Snowball chance in a fire?

[tmcloy]

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Hi, I currently have a 3.2 Gpa and a 38 on the Mcats Long story short, I failed out of college joined the navy as a hospital corpsman and have since decided I wanted to be a doctor. After leaving the navy I took up my pre-drop-out academic career and have since graduated with all A's and have received a 38 on my Mcats. I also volunteered at a local mission for ~1.5 years. What chances do I have?

 

[tmcloy]

Or should I just stick with my fabulous career as an actuary?

 

[Mobius1985]

[I hope that cGPA includes ALL post-high school courses. If you got grades in classwork in the military, that should be included too. You'd submit all transcripts to the application service and they will refigure it for you, if you haven't done it on your own.]

As a nontraditional applicant with a clear time divison between the old under-achieving you and the newer, high-achieving, more mature, clearly-has-a-goal you, I think you have a chance.

You have recent excellent coursework. You probably have amazing experience as a corpman, your volunteering for military service will be a huge plus at some med schools, and most redeeming: a splendid MCAT score that proves you "got it." I'll assume you have something to list under leadership since you probably got promoted in the military. You've done some, ?I hope, recent community service. You don't mention research or publications; anything there? Even three months of a research experience (need not be science related) would be nice, but not obligatory. Recent shadowing (can be brief, like over spring break)) might be nice to get a letter from an MD or DO (I'm sure you have plenty from your corpman days).

I do think you have a chance. I'd suggest you apply broadly, including DO schools. If you want to apply this coming season, I'd continue to build the ECs as mentioned, while working.

 

[tmcloy]

Thank you for your response!

I reached a rank of E-5 in the navy by passing numberous qualification tests and yes I do have many options as far as letters of recommendations.

I was curious as what kind of volunteering / CS's you would recommend. I tried shadowing a radio-encologist, but it was a disaster as far as it goes since he seemed to disliked how my job as an actuary was directly involved in his insurance rates. I feel as if he got more info out of me than I did him.

Also would reaching my asa in one year qualify me as any bonuses on the recommendation? To give you an example that would cover 3 undergraduate level statistics courses as well as 2 graduate courses. I self studied for these as I did not have a need to take the classes since the company made material readily available to me. Another side note would be I would be fairly scared to ask any of my seniors at my job for a recommendation as that could put me at odds with my company.

I guess what kind of volunteer work would I need to do? I usually stick with a local mission.

Mostly I am at a loss as to what would be most important to a review board?

 

[Mobius1985]

Your volunteering at the mission is fine. If you want something different and gain some more recent clinical exposure, and show dedication to the idea of becoming a doc, volunteer in a local clinic, hospice, nursing home, or hospital. Just 3-4 hours/week is fine.

Try another shadowing experience. Someone in primary care would be good. Sorry to hear the first effort didn't work out.

asa? Is that something to do with the different levels of actuary certification? If so, it gets you no points in adcomm land. It is a unique type of occupation, but most people don't know too much about it.

A workplace recommendation isn't generally needed if you can get the preferred academic recommendations.

Other than those things mentioned, admissions committees will ask about your under-achieving days and will want an explanation about why you turned around/what you learned/how you changed things.

Also, don't mention any dissatisfaction with your current job, as your reason for going into medicine. You shouldn't be running from something you dislike, but rather striving for an occupation without which you won't feel complete.