PreMed Advice?

[heywutsupman]

I just finished my 2nd year of community college and am going on to take a 3rd year there to finish my pre med and major prerequisites. This coming fall I am taking Ochem and Zoo and the following Spring I will be taking Ochem 2 and Physics 2 to finish my pre reqs (as well as other psych courses and gen ed stuff). I then looked at the classes I needed to take at UC Davis transferring as a ‘junior’ and found that the required classes to get the B.S. psych degree is only 12 classes or about 50 units, so it seems that transferring from a semester system to a quarter system with 3 academic quarters I can finish those 12 classes in 1 year at Davis, taking 4 classes a quarter, rather than 2 years, which I thought I was going to have to do. So I am thinking about taking the MCAT this summer right after I finish my 3rd year at the community college, after finishing physics 2 and ochem 2, and then applying to medical schools in December of that year. I also plan on volunteering at a hospice and putting a lot of hours into that, as well as start studying for the MCAT now so I can hopefully rock it next summer. I am mostly banking on getting a high MCAT score and gaining meaningful patient experience at the hospice to make up for me spending most of my academic years in a community college (NVC), does that even matter anymore since everyone is taking the same standardized MCAT exam, so if I get a high score on that and maintain a good GPA will I be a competitive candidate? Currently my GPA is 3.7 and I wasn’t as disciplined as I am now, so I plan on getting that up, and I also have been doing jiu jitsu for a while now as an extracurricular. I don’t mind going to a D.O. as well. Any helpful advice or insightful criticism (even other possible career paths) would be appreciated, all this uncertainty in life right now is stressful but very meaningful and exciting. Thank you!

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[Goro]

Invest in MSAR to find out which med schools accept CC coursework. Not all do.

Your GPA is fine, but Adcoms will want o see if you can handle rigorous coursework at a 4 year school. Med school will be a lot harder, and rightly or wrongly, CC's have a rep for less rigor in their classes. Taking a 3rd year to complete your pre-rqes gives the impression that you avoiding the more rigorous weeding coursework.

 

[boogiecousins94]

Is this NVC in CT? I would try to go to UConn Waterbury and take stuff there and then transfer to main UConn eventually and then you get a degree from the main campus

 

[candbgirl]

You need to spend some time reading up on the whole application process. To start with I'm pretty sure you can't apply MD in December! Students are applying now for matriculation in 2018. They will go through interviews this coming school year. Clinical experience isn't the only thing you need to do. There is nonclinical, shadowing, research maybe, finding some leadership opportunities. There is no reason to hurry this process. You need LORs and those will be hard to gather quickly. Spend some time now reading up and the whole process will be much clearer and you'll have a smoother process. Good luck!


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