Hi all and thanks in advance,
I am considering essentially taking all pre-med reqs minus biology in a self paced setting over two years (at state school at night and online). Before embarking on that I would really like to understand my options or if my profile is too far gone (I can laugh about it thankfully!).
Background:
I am considering essentially taking all pre-med reqs minus biology in a self paced setting over two years (at state school at night and online). Before embarking on that I would really like to understand my options or if my profile is too far gone (I can laugh about it thankfully!).
Background:
- 29 years old, work in finance (not really considering a full time post-bacc because I am fortunate to be in a decent financial position and have a spouse at the end of a PhD
- 3.17 GPA undergrad with A LOT of hours (~160 so overall movement in GPA is going to be extremely tough (30 more hours of all A's would get me to only ~3.3)
- Have taken biology and one semester of chemistry (poor grades - B & Cs) Would retake chemistry as I really think I need to start from scratch there
- Work experience - doubt any of this matters but I have been successful. I have a CFA which does take a lot of effort. I took the GMAT and scored well (96th percentile). Again, I know this doesn't matter but context to the following - I pretty much stopped being a student a 11 years old and didn't start again until my senior year of college, personal reasons for that but that doesn't matter. I didn't work at school / worked a lot / partied even more and it showed in grades and amount of stuff I learned. For the GMAT I had to essentially teach myself algebra (Although i did get an A in calc in college). All this to say I essentially wasted my education in the normal sense, but I think I have the tools to be successful with concerted effort.
- Complete a self-paced post bacc style program over two years - aim for near perfect grades. I get if folks read this and think thats dumb and unrealistic. It may be, but for sake of argument I am assuming that with more maturity i might be able to do it
- Do very well on the MCAT - once again massive assumption. I do take tests well thankfully
- Become involved in some part time research capacity - I rediscovered science at 27. For any younger people out there I wish I had never lost it! I watched hours of UC-Irvine O chem lectures online because it was enjoyable when trying to understand cellular processes!
- Have a > 33% shot at an MD program, my long term goal being oncology - see below
- I love biomedical science (I do read review articles for fun even though I don't understand them, I think the biology of cancer is just about the most interesting thing I can imagine) - so some research option is something I am very interested in HOWEVER I really am not interested in a PI type track, the success rate is just far too low and I don't think I am that special AND I'm old haha)
- If anyone has any alternative thoughts on how I could re-translate this background into biomedical science in a non-clinical setting I would be interested in that too, I understand that's not the main point of this forum.
- End of the day I am too scared, and value the financial security too much to leave my career. Its a good career, but I always dreamed about medicine and science and let that path get away from me.
