- Joined
- Sep 2, 2019
- Messages
- 12
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Hey y’all! Looking to gauge my chances for the upcoming cycle. I began college in Fall of 2015, and ended up dropping out just prior to my last semester of my senior year (took classes Fall 2018, then dropped out before my last semester Spring 2019). I am going to paste some context below but feel free to skip to the list of stats at the bottom.
Some context since it’s a bit of a confusing situation: Unfortunately, my mother had been diagnosed with a serious illness the year before and her condition rapidly deteriorated during my junior year. I was incredibly overwhelmed because I felt the responsibility to take care of my brother who has intellectual disabilities, and my sister, who is 10 years younger than me. The stress from all this caught up to me and I had terrible grades my junior year, and elected to drop out and return once my family and I were in a better place. Luckily, my mother was able to make a recovery, and being a part of that process was a fundamental reason behind me deciding to commit to the field of Medicine. Unfortunately, my cumulative cGPA at that point was about 3.19 after my junior year, so I had some rehab to do..
I returned to the same university in Fall of 2021 to close out my senior year. I elected to use the full year (Fall 21 and Spring 22, 30 credits of science classes) to boost my GPA and show some academic competence. I ended up averaging a 3.7 for the 30 credits in 2021-2022.
In the time since, I’ve been working a hands on clinical job (ortho urgent care med assistant) full time, volunteering, and have been studying for the MCAT. I took it on 4.26 and get my score back in 2 weeks.
My stats :
27 yo M ORM
Considering DO as well, prefer MD, but realize that I am not in a position to pick favorites. Looking seriously at LECOM, DMUCOM, PCOM, and Touro
I am hoping to get some direction on my application. I am going to be applying this year and am hoping that my return to school in 2021 shows that I have grown since I was initially in college. I do feel like taking all these years to get to this point was 100% worth it. I have grown a lot since I was initially in undergrad and am much more sure of what I want in this process. I am just not sure how to orient my application to ensure that my message is adequately communicated. Any advice is greatly appreciated. Through the years, I have gained a lot of exposure to clinical medicine and with time I have realized it’s the career I want. I am willing to take as many swings as it takes, as fortunately I have the support from my family and friends as well. Thanks for reading all this, I appreciate you!!
Some context since it’s a bit of a confusing situation: Unfortunately, my mother had been diagnosed with a serious illness the year before and her condition rapidly deteriorated during my junior year. I was incredibly overwhelmed because I felt the responsibility to take care of my brother who has intellectual disabilities, and my sister, who is 10 years younger than me. The stress from all this caught up to me and I had terrible grades my junior year, and elected to drop out and return once my family and I were in a better place. Luckily, my mother was able to make a recovery, and being a part of that process was a fundamental reason behind me deciding to commit to the field of Medicine. Unfortunately, my cumulative cGPA at that point was about 3.19 after my junior year, so I had some rehab to do..
I returned to the same university in Fall of 2021 to close out my senior year. I elected to use the full year (Fall 21 and Spring 22, 30 credits of science classes) to boost my GPA and show some academic competence. I ended up averaging a 3.7 for the 30 credits in 2021-2022.
In the time since, I’ve been working a hands on clinical job (ortho urgent care med assistant) full time, volunteering, and have been studying for the MCAT. I took it on 4.26 and get my score back in 2 weeks.
My stats :
27 yo M ORM
- GPA: 3.284 cGPA, 3.1 sGPA. Upward trend in mostly upper level science when I returned to finish college for 2021-2022 (30 credits)
- MCAT: Taken 4/26, awaiting score release in 2 weeks. Took all 6 FLs with the chronological distribution: 514, 516, 522, 525, 523, 522.
- US resident in Minnesota
- Ethnicity: South Asian
- Undergrad institution: University of Minnesota
- Clinical experience:
- Scribed with ScribeAmerica in an outpatient oncology clinic 30-32 hrs/week for 6 months 2019- Jan 2020, about 700 hours
- Scribed in an orthopedic urgent care full time from Feb 2020 - Sept of 2021, with a brief monthlong furlough due to COVID 19, roughly 1400-1500 hours
- Worked part time in the same role when I came back to school for September 2021- May-2022 (6-8 hours a week, roughly 200 hours)
- Since (June 2022 - Today) have worked full time as a clinical assistant in a different, busier orthopedic urgent care. Very hands on with tons of patient and provider interaction. Learned to cast, splint, do lots of DME fittings, take care of post-surgical wounds/sutures/stitches with guidance from surgical team, etc. Still working here and absolutely love working with patients every day and learning day by day. Roughly 4000-4500 hours.
- Summary: Around 2300 hours scribing, 4500 working hands on with patients as a clinical assistant in urgent care since 2019. Total 6800 hours.
- Research experience and productivity
- Worked wet lab, processing infant stool samples for a study on the infant microbiome in 2017, about 40 hours.
- Was able to work my way up to helping with computational analyses on this study in 2018. Became proficient in using R and Python and helped with data processing and several key visualizations for a published manuscript in Cell. Was able to gain authorship on this publication (only pub). Roughly 150-160 hours
- When I returned to school in 2021, I helped a new postdoc to the lab with their research, primarily working with raw data processing and statistical testing between groups. Did not gain a publication for my work here, but learned quite a bit of hands on information relating to data analysis in R and python. About 120 hours here.
- Net 300-320 hours, 1 publication, LOR from lab PI
- Shadowing experience and specialties represented
- Primary care: 10 hours
- Primary care, sports medicine: 24 hours
- Orthopedic surgery: 10 hours
- Neurosurgery: 12 hours
- Net 56 hours shadowing
- Non-clinical volunteering
- ESL tutor for adults in 2017: about 35 hours
- Reading partner for elementary aged students struggling with reading, 2022-2025, about 110 hours
- Tax volunteer (decided to try something very different hahah— learned to help those under the poverty line do taxes for free with an IRS certified organization): 60 hours, 2023-2024
- Free furniture delivery volunteer, 2023 - 2025, about 40 hours.
- Leadership: Served on the School of Biological Science’s student board from 2017-2019. Helped advocate for student concerns in the college, and I primarily focused on working with the college to make accessibility to food pantries easier especially during stressful times in the semester. I also served as the student senator for the college of biological sciences in 2018, and continued work on dealing with food insecurity within our college/accessibility to food resources among other projects during my time. Was a part of the student government for 2 years as well.
- Teaching: served as a teaching assistant for the introduction to computational biology lab for 3 semesters.
Considering DO as well, prefer MD, but realize that I am not in a position to pick favorites. Looking seriously at LECOM, DMUCOM, PCOM, and Touro
I am hoping to get some direction on my application. I am going to be applying this year and am hoping that my return to school in 2021 shows that I have grown since I was initially in college. I do feel like taking all these years to get to this point was 100% worth it. I have grown a lot since I was initially in undergrad and am much more sure of what I want in this process. I am just not sure how to orient my application to ensure that my message is adequately communicated. Any advice is greatly appreciated. Through the years, I have gained a lot of exposure to clinical medicine and with time I have realized it’s the career I want. I am willing to take as many swings as it takes, as fortunately I have the support from my family and friends as well. Thanks for reading all this, I appreciate you!!
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