Roadblocks All the Way!

[Lacheln]

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I made a post about this in postbac recently. I was an engineering major so the majority of those classes didn't contribute to my sGPA at all.

Yes, but no one escapes without bio, 2 of chem, 2 of physics and 2 of calc. And I'd be surprised if you didn't have upper level math as well. Majority != all. Maybe you were just exaggerating, it just stood out to me as a fellow MIT grad.

I don't think there's a "game" you need to play being a non-trad to make yourself more appealing to adcoms. Generally you'll have a more appealing set of experiences than a traditional student. Again, I think the issue people run into is showing they have a clear reason and commitment to be doing what they're doing, rather than collecting degrees or what have you. Many non-trads think the fact that they're giving up a career to embark upon another course is proof enough of commitment but unfortunately it's not viewed that way in a vacuum.

I agree.

 

[drizzt3117]

Yes, but no one escapes without bio, 2 of chem, 2 of physics and 2 of calc. And I'd be surprised if you didn't have upper level math as well. Majority != all. Maybe you were just exaggerating, it just stood out to me as a fellow MIT grad.

Actually I placed out of bio, one physics course, calculus, and chem from AP and took multivariable, linear algebra, and an analysis course in high school. I took one physics and genetics course 1st year, which were of course P/F. I did have sGPA on my transcript but all of those courses were taken in HS. Anyways, this is all pretty much beyond the point. Regardless how different my application was than others' my AMCAS and PS still looked pretty similar, except that I had more to talk about.

 

[Lacheln]

Actually I placed out of bio, one physics course, calculus, and chem from AP and took multivariable, linear algebra, and an analysis course in high school. I took one physics and genetics course 1st year, which were of course P/F. I did have sGPA on my transcript but all of those courses were taken in HS. Anyways, this is all pretty much beyond the point. Regardless how different my application was than others' my AMCAS and PS still looked pretty similar, except that I had more to talk about.

Ah yeah, the ap + p/f thing occurred to me after I posted. Thanks for clarifying.

I agree that successful applications to a large extent look the same (in their own special little snowflake sorts of ways of course) whether you are non-trad or trad. I think the important message here is that med schools are looking for people who are:

1. academically and emotionally capable of performing in both pre-clinical and clinical environments
2. have explored the field enough to be at least somewhat aware of the sacrifices/challenges/triumphs/banalities involved in the training and the career
3. socially conscious enough to be trusted to put other people's needs ahead of their own for a very long time

That's it pretty much. Meeting the academic challenge is harder once you've screwed up your gpa as a young'un, and meeting the emotional one is harder if you haven't lived very long. Exploring the field can be limited by available time whether you're 19 or 35 with three kids - neither person has necessarily had a ton of free time to really get into the nitty gritty of the medical profession.

I think what is different for many non-trads though is the level of sacrifice required to pursue medicine, simply by virtue of actually having something to trade. A trad isn't giving anything tangible up by pursuing medicine, and I believe that that fact makes it easier to jump through some of the hoops emotionally, and quite possibly financially. And I think the awareness of sacrifice can look like entitlement (and in some cases it actually is entitlement). Especially when some people feel like changing careers should stand as proof of commitment.

That said, I just approached it as a resume and job interview. I got sick of the repetitiveness and the expense, and the juggling of travel with work, but those are universal. I felt like I had a pretty significant advantage overall due to being older. (Comparing myself now to myself then I definitely did, and that's really the only comparison I can make.)

 

[drizzt3117]

I think what is different for many non-trads though is the level of sacrifice required to pursue medicine, simply by virtue of actually having something to trade. A trad isn't giving anything tangible up by pursuing medicine, and I believe that that fact makes it easier to jump through some of the hoops emotionally, and quite possibly financially. And I think the awareness of sacrifice can look like entitlement (and in some cases it actually is entitlement). Especially when some people feel like changing careers should stand as proof of commitment.

That makes sense regarding having something to trade. The flip side of it, however, and the reason I think a lot of people have entitlement issues is simply because they want it their way a lot of the time, "I'm willing to do whatever it takes to pursue a career in medicine, as long as I have time to see my family, and it's a 8-5 job." I mean, I understand, that balance is important. However, med school and residency aren't places where it exists, at least if you're going to be a competent physician. It's just not something you can do part time, so if you're going to do it, you should be totally committed, at least during your training. That's my view of it, and I guess that's where a lot of the time NTs get into trouble with adcoms, simply because they're not necessarily able to show that level of commitment.

I'm certainly not trying to make the argument that family shouldn't be important, it certainly is. Growing up in a family of physicians, I was grateful for whatever time I could spend with my parents. It's hard finding balance. I guess as adcom members we have difficulty because we need to make sure that people are going to tough it out. It's totally understandable that someone might decide it's not worth it (and these people aren't necc NTs) but that puts schools in a bind simply because they made a big investment in that candidate.

In any case, I think NTs do bring diversity to classes, and a wide variety of experiences, which is why I think they have an inherent advantage as I said before. It is what it is.

 

[student1799]

I applied with ~3.6 cumulative and did well with the top tier. I had similar postbac performance to you (~53 units @ 4.0)

You're absolutely right that a 3.6 from MIT (actually my cGPA when applying to med school was closer to 3.7, but who's counting, and 0.2 of that cGPA was from Scripps) isn't really comparable to those from other schools.

Can you reconcile these two statements for me? If you had a 3.6 "cum," that included your postbacc. This implies that in college--MIT--your GPA was more in the 3.3 range than 3.6. Am I missing something here?

Even in the post you quoted, I said that the person's GPA wasn't below average and was competitive. I don't see how that counts as viewing it as "akin to having leprosy."

My point was not what you said in the post in question--it was what it revealed about you, which was very much at odds with the image you've projected elsewhere on SDN. (My exact words were, "to read your other posts, you'd think that having even a 3.6 GPA was akin to having leprosy.")

I'm interested to see where I mentioned that people with low stats are stupid, or incapable of success.

How about this thread,[thread=616935] "True Underdog Story,"[/thread] where you aggressively in attacked a guy who said he'd gotten into a top-10 school with below-average stats? You clearly implied that he was lying, because you couldn't believe that a prestigious school would take someone with a below-average GPA. In that same thread, after you'd manufactured the 3.3/29 BS in order to insult me, you informed me that those made-up stats were "below the matriculant average of essentially every allo school in the US (2008 average, 3.66 cGPA)." If that's true, then 3.6 is below average, and thus equivalent to leprosy in your eyes.

And now that you have in fact made it into med school, you've clearly done your best to "forget where you came from." Pretty sad, if you ask me.

As I mentioned before, I hang out in the postbac forum here quite a bit. I just don't really associate with NTs either here or in real life, I guess it's a cultural thing.

When I said "where you came from," I didn't mean nontrads. I meant people with low undergraduate GPAs. If you remembered that you were one yourself, maybe you wouldn't be so contemptuous of others who may be in this position.


I agree that grades were not the main topic of this thread. That's why your smug, self-satisfied post about how you got into med school, which made a conspicuous reference to your "not below average" stats, was gratuitous and unhelpful, and why I called you on it.

 

[LeoGer]

1799: stop being such a whiner! Your posts don't contain a sentence of useful information. Drizz doesn't have to remember what a low-gpa feels like because he/she has completed all of the necessary steps in a top-10 medical school acceptance - including an MCAT score of 39, a very nice post-bac GPA, and other stats which must be equally as impressive. Someone complaining about how 'no schools even give me a chance' has not shown that same turn around, and is not on the same playing field.

Drizz has posted several points which are useful to individuals not looking for offense, and you just come off as a bitter twelve year old who didn't get invited to Disney world with her friends.

 

[drizzt3117]

Can you reconcile these two statements for me? If you had a 3.6 "cum," that included your postbacc. This implies that in college--MIT--your GPA was more in the 3.3 range than 3.6. Am I missing something here?

Yeah, I just quoted that b/c Lachlein did. I had just under a 3.5 in undergrad, I actually applied with 3.673 cGPA (which is why I said 0.2 of that GPA came from Scripps.) I suppose you could consider those low stats, if you wanted.

How about this thread,[thread=616935] "True Underdog Story,"[/thread] where you aggressively in attacked a guy who said he'd gotten into a top-10 school with below-average stats? You clearly implied that he was lying, because you couldn't believe that a prestigious school would take someone with a below-average GPA. In that same thread, after you'd manufactured the 3.3/29 BS in order to insult me, you informed me that those made-up stats were "below the matriculant average of essentially every allo school in the US (2008 average, 3.66 cGPA)." If that's true, then 3.6 is below average, and thus equivalent to leprosy in your eyes.

Actually my point was simply that it was improbable. Could it happen? Sure. Regarding your scores, I probably remembered them wrong from 2008, so if you didn't have a 3.3/29, then I apologize, fwiw.

When I said "where you came from," I didn't mean nontrads. I meant people with low undergraduate GPAs. If you remembered that you were one yourself, maybe you wouldn't be so contemptuous of others who may be in this position.

I agree that grades were not the main topic of this thread. That's why your smug, self-satisfied post about how you got into med school, which made a conspicuous reference to your "not below average" stats, was gratuitous and unhelpful, and why I called you on it.

I am amused that you'd consider that low, but if it makes you feel better, then more power 🙂 Then again, this is SDN and where you went to school for undergrad doesn't matter.

I had a 3.67 and 39 when I applied to med school. I suppose you can consider those low stats, but I imagine you'd be in the minority, that combination of GPA and MCAT is higher than the averages of every school in the country except for Wash U. As far as it being gratuitous, as I mentioned before with Lachlein, I think it was in the sense that it's not really all that applicable given that I had a relatively unique set of circumstances. That said, it is applicable in a way that is common with non-trads that it was hard to evaluate my competitiveness relative to others simply because I had a different set of experiences.

I'd like to get away from discussing my situation simply because it serves no purpose in this thread. I realize I probably came off as offensive to the OP earlier, but the reason for that was simply because I found their comments offensive. Admissions committees work very hard to select a class of diverse individuals. In general, non-trads do very well in admissions, but less well when their performance in med school is correlated, which is a little bit frustrating, but in my opinion, their inherent advantage in admissions isn't going to change simply because of the trend towards increasing diversity of all kinds in medical education.

 

[Pons Asinorum]

Didn't expect this thread to get interesting. Cheers to all!

 

[TFS]

Ah yeah, the ap + p/f thing occurred to me after I posted. Thanks for clarifying.

I agree that successful applications to a large extent look the same (in their own special little snowflake sorts of ways of course) whether you are non-trad or trad. I think the important message here is that med schools are looking for people who are:

1. academically and emotionally capable of performing in both pre-clinical and clinical environments
2. have explored the field enough to be at least somewhat aware of the sacrifices/challenges/triumphs/banalities involved in the training and the career
3. socially conscious enough to be trusted to put other people's needs ahead of their own for a very long time

That's it pretty much. Meeting the academic challenge is harder once you've screwed up your gpa as a young'un, and meeting the emotional one is harder if you haven't lived very long. Exploring the field can be limited by available time whether you're 19 or 35 with three kids - neither person has necessarily had a ton of free time to really get into the nitty gritty of the medical profession.

I think what is different for many non-trads though is the level of sacrifice required to pursue medicine, simply by virtue of actually having something to trade. A trad isn't giving anything tangible up by pursuing medicine, and I believe that that fact makes it easier to jump through some of the hoops emotionally, and quite possibly financially. And I think the awareness of sacrifice can look like entitlement (and in some cases it actually is entitlement). Especially when some people feel like changing careers should stand as proof of commitment.

That said, I just approached it as a resume and job interview. I got sick of the repetitiveness and the expense, and the juggling of travel with work, but those are universal. I felt like I had a pretty significant advantage overall due to being older. (Comparing myself now to myself then I definitely did, and that's really the only comparison I can make.)

on the flip side, making the choice to give up these tangibles can make it easier to jump through all the hoops simply because you've prepared yourself for what you are getting yourself into, you know what's at stake, and you know why you are doing it. 🙂

 

[student1799]

Yeah, I just quoted that b/c Lachlein did. I had just under a 3.5 in undergrad, I actually applied with 3.673 cGPA (which is why I said 0.2 of that GPA came from Scripps.) I suppose you could consider those low stats, if you wanted.

I am amused that you'd consider that low, but if it makes you feel better, then more power 🙂

No, I don't consider those low stats--but you certainly gave me the impression that YOU did, judging by your past posts. My point is that you seemed to be talking out of both sides of your mouth. In your post in this very thread, you said "it's possible to be a non-trad and not have low or average stats." Yet if the "average" you quoted me on the "Underdog Story" thread is right, your GPA was dead average.

I really don't give a damn about your GPA, but I think it's fairly hypocritical to sneer at other people's stats when you had a GPA that, by your own standards, was nothing extraordinary. Judge not, lest ye be judged.

Regarding your scores, I probably remembered them wrong from 2008, so if you didn't have a 3.3/29, then I apologize, fwiw.

I accept your "apology, fwiw," but you couldn't have "remembered them wrong from 2008," because I never stated them on SDN in the first place. I have discussed my actual MCAT score (as opposed to the one you made up for me) on a number of occasions--including the thread where you pulled the 29 out of your ***--because it was highly relevant to my med school admissions situation. But I have never given out my uGPA on SDN, so there was nothing to "remember."

 

[drizzt3117]

No, I don't consider those low stats--but you certainly gave me the impression that YOU did, judging by your past posts. My point is that you seemed to be talking out of both sides of your mouth. In your post in this very thread, you said "it's possible to be a non-trad and not have low or average stats." Yet if the "average" you quoted me on the "Underdog Story" thread is right, your GPA was dead average.

I really don't give a damn about your GPA, but I think it's fairly hypocritical to sneer at other people's stats when you had a GPA that, by your own standards, was nothing extraordinary. Judge not, lest ye be judged.

Stats = GPA + MCAT, and that combination is higher than the average for every med school besides Wash U, as I said in my last post. I don't judge people for having low stats. I just think it's improbable to get into schools whose average stats are standard deviations above what a given applicant has. It's not impossible, just unlikely.

I accept your "apology, fwiw," but you couldn't have "remembered them wrong from 2008," because I never stated them on SDN in the first place. I have discussed my actual MCAT score (as opposed to the one you made up for me) on a number of occasions--including the thread where you pulled the 29 out of your ***--because it was highly relevant to my med school admissions situation. But I have never given out my uGPA on SDN, so there was nothing to "remember."

IIRC I thought I remembered had a MDApps that I thought you later removed but it was someone else. Like I said, I was mistaken.

 

[Crelal]

Yikes! Interesting last day of posts- let's keep it friendly people!

I do have to respond to a comment someone made in the last day about NT not doing as well and not being 'all in' like their traditional counterparts.

Maybe I don't represent all NT, but here it is:

While my trad counterparts are out at the bars, doing foolish things, I am at home or studying. I am up earlier studying while they are sleeping, because that is the schedule I have become accustomed to over the years. Not that I am in bed super early either- the thing about being a parent is you learn to live on less sleep. Very much like being on call.

If my peers or superiors want to underestimate me because I am a parent, that will be their issue, not mine. After one year, I am doing as well as my counterparts, so either I am somehow better able to absorb the material, which I highly doubt, or I actually am as 'all in' as they are. And I am not the only one- my class has quite a few NT students with children, and for the most part they have done well.

Actually, maybe that is another advantage as a NT with a family. When it comes to class rank/gpa, if everyone assumes we are not 'all in', advantage in our favor. 😉

 

[drizzt3117]

No offense to a fellow badger but 2nd year at our school is a lot different from 1st. A lot of people who you didn't think took school seriously will suddenly be putting in a whole lot of hours, having grades will do that. Good luck and keep up the good work though!

Yikes! Interesting last day of posts- let's keep it friendly people!

I do have to respond to a comment someone made in the last day about NT not doing as well and not being 'all in' like their traditional counterparts.

Maybe I don't represent all NT, but here it is:

While my trad counterparts are out at the bars, doing foolish things, I am at home or studying. I am up earlier studying while they are sleeping, because that is the schedule I have become accustomed to over the years. Not that I am in bed super early either- the thing about being a parent is you learn to live on less sleep. Very much like being on call.

If my peers or superiors want to underestimate me because I am a parent, that will be their issue, not mine. After one year, I am doing as well as my counterparts, so either I am somehow better able to absorb the material, which I highly doubt, or I actually am as 'all in' as they are. And I am not the only one- my class has quite a few NT students with children, and for the most part they have done well.

Actually, maybe that is another advantage as a NT with a family. When it comes to class rank/gpa, if everyone assumes we are not 'all in', advantage in our favor. 😉

 

[Crelal]

No offense to a fellow badger but 2nd year at our school is a lot different from 1st. A lot of people who you didn't think took school seriously will suddenly be putting in a whole lot of hours, having grades will do that. Good luck and keep up the good work though!

No offense taken, just saying that while NTs with families may have built in distractions, trad students often have some of their own self-inflicted distractions which take up just as much time.

I am looking forward to this year- much more relevant clinically and a challenge. I love a challenge.

 

[drizzt3117]

No offense taken, just saying that while NTs with families may have built in distractions, trad students often have some of their own self-inflicted distractions which take up just as much time.

I am looking forward to this year- much more relevant clinically and a challenge. I love a challenge.

Well hopefully they fix the things wrong with it for you guys! All I know was that all I did was relax and do research first year and was wholly content to be 3-4 pts above the mean on any given test. People will put in ridiculous hours 2nd year, and I think your class is more hardcore than ours.

 

[sugaree]

Never said non-traditional applicants don't fare as well as others in the application process. Never wrote it, don't believe it, can't fathom why bickering over GPA points is a good use of time and energy. That's why I generally avoid pre-med students now and avoided them in college. So boring. Who seriously cares about your 3.632985023247 GPA from MIT?

Are people like this in med school?

 

[Pons Asinorum]

Now for the next set of personal insults that are thrown around this playpen regularly. WTF?

Your religion sucks. With those stats, your only chance is Caribbean. FYL.

Or something like that...

 

[sugaree]

Your religion sucks. With those stats, your only chance is Caribbean. FYL.

Or something like that...

Oh yeah? And you're a stupid head.