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That was, by far, one of the best posts I have ever seen on this godforsaken website.
This website, while having many people with good intentions, is otherwise filled with insecure, rancid people who only want to shoot down other people's hopes, and give advice out of their a**ses about something they know little to nothing about.
I too believe that someone who worked 40 hours a week, took classes at night, had 15-16 hour days, and still managed to pull off a 3.3 has proven much better ability to handle pressure than some little pre-med who did nothing but wake up at 9 or 10 am, go to a few classes, study at their liesure, never worked a day in their lives, and took 3 months off from everything to sit and study for their MCAT 12 hours a day.
I myself was of the former, believe you me. I worked all throughout undergrad anywhere from 30-60 hours a week on top of a full course load, and still trying to maintain a social life. At a school ranked in the top 20 in the entire country, mind you, not some community college. I spent years working healthcare prior to med school, and saw more dead people, dealt with more medical emergencies, had more PRIMARY patient interactions (with MY OWN PATIENTS....not merely shadowing some physician or doing a lame 3-4 hours of volunteering in an ER standing around watching people once a week), than nearly everyone on this website not including those that are already residents/attendings. My grades were no where what they could have been had I had the chance to focus only on school , but even as they were I did so much better than more than half the people in my classes who tried to study hours and hours every day, with mommy and daddy paying all their bills while they were in school.
Guess what? All I needed was one ad-com to see past my "below average for medical applicants" numbers, to my absolutely mind-blowing LOR's and work experience. BEFORE I had stepped foot into medical school I had saved patient's lives MYSELF. Show me even a handful of so-called ideal medical students that have done that.
And I found a few ad coms who wanted to see the real me, and my real potential, and that's all you need. I got DO acceptances and MD as well. I chose to go with the latter for personal choice , but I feel any route would have been happy for me.
My stats?--> MCAT under 28 (pretty evenly spaced), with a uGPA of <3.5 and sGPA < 3.5. My work experience rocked the a** of 99% of applicants on this board without question. I had LOR's coming out the wazoo from physicians, hospital administrators, volunteer organizers, professors that remembered me from undergrad-- you name it. I had so many amazing letters I had trouble choosing which letters to send with my application to the schools that limited you to only a certain number. And these weren't just some lame letters from some doctor I "shadowed" (which in my opinion is a lame excuse for following some guy around...what do you learn by that? nothing. you learn and know NOTHING about truly caring for patients until you are responsible for them yourself, trust me. I am lucky I waited to work a while before applying), but these were letters from people who observed MY CLINICAL SKILLS and ability, which is priceless.
So to the non-trads, the people whose grades were just so-so....you need to make yourself unique. There is only so much class re-taking, MCAT re-taking you can do. Sometimes life doesn't allow for it. I know that I had to work, and no matter how much I wanted, I could NOT afford to, either financially or time-wise, to retake classes and MCATS over and over, just wasn't an option for me. So I focused on my positve attrributes, and sold the hell out of myself to these people, showed them that I was an incredibly intelligent person capable of doing better academically if only given the chance. If you have a 3.3, you have a 3.3. Taking a few classes and getting A's ain't gonna change 90 credits worth of GPA people, let's be real. Embrace your positive attributes and sell yourself on that.
If you have a 2.2 GPA....let's be realistic. Unless you have a stellar MCAT, your chances are low. 2.2 is not representative of potential to do better in most cases. a 2.7-3.0 might show that you just didn't have the right circumstances to do better (eg-you had to work, you had life trauma , whatever). You are really doing yourself a disservice, and those of your future patients, if you are not real with yourself about your abilities. Really think about if your grades are a result of your abilities, or if you were just too lazy/tired/stressed/depressed to do better at the time. If it is the latter, then really think if you CAN do better. If it is really the former...then accept that maybe medicine is not for you. The world does not need doctor's that can't give the best treatment possible....there are too many of those already.
Medicine is an interesting thing....in my opinion, the ideal doctor is one that is not only academically inclined, but one who is emotionally intelligent as well as passionate. One that can understand people rather than just look at a patient as another lab rat. Most doctors I've met seem to have problems with one or the other....either they are academically blessed and emotionally ******ed, or they are very passionate, but really just (and I say this in the nicest way possible) just not cut out with their academic abilities for medicine.
You need to be real with yourself. Do you have both abilities? Then you have nothing to lose (but a few thousand dollars....and in the grand scheme of life that is nothing) to try to apply. If you fail at it, then you fail. Your life will not be over, and you CAN find another way to be in healthcare. Nurses and Physican Assistants these days are not only in very high demand, they are gaining greater levels of autonomy in patient care, and their paychecks are better than physicians sometimes when you take into account that they don't often pay malpractice insurance for themselves and etc.
I have one friend who is a Nursing Practioner focused in Anaesthesia. She works cases on her own as if she were a physician....total autonomy. Gets paid amazingly well, had to go to several extra years of school past the usual 2 years for nursing, but no residency so its still a shorter route. I also work with a friend who is a physician assistant who easily breaks 6 figures a year salary and loves the autonomy she gets with patients working in the orthopaedics clinic at the hospital.
Anyway, after my long rant, my point is this: if you are "borderline" on the low end with your GPA and MCAT, then you still have a chance. It'll be rough, but not impossible, and even if it doesnt work you have plenty other options. You need to be reasonable and understand that at the end of the day if you are 5 feet tall then you'll never be a basketball player, so at a certain point if no one picks you for the team, find another sport you're better suited for and rock the hell out of it.
If you have a 2.0 GPA and a 19 MCAT, then , unless you had some severe life happening that screwed up your numbers temporarily....I am sorry to say that this field is likely not for you. That is not an insult, but just being realistic.
But with a 3.0 and a 26 MCAT? The door is still open for you....just try your best, and if you're lucky you will find an adcom who takes your whole application into consideration. Many on this website would have you believe that if you aren't a 3.8 with a 35+ MCAT you are a lost cause, but those people don't know their a** frm their elbow. They are spewing random nonsense that they read elsewhere on SDN. This website is full of jealousy and it's somewhat sickening at times really. If you seek support, you won't often find it here, so I suggest you use this site purely for "factual" infrmation (eg- the section on interview feedback to schools is really lovely....people list questions they were given at interviews and that can be helpful in preparing for the interview at the same school).
But as for these "what are my chances" threads? Those things are a joke. Full of haters, people who don't know what they are talking about, and supposed "adcoms" who for some reason spend 24 hours a day reading a website with pre meds on it, which makes me wonder if the "adcoms" are really adcoms at all rather than bored fakes, or just adcoms that once wished they too were doctors, never got into med school, and now get their kicks by getting a power trip by being the "god of answers" on this silly litle website.
Use this website factually and not for anyone's opinions. This is the best advice I can give you lol.
Just rememeber: once you get an interview, your numbers dont matter anymore. You are the same as the guy who got a 45 MCAT and 3.9.
GOOD LUCK!
) and have read some incredible advice on these forums from pre-med students. Whether it's motivational, or the blunt truth... I think a great deal of SDNers appreciate the help that pre-meds can provide. It would be foolish of us to believe everything we read (even from the medical students/residents despite their credibility), but not everything that pre-meds provide is completely bogus.
