Red Flags in my Past?

[Worthy]

I’m in my early 30s and am looking for advice. Sorry if this is incredibly long winded, but I wanted to present the entire picture so I could get an accurate response of how big of a deal it is. I feel that some past events in my life may significantly decrease any chances of getting into medical school and want some opinions, especially if any of you have gone through something similar. Essentially this is my backstory: I entered college with the goal of going to medical school. I majored in a science field and did all of the required pre-reqs for applying . I did volunteer work at a hospital, spent about 50 hours shadowing physicians, and worked as a lab technician in a research lab for a year and a half. I did very well in college, with around a 3.7 overall and a 3.8 science gpa. I actually did worse in non science courses. I took the mcat towards the end of college and didn’t do the greatest. I got a 26. I don’t recall my writing sample score. Looking back, I didn’t prepare adequately for the test at all. I thought with my science background, that I would do decent. I then applied to medical schools. I didn’t get in anywhere, not even an interview. I only applied to a couple schools, all within the state in which I reside. I now realize how big of a mistake it was to only apply to a couple schools. I had graduated college before I sent in my applications. In the mean time, I was working at an entry level job (not related in any way to my degree) in my hometown, expecting to work for a year and save up some money before heading to medical school. When I didn’t get in, I began to panic. At the time, I didn’t want to sit out another year, working at a minimum wage job, in preparation for the next application cycle. Looking back, this is exactly what I should have done. As well as beef up my EC’s. I was young, dumb, and impatient. Instead, coming from a family of attorneys, I decided to take the LSAT and apply to Law School. The deadlines for law school were much later than the deadlines for medical school. I got in to a decent State University Law School, which I started the same year I wanted to start medical school. About half way through the first semester, I began having a major health issue, which caused me to miss a decent amount of classes. Suffice to say, I did very poorly the first semester. I started the second semester but due to this health issue, I withdrew from classes and eventually dropped out. In addition to the health issue, I also couldn’t find a passion for law school, like I did with the sciences. Even though I wanted to give it a chance, due to parents being attorneys, my heart simply wasn’t in it at all. I didn’t enjoy the material or the style of learning. I should have never gone to Law school. After I dropped out, my medical issue became worse and I eventually had to have major surgery to fix the issue. After the surgery, I spent several months recovering. After recovering, I began to look for a job. I got married about a year after the surgery. While I had always planned on reapplying to medical school, it simply wasn’t an option at the time. I had just gotten married and we needed two incomes to live. Furthermore, I was quite ashamed at the whole law school fiasco and thought it was the death of my medical school dream. There is about a year gap between dropping out of law school and getting a job. I ended up landing a job in the finance field, where I’ve worked for about 4 years now. My desire for going to medical school has never went away. Now, I finally feel comfortable, financially, to pursue medicine again. So my question is, where do I go from here? Does my experience with law school essentially keep me out of any medical school? Can this be overcome? How bad is the gap in employment? Should I pursue more clinical volunteering/ other EC’s? Can a good MCAT score make up for a lot of this? This time around, I plan on applying to both MD and DO schools as well as possibly Caribbean schools, as a last resort. I appreciate any advice you guys can give me.

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[xffan624]

I’m in my early 30s and am looking for advice. Sorry if this is incredibly long winded, but I wanted to present the entire picture so I could get an accurate response of how big of a deal it is. I feel that some past events in my life may significantly decrease any chances of getting into medical school and want some opinions, especially if any of you have gone through something similar. Essentially this is my backstory: I entered college with the goal of going to medical school. I majored in a science field and did all of the required pre-reqs for applying . I did volunteer work at a hospital, spent about 50 hours shadowing physicians, and worked as a lab technician in a research lab for a year and a half. I did very well in college, with around a 3.7 overall and a 3.8 science gpa. I actually did worse in non science courses. I took the mcat towards the end of college and didn’t do the greatest. I got a 26. I don’t recall my writing sample score. Looking back, I didn’t prepare adequately for the test at all. I thought with my science background, that I would do decent. I then applied to medical schools. I didn’t get in anywhere, not even an interview. I only applied to a couple schools, all within the state in which I reside. I now realize how big of a mistake it was to only apply to a couple schools. I had graduated college before I sent in my applications. In the mean time, I was working at an entry level job (not related in any way to my degree) in my hometown, expecting to work for a year and save up some money before heading to medical school. When I didn’t get in, I began to panic. At the time, I didn’t want to sit out another year, working at a minimum wage job, in preparation for the next application cycle. Looking back, this is exactly what I should have done. As well as beef up my EC’s. I was young, dumb, and impatient. Instead, coming from a family of attorneys, I decided to take the LSAT and apply to Law School. The deadlines for law school were much later than the deadlines for medical school. I got in to a decent State University Law School, which I started the same year I wanted to start medical school. About half way through the first semester, I began having a major health issue, which caused me to miss a decent amount of classes. Suffice to say, I did very poorly the first semester. I started the second semester but due to this health issue, I withdrew from classes and eventually dropped out. In addition to the health issue, I also couldn’t find a passion for law school, like I did with the sciences. Even though I wanted to give it a chance, due to parents being attorneys, my heart simply wasn’t in it at all. I didn’t enjoy the material or the style of learning. I should have never gone to Law school. After I dropped out, my medical issue became worse and I eventually had to have major surgery to fix the issue. After the surgery, I spent several months recovering. After recovering, I began to look for a job. I got married about a year after the surgery. While I had always planned on reapplying to medical school, it simply wasn’t an option at the time. I had just gotten married and we needed two incomes to live. Furthermore, I was quite ashamed at the whole law school fiasco and thought it was the death of my medical school dream. There is about a year gap between dropping out of law school and getting a job. I ended up landing a job in the finance field, where I’ve worked for about 4 years now. My desire for going to medical school has never went away. Now, I finally feel comfortable, financially, to pursue medicine again. So my question is, where do I go from here? Does my experience with law school essentially keep me out of any medical school? Can this be overcome? How bad is the gap in employment? Should I pursue more clinical volunteering/ other EC’s? Can a good MCAT score make up for a lot of this? This time around, I plan on applying to both MD and DO schools as well as possibly Caribbean schools, as a last resort. I appreciate any advice you guys can give me.

The only red flag I see at this point is the inability to use a paragraph. Didn't they teach you that in law school?

 

[Harvest Moon]

I'm sorry to hear that you had some health issues in the past. I'm going to disagree with your statement "I should have never gone to Law school." You went into law, and realized that it wasn't for you. I personally know someone who was a lawyer, and he hated his job. He started med school last year. You gained a valuable insight through law school, and it can actually strengthen your application. You are also a more mature applicant which is always a plus.

Your GPA is fine. As for your MCAT, it probably expired so don't worry about your old score. Retake it, and study for it this time! I'm sure you will do great. Wish you luck.

 

[Worthy]

The only red flag I see at this point is the inability to use a paragraph. Didn't they teach you that in law school?

Haha, sorry about that. Thanks for reading it anyways.

 

[Worthy]

I'm sorry to hear that you had some health issues in the past. I'm going to disagree with your statement "I should have never gone to Law school." You went into law, and realized that it wasn't for you. I personally know someone who was a lawyer, and he hated his job. He started med school last year. You gained a valuable insight through law school, and it can actually strengthen your application. You are also a more mature applicant which is always a plus.

Your GPA is fine. As for your MCAT, it probably expired so don't worry about your old score. Retake it, and study for it this time! I'm sure you will do great. Wish you luck.

Thanks a lot for your input. I really appreciate it. I've matured significantly since my first attempt at applying for med school. My MCAT is definitely expired. I'm starting now with studying for it and plan on taking it towards the end of April. In the meantime, I plan on doing some more volunteer work at the local hospital and see if I can find some doctors to shadow. I'm not sure how doctors feel about allowing people to shadow them that are a little older than the traditional college student. Hopefully some more people can give me advice if there's more that needs to be done.

 

[AnotherLawyer]

Thanks a lot for your input. I really appreciate it. I've matured significantly since my first attempt at applying for med school. My MCAT is definitely expired. I'm starting now with studying for it and plan on taking it towards the end of April. In the meantime, I plan on doing some more volunteer work at the local hospital and see if I can find some doctors to shadow. I'm not sure how doctors feel about allowing people to shadow them that are a little older than the traditional college student. Hopefully some more people can give me advice if there's more that needs to be done.

I would reach out to your old science professors and see if you can still get strong academic LORs. That might be one of the bigger challenges.

I would also honestly assess your career over the past four years. Can you present it as something unique and exciting such that the adcoms will say "this guy really adds some interesting diversity of experience to our class."? If so, great. If not, I would definitely try to get some interesting and meaningful volunteering to boost your app.

Lastly, as I'm sure you know, the MCAT will play a huge role in all of this.

Good luck!

 

[aformerstudent]

Those are not red flags. Why would you think they were red flags to begin with?

If anything, the MCAT score is a little lower so just do better with that and perhaps you will be alright.

 

[Worthy]

I would reach out to your old science professors and see if you can still get strong academic LORs. That might be one of the bigger challenges.

I would also honestly assess your career over the past four years. Can you present it as something unique and exciting such that the adcoms will say "this guy really adds some interesting diversity of experience to our class."? If so, great. If not, I would definitely try to get some interesting and meaningful volunteering to boost your app.

Lastly, as I'm sure you know, the MCAT will play a huge role in all of this.

Good luck!

Thanks for your input. I am worried about getting strong LORs since I've been out of college now for almost ten years. The same professors I used are still at the same university, luckily. I'm just unsure how to approach them and what the process entails for a previous student that has been out of school for so long. I do know that when they submitted them the first time, I was told they hang on to them in case I would ever need them to send one again.

 

[Worthy]

Those are not red flags. Why would you think they were red flags to begin with?

If anything, the MCAT score is a little lower so just do better with that and perhaps you will be alright.

There are two reasons I thought the law school issue would be a red flag. (1) With doing poorly, it shows I can't handle higher level education and (2) it looks like I'm jumping from one graduate school (and careers) to the next and not really sure what I want. Maybe I'm incorrect in thinking this way. Maybe it's not as big of an issue as I'm worried it is.

 

[Goro]

I’m in my early 30s and am looking for advice. Sorry if this is incredibly long winded, but I wanted to present the entire picture so I could get an accurate response of how big of a deal it is. I feel that some past events in my life may significantly decrease any chances of getting into medical school and want some opinions, especially if any of you have gone through something similar. Essentially this is my backstory: I entered college with the goal of going to medical school. I majored in a science field and did all of the required pre-reqs for applying . I did volunteer work at a hospital, spent about 50 hours shadowing physicians, and worked as a lab technician in a research lab for a year and a half. I did very well in college, with around a 3.7 overall and a 3.8 science gpa. I actually did worse in non science courses. I took the mcat towards the end of college and didn’t do the greatest. I got a 26. I don’t recall my writing sample score. Looking back, I didn’t prepare adequately for the test at all. I thought with my science background, that I would do decent. I then applied to medical schools. I didn’t get in anywhere, not even an interview. I only applied to a couple schools, all within the state in which I reside. I now realize how big of a mistake it was to only apply to a couple schools. I had graduated college before I sent in my applications. In the mean time, I was working at an entry level job (not related in any way to my degree) in my hometown, expecting to work for a year and save up some money before heading to medical school. When I didn’t get in, I began to panic. At the time, I didn’t want to sit out another year, working at a minimum wage job, in preparation for the next application cycle. Looking back, this is exactly what I should have done. As well as beef up my EC’s. I was young, dumb, and impatient. Instead, coming from a family of attorneys, I decided to take the LSAT and apply to Law School. The deadlines for law school were much later than the deadlines for medical school. I got in to a decent State University Law School, which I started the same year I wanted to start medical school. About half way through the first semester, I began having a major health issue, which caused me to miss a decent amount of classes. Suffice to say, I did very poorly the first semester. I started the second semester but due to this health issue, I withdrew from classes and eventually dropped out. In addition to the health issue, I also couldn’t find a passion for law school, like I did with the sciences. Even though I wanted to give it a chance, due to parents being attorneys, my heart simply wasn’t in it at all. I didn’t enjoy the material or the style of learning. I should have never gone to Law school. After I dropped out, my medical issue became worse and I eventually had to have major surgery to fix the issue. After the surgery, I spent several months recovering. After recovering, I began to look for a job. I got married about a year after the surgery. While I had always planned on reapplying to medical school, it simply wasn’t an option at the time. I had just gotten married and we needed two incomes to live. Furthermore, I was quite ashamed at the whole law school fiasco and thought it was the death of my medical school dream. There is about a year gap between dropping out of law school and getting a job. I ended up landing a job in the finance field, where I’ve worked for about 4 years now. My desire for going to medical school has never went away. Now, I finally feel comfortable, financially, to pursue medicine again. So my question is, where do I go from here? Does my experience with law school essentially keep me out of any medical school? Can this be overcome? How bad is the gap in employment? Should I pursue more clinical volunteering/ other EC’s? Can a good MCAT score make up for a lot of this? This time around, I plan on applying to both MD and DO schools as well as possibly Caribbean schools, as a last resort. I appreciate any advice you guys can give me.

I'd be happy to help, but can you ask your questions without the Stephen King-length novella?

 

[aformerstudent]

There are two reasons I thought the law school issue would be a red flag. (1) With doing poorly, it shows I can't handle higher level education and (2) it looks like I'm jumping from one graduate school (and careers) to the next and not really sure what I want. Maybe I'm incorrect in thinking this way. Maybe it's not as big of an issue as I'm worried it is.

They are not red flags. As far as the law school experience, you have a story for that. The GPA looks good so find a way to score better on the MCAT and I'm sure you'll do fine in the process with your numbers.

Don't overthink it and don't do more than you have to do.

 

[DSM_302.0]

what’s your gpa after law school? Do law school grades go into your cGPA?

You should probably retake the MCAT if you think you could score higher and you could always take a class or two to get some more recent LORs.

Even if your gpa took a hit from law school I think you could tell a great story about your passion for medicine and have a strong application. Good luck!

 

[Worthy]

what’s your gpa after law school? Do law school grades go into your cGPA?

You should probably retake the MCAT if you think you could score higher and you could always take a class or two to get some more recent LORs.

Even if your gpa took a hit from law school I think you could tell a great story about your passion for medicine and have a strong application. Good luck!

Thanks a lot for the reply. As far as I know, the grades from law school don't impact your cGPA. Since it's an actual graduate school, and not something like a post bacc program, I'm pretty sure its just viewed as a separate GPA. Someone with more experience can correct me if I'm wrong. I'm going to contact my previous LOR writers and see if they'd be willing to send another one. I'm still trying to figure out how to approach that. I've seen that its usually a good idea to update them on what has been going on in my life since they last wrote one. I'm hoping to retake the MCAT this April and do better.