Very nontraditional student, do I even have a chance at medical school?

[w4t3rbo1]

I have been racking my brain for months now trying to determine whether this will be possible. Any advice/opinions would be GREATLY appreciated. Here's my situation:

Almost 30 years old, Graduated university 6 years ago. I started at McGill in Canada, and had to work towards the end of school. Went from 3.7 GPA after year 2 to 2.8 after year 4.

Transferred to Rutgers after 4th year because I didn't have the money to stay. Finished those 2 years with a 3.86 in Math/Econ. But I was working the whole time, so my semesters look kind of crazy (some I took 5 classes, some I took 2 and withdrew from 1, some I took 3).

I have studied for my MCAT this past year, and I am getting 515-520 on practice tests. I feel I can do better with more practice/studying. Prereq science GPA 3.51 (completed at McGill)

Some of my closest friends have struggled with substance abuse. I lived with them and was with them through their struggles. I have lived in a few parts of the United States and have been homeless briefly. I met a number of individuals with similar issues. A year ago I realized that I would like to dedicate my life to mental health as a psychiatrist.

I have worked construction, restaurant, then got a job in marketing, then tutoring after realizing how empty I feel when I am not working with people. I put my heart into tutoring. I volunteer tutor low-income students, and I also volunteer for a crisis hotline.

[EDIT] Calculated my GPAs on a GPA calculator. AMCAS science: 3.026 ; AACOMAS science: 3.1 ; cumulative: 3.068.....

I have been considering whether it is realistic to expect that I will be accepted into medical school. I feel that I have passion and a story to tell, but is it enough to make up for a messy decade at sub-par numbers?

Thank you, any response would be appreciated.

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[CricB4Tube]

What clinical and physician shadowing experience do you have? Long term volunteering? Research?

 

[w4t3rbo1]

first, thanks so much for your reply. means alot. no clinical, shadowing or research experience. i've been tutoring low income students with 1 organization for about a year, and I've done this in the past as well. spent most of the past years helping those around me.

more than willing to get myself experience in all of those areas though. i plan to start working with students at my local prison as well, just for my own pleasure (there is an organization that does this). how important is it for me to get research experience and clinical experience? should i get a job as a nurse assistant or EMT, or would it be ok to get a job at a nonprofit while taking extra courses and volunteering in medicine? it feels like it would be difficult for me to get into research, and I am not looking into an MD/PHD. would it still be necessary to get research experience though?

thanks so much

 

[Bonne Nuit]

Clinical experience, whether paid or volunteer, is essential for a medical school application. You won't get accepted without it. Successful applicants typically have a few hundred hours clinical experience at minimum. Applicants who hold paid roles (e.g., EMT, CNA) often have thousands.

Applicants will also usually have a few hundred hours of "non-clinical" volunteering, and your current crisis hotline and tutoring activities fit the bill. If you want to add on other volunteer experiences, even better.

Forget about the MCAT for now. You'll want to take the exam when you know you're within about a year of applying, as the scores have expiration dates.

If I'm reading your original post correctly, you have a variable GPA trend, correct? That's not insurmountable, but you will want to bring that up as high as possible with any additional coursework you do. How many premed prerequisites do you still need to take?

On top of this, you will need to report 60-80 hours of physician shadowing on your application. A good chunk of that should be with an IM/FM physician or pediatrician. You should shadow a psychiatrist too - you really do need to see the day-to-day life of a physician and what that actually entails. And I recommend you do your shadowing as soon as possible before you dedicate any additional time or money to this pursuit. There are lots of ways to help people living with addiction/mental illness, and psychiatry is only one of them. You need spend time with a psychiatrist as she/he works and see if the field what you imagine it to be. Psychiatry isn't a particularly difficult specialty to enter after med school, but no specialty is 100% guaranteed. If psychiatry doesn't work out, would you be OK matching into another specialty (e.g., family medicine or internal medicine)? That's what shadowing is going to show you.

 

[w4t3rbo1]

thank you so much for the advice. that makes alot of sense; working in healthcare should be a priority in order to gain an understanding of what the job entails. i would love to become a psych tech, and shadowing sounds like a great idea as well. i can definitely make that happen.

I have just calculated my GPA on a GPA calculator, and it is around 3.0. I am willing to do an SMP or post-bacc....but which would be better? would I need to do this full time to show I can handle a full course load or can I work at the same time? do I even need to take that many courses if I have a killer MCAT score (520+)?

yes I do have a variable GPA, but I have had high scoring semester with tough courses. I have completed all prereqs aside from OrgChem 2.

i feel like i'm being super needy, but I am at my wit's end. thank you so much @JanetSnakehole and @CricB4Tube

 

[Bonne Nuit]

No worries about being "needy", that's what this forum is for. Having gone through this process myself as a nontraditional student, I'm happy to help in whatever way I can.

Working as something like a psych tech would be a great way to get your feet wet in this field and build up clinical experience. You're also likely to make connections with psychiatrists/other physicians for shadowing opportunities.

Unfortunately, your GPA is low for both MD and DO at this point. A killer MCAT would help, of course, but it can't always offset a marginal GPA. Since you don't have that many credits left to take, and I'm assuming you already have a ton of credits on your transcripts, I don't think a DIY postbac (i.e., where you take a bunch of upper division science courses at a local university) will help your GPA that much.

You're probably a good candidate for an SMP (an "audition" program, not one for career changers), but unfortunately I don't really know all that much about them (I did a DIY postbac). I do know they can be gambles - high risk, high reward. Doing well in one of those programs will go a long way to offsetting your 3.0. You definitely want to find a program with a linkage to the medical school, like a guaranteed acceptance (or at least an interview) if you maintain a certain GPA. If you search around on the nontraditional forum, I think there are informational threads/reviews of different programs. But others will be able to offer better information than me.

If you're taking MCAT practice tests under true, timed testing conditions and already scoring 515+, I'm sure you have the aptitude to succeed. But I also know SMPs can be very expensive, so I definitely think you should build some clinical experience/shadowing before dropping tens of thousands of dollars on an SMP. You're going to have to get clinical experience/shadowing in order anyway, and it will be really hard to find the time for lots of extracurriculars if you're in the middle of an SMP.

 

[CricB4Tube]

A "high scoring semester" doesn't make up for a lackluster GPA. A thousand other applicants who scored high every single semester of college will be applying to every single school you apply to.
Clinical experience and shadowing are mandatory. If you don't have extensive experience in health care, you're going to find interviews extremely difficult, if you were to even get any. Your answer of "why medicine" will also come off as naive if you've never even seen what a physician does every day.
I think there's a sticky post somewhere from @Goro where he gives advice for reinventing yourself and it has a ton of info on SMP and post-baccs.

 

[DocJanItor]

A "high scoring semester" doesn't make up for a lackluster GPA. A thousand other applicants who scored high every single semester of college will be applying to every single school you apply to.
Clinical experience and shadowing are mandatory. If you don't have extensive experience in health care, you're going to find interviews extremely difficult, if you were to even get any. Your answer of "why medicine" will also come off as naive if you've never even seen what a physician does every day.
I think there's a sticky post somewhere from @Goro where he gives advice for reinventing yourself and it has a ton of info on SMP and post-baccs.

In the current state of Covid, shadowing and clinical experience will be almost impossible to get. It was hard enough to get medical students back into clinical rotations last year. The next 2-3 years will see reduced hours due to restrictions and availability. Schools are already acknowledging that they will have to adjust; I think it's time that we adjust our advice as well.

OP, as a former sub-3.0 cGPA pre-med and SMP graduate, I can tell you that a high MCAT will never fully overcome a low GPA. I had a 2.52 before doing my DIY post-bacc and 42 hours @ 4.0 only raised it to a 2.84. Any med school application below 3.0, regardless of improvement, is almost guaranteed to be autoscreened at most med schools. I had to get a graduate waiver for the GPA just to be accepted into the SMP program at my school.

So my advice would be this: If your cGPA is above 3.0 and you don't mind going to a DO school, work towards that. If you want to go to an MD school (slightly better odds of getting competitive specialties/residencies), then you will most likely need an SMP. If your GPA is below 3.0 then do some DIY classes and get it over 3.0 or as close as time permits. A strong DIY showing can help you with an SMP application.

Then you just have to rock your SMP year which will literally be the most difficult academic year of your life and probably one of the most stressful.

 

[Goro]

I have been racking my brain for months now trying to determine whether this will be possible. Any advice/opinions would be GREATLY appreciated. Here's my situation:

Almost 30 years old, Graduated university 6 years ago. I started at McGill in Canada, and had to work towards the end of school. Went from 3.7 GPA after year 2 to 2.8 after year 4.

Transferred to Rutgers after 4th year because I didn't have the money to stay. Finished those 2 years with a 3.86 in Math/Econ. But I was working the whole time, so my semesters look kind of crazy (some I took 5 classes, some I took 2 and withdrew from 1, some I took 3).

I have studied for my MCAT this past year, and I am getting 515-520 on practice tests. I feel I can do better with more practice/studying. Prereq science GPA 3.51 (completed at McGill)

Some of my closest friends have struggled with substance abuse. I lived with them and was with them through their struggles. I have lived in a few parts of the United States and have been homeless briefly. I met a number of individuals with similar issues. A year ago I realized that I would like to dedicate my life to mental health as a psychiatrist.

I have worked construction, restaurant, then got a job in marketing, then tutoring after realizing how empty I feel when I am not working with people. I put my heart into tutoring. I volunteer tutor low-income students, and I also volunteer for a crisis hotline.

[EDIT] Calculated my GPAs on a GPA calculator. AMCAS science: 3.026 ; AACOMAS science: 3.1 ; cumulative: 3.068.....

I have been considering whether it is realistic to expect that I will be accepted into medical school. I feel that I have passion and a story to tell, but is it enough to make up for a messy decade at sub-par numbers?

Thank you, any response would be appreciated.

Right now your GPAs are lethal for MD and circling the drain for DO.
Read this:

• Goro's advice for pre-meds who need reinvention

 

[w4t3rbo1]

Right now your GPAs are lethal for MD and circling the drain for DO.
Read this:

• Goro's advice for pre-meds who need reinvention

this is extremely helpful. this forum is truly amazing. thank you everyone. I am currently living with my grandparents , helping out; I am debating whether I should move and start shadowing/gaining clinical experience. it seems that doing an SMP is really my only shot

 

[w4t3rbo1]

In the current state of Covid, shadowing and clinical experience will be almost impossible to get. It was hard enough to get medical students back into clinical rotations last year. The next 2-3 years will see reduced hours due to restrictions and availability. Schools are already acknowledging that they will have to adjust; I think it's time that we adjust our advice as well.

OP, as a former sub-3.0 cGPA pre-med and SMP graduate, I can tell you that a high MCAT will never fully overcome a low GPA. I had a 2.52 before doing my DIY post-bacc and 42 hours @ 4.0 only raised it to a 2.84. Any med school application below 3.0, regardless of improvement, is almost guaranteed to be autoscreened at most med schools. I had to get a graduate waiver for the GPA just to be accepted into the SMP program at my school.

So my advice would be this: If your cGPA is above 3.0 and you don't mind going to a DO school, work towards that. If you want to go to an MD school (slightly better odds of getting competitive specialties/residencies), then you will most likely need an SMP. If your GPA is below 3.0 then do some DIY classes and get it over 3.0 or as close as time permits. A strong DIY showing can help you with an SMP application.

Then you just have to rock your SMP year which will literally be the most difficult academic year of your life and probably one of the most stressful.

thanks so much @DocJanItor . in a weird way this makes me hopeful lol. if you don't mind my asking, what SMP did you attend, and what GPA were you able to achieve? hope that's not too personal

 

[DocJanItor]

thanks so much @DocJanItor . in a weird way this makes me hopeful lol. if you don't mind my asking, what SMP did you attend, and what GPA were you able to achieve? hope that's not too personal

Send me a message, happy to answer any questions