000+ student loans. (If you don't understand this, have a look at the starting salary for a vet and some of the pre-vet forums). Anyway, I've always been interested in the physiology of disease and illness. I honestly could see myself in either vet med or human med, and thats why I think I'm going to shadow some doctors and see what a human doc does all day. There's a lot more to it than what I just said, but I don't want to bore you.

My stats:
Senior at a small SUNY school, NYS resident (I am also taking a gap year)
Major: Biomedical Sciences, double minor in Chemistry and Mathematics
GPA: ~3.58 cGPA and 3.45 sGPA (yes... they're slightly low)
GRE: Took it and didn't do as well as I needed to.... granted I didn't study as much as I should've before I took it so I would need to retake for vet school.... not sure how that relates to how I would do on the MCAT.

EC's & other:

• Equestrian club for four years, have had a position for 2 years (media and advertising)
• Horseback riding (15+ years), volunteering at local barn for four years, on and off participation in biology and pre-med clubs (they're not all that organized or well put together)
• Volunteered at a large equine hospital last summer (+160 hours) and received college credit towards an internship, where I wrote 7-10 page papers every week on a medical ailment or disease I saw that week.
• Intramural soccer 2 years, broom ball this semester
• I am currently a supplemental instruction leader (fall 2015 and spring 2016) which is basically like a TA where you attend lower level bio classes and hold extra help sessions.
• Research on a virus mainly afflicting immunocompromised individuals. Fall 2015 - present (trying to publish... and also presenting findings at a little research fair my school puts on every spring... but its not that exciting, not a conference or anything like that)
• Veterinary internship in high school (~120 hours)

My EC's really aren't that extensive.... I've been slightly indecisive throughout college. Thats why I haven't really gone to far with volunteering because my interests have been all over the place... but now I believe 100% its either vet or med. Just need to get more shadowing and volunteering in both to decide. Also, trying to find a vet to let me shadow in my small college town is worse than pulling teeth...

So, what I really want to know is, what should my target MCAT score be? Also, lets say I do average/slightly better than average on the MCAT.... do I have a chance at MD? What about DO?

Thank you so much if you read all of this. I'm looking for any kind of feedback really. Keep in mind I'm taking a year off to sort this out, but I could use some insight. I know it might be hard convincing admissions that I'm no longer looking at vet... but when I have the resources to actually decide I will cross that bridge. Can't really decide until I've got some decent shadowing hours, but I don't believe the medicine aspect will be entirely different from vet. Also, my mother is a nurse so she helps me understand the realm of human med a little bit.

Overall- I just don't want to waste my time/money if I'm not all that competitive for MD or DO with my GPA.... (thinking schools like Upstate, downstate, stony brook)

In my opinion, you should stick to becoming a vet. From the EC that you listed, most of them would be considered hobbies, not meaningful in explaining on why you want to become a physician. What you did in high school, should stay in high school. Even though your mother might be a great mentor, its not enough to convince adcoms that you know what it takes to be a med student. Even if you would get a 510+ on your mcat, it won't be enough to compensate for the minimal clinical exposure.