School List Help

[karis0166]

Non-traditional:
- Over 40 yo.
- 3 college degrees
- Previous careers in environmental research, medical illustration, and IT (in that order).

Undergraduate GPA:
overall sGPA: ~2.93 (based on BS 2.34; PB 4.00; upward trend)
overall cGPA: ~2.98 (based on BS 2.64; PB 4.00; upward trend)
- Note: BS is from Top 20 school (1992)
- Post-bacc is from last 2 years (2010-2012), pre-med pre-reqs + other sci.
- More than 122 UG semester credits so cannot do too much more to improve.
- Don't have official AMCAS-confirmed GPAs but these are my best estimates.

Graduate GPA:
MS (1996): ~3.68
MFA (1999): 4.00 (includes upper level bio courses, e.g., histology, pathology, anatomy)

MCAT: 35O

Work/Activities
Clinical Volunteering: 500+ hr
Shadowing/Surgical Observation: ~100 hr
Community Volunteering: hundreds of hours, various positions
Leadership: TA for 6 semesters, also served as adjunct faculty one quarter
Professional: 12 year career in IT
Research: 5 yrs in Environmental Sci. with publications.

Schools so far:
OHSU (I'm an Oregon Resident)
UCSD
UCSF
Stanford
Case Western

Any school list suggestions for me?
I think I have a decent shot at OHSU because I'm in-state and they are accepting of non-trads. I assume UCSD, UCSF and (especially) Stanford are long shots. (I do have all my immediate family in CA, not sure that helps at all.) Not sure about my chances at Case Western; interested in the College Track, but still need to obtain an LOR from a research mentor (feeling a bit insecure about this since I left research in 1997, so the LOR will reflect activity from 15 years ago).

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[La Presse]

Non-traditional:
- Over 40 yo.
- 3 college degrees
- Previous careers in environmental research, medical illustration, and IT (in that order).

Undergraduate GPA:
overall sGPA: ~2.93 (based on BS 2.34; PB 4.00; upward trend)
overall cGPA: ~2.98 (based on BS 2.64; PB 4.00; upward trend)
- Note: BS is from Top 20 school (1992)
- Post-bacc is from last 2 years (2010-2012), pre-med pre-reqs + other sci.
- More than 122 UG semester credits so cannot do too much more to improve.
- Don't have official AMCAS-confirmed GPAs but these are my best estimates.

Graduate GPA:
MS (1996): ~3.68
MFA (199): 4.00 (includes upper level bio courses, e.g., histology, pathology, anatomy)

MCAT: 35O

Work/Activities
Clinical Volunteering: 500+ hr
Shadowing/Surgical Observation: ~100 hr
Community Volunteering: hundreds of hours, various positions
Leadership: TA for 6 semesters, also served as adjunct faculty one quarter
Professional: 12 year career in IT
Research: 5 yrs in Environmental Sci. with publications.

Schools so far:
OHSU (I'm an Oregon Resident)
UCSD
UCSF
Stanford
Case Western

Any school list suggestions for me?
I think I have a decent shot at OHSU because I'm in-state and they are accepting of non-trads. I assume UCSD, UCSF and (especially) Stanford are long shots. (I do have all my immediate family in CA, not sure that helps at all.) Not sure about my chances at Case Western; interested in the College Track, but still need to obtain an LOR from a research mentor (feeling a bit insecure about this since I left research in 1997, so the LOR will reflect activity from 15 years ago).

Uhh...it must suck to be an Oregon Resident.

I would add schools

Albany
NYMC
Wayne State
Loyola
Fau
Fiu
Hofstra

I am really not sure what to say about that uGPA.

Add a few research powerhouses. Your research is amazing.

Uwash
Duke
UVM
Sinai
Tulane
Columbia (might be a reach)
Harvard (might be a reach, but your research is decent)

That mcat is looking good. I am not sure how they are going to look at your GPA even though you did a post-bacc. Anyone else?

 

[Catalystik]

Non-traditional:
- Over 40 yo.
- 3 college degrees
- Previous careers in environmental research, medical illustration, and IT (in that order).

Undergraduate GPA:
overall sGPA: ~2.93 (based on BS 2.34; PB 4.00; upward trend)
overall cGPA: ~2.98 (based on BS 2.64; PB 4.00; upward trend)
- Note: BS is from Top 20 school (1992)
- Post-bacc is from last 2 years (2010-2012), pre-med pre-reqs + other sci.
- More than 122 UG semester credits so cannot do too much more to improve.
- Don't have official AMCAS-confirmed GPAs but these are my best estimates.

Graduate GPA:
MS (1996): ~3.68
MFA (1999): 4.00 (includes upper level bio courses, e.g., histology, pathology, anatomy)

MCAT: 35O

Work/Activities
Clinical Volunteering: 500+ hr
Shadowing/Surgical Observation: ~100 hr
Community Volunteering: hundreds of hours, various positions
Leadership: TA for 6 semesters, also served as adjunct faculty one quarter
Professional: 12 year career in IT
Research: 5 yrs in Environmental Sci. with publications.

Schools so far:
OHSU (I'm an Oregon Resident)
UCSD
UCSF
Stanford
Case Western

Any school list suggestions for me?
I think I have a decent shot at OHSU because I'm in-state and they are accepting of non-trads. I assume UCSD, UCSF and (especially) Stanford are long shots. (I do have all my immediate family in CA, not sure that helps at all.) Not sure about my chances at Case Western; interested in the College Track, but still need to obtain an LOR from a research mentor (feeling a bit insecure about this since I left research in 1997, so the LOR will reflect activity from 15 years ago).

Hi, again.

A lot of med schools have a hard and fast cut-off of 3.0 for undergrad cGPA (including all undergrad postbac work), regardless of masters-level grades. You need to seek out schools that don't do that. This will mean calling around to save yourself from useless spending on expensive secondary fees. You can also look through these forums for tales of those accepted with sub-3.0 GPAs, like here: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=675835 . One I recall is UConnecticut. Also check out Wayne, which mainly looks at most recent grades, but I don't know if they have a hard cut off. Also look for those rare MD schools that do consider grad-level grades in their consideration. Here is a link to a thread discussing them: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?p=10664952

Another challenge for you will be becoming Complete this late in the season, which creates an increasingly greater handicap as time goes on (so get those Secondaries done promptly). Plan your activities this year as if you may need to reapply (in June), and for the sake of Secondary essays, update letters, and interview conversations. Consider more undergrad-level courses if reaching the 3.0 breakpoint is within your reach. Open your mind to applying to DO schools too, as they are more forgiving of past academic mediocrity.

My personal bias is to suggest against over-applying to research-oriented schools when your research involvement is 15 years in the past (and a pertinent LOR will be pretty useless). It's my observation that schools like to see such momentum carried forward in a fairly uninterruped manner. JMO.

Knowing all your ECs, I think you have a terrific application ( except the shadowing) that many schools would be drawn to, if human eyeballs ever look at it. Target your school choices wisely rather than using the "pray and spray" approach. You can't afford to have a geographic bias in your position.

/soapbox

 

[karis0166]

In general, of course I realize the ugGPA stands out as a negative (and that the grad GPA may mean nothing). I thought long and hard a few years ago about whether to even try for med school, accordingly. After much deliberation, I still went for it, realizing a 4.0 in post-bacc work and a good MCAT score might not be enough, but it would be all I could do in terms of those stats. The plan, indeed, is to still to take more courses to pull more As and acquire more clinical experience and shadowing. It's not just for the application; it is what is best for me as a prospective med student, too.

La Presse: About Oregon, did you mean b/c Oregon just has one MD school? It does feel a bit limiting, esp. since I'm originally from NY -- spent most of my life there -- including all high school and 3 of my college degrees -- where there are so may more in-state options. But, it is what it is.

Though I appreciate the sentiment, my research really is not amazing; I'm just non-trad and being a research scientist was my first career, thus the handful of years and resulting publications & activities.

In my case, I also have to be wary of schools for which there is a time limit on coursework. In my post-bacc I retook some pre-reqs but not all, so at some places my coursework will be too old. Brown, Cornell and Duke are such places with time limits.

Cat: Thanks again! What you said makes much sense to me.

Ironically, "pray and spray" was a term in my old field of research for the type of field experimental work that was not inspiring to me, thus I was not interested in those projects. My work was about approaches specifically tailored to cases in order to ensure more fruitful outcomes with less waste and fewer side effects. (I find many parallels between environmental science and medicine.) Hope I can maintain that approach here too!

I do not take for granted that I would get in this cycle, especially with submission date on the later end (it's submitted but still being verified by AMCAS.)

I'm not sure about CCLCM's perspective/emphasis on research so I will try to find out more, to judge whether it's worth getting the research LOR from work done 15+ years ago... I don't want to waste anyone's efforts.

Geography: I am open and in fact would be excited to move, but both my parents have dementia and my only sibling has twins, one with special needs. This doesn't mean I cannot move, but, it is something I consider.

Thanks!