Waste?

[arrakis]

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Hi,

I'm a rising undergraduate senior interested in medical school. I've earned 3 Fs & 8 Cs, a couple of withdrawals, & several incompletes in English and psychology courses. Otherwise, I've earned 2 Bs, 2 B-s, 4 B+s, & 19 A-s+As in liberal arts courses (including psychology & English). I've taken no science courses. My AMCAS GPA's a 2.8 something. I could realistically raise it to ~3.1 by entry to a post-bacc.

I entered college with an interest in writing. I did fine on the SATs (>2100). I'm interested in working as clinician-researcher in psychiatry. I've interned at a lab at an ivy & have volunteered with harm reduction programs, among other things.

There's a story here. For now, I want to let the profile speak for itself.

Re-direct to pre-dental? Or pre-podiatry?

How unrealistic is med school admission, assuming an upward trend?

Thanks all.

 

[JustAnother]

The average GPA for 2015-16 cycle is 3.55 with 0.34 standard deviation. Realistically, even if you do really, really well on your MCAT, med school admission will be difficult, to say the least.

I would suggest going the DO road with grade replacement. Retake those F's. Absolutely ace your pre-req science courses. Do extremely well on your MCAT. Shadow DO and MD physicians. Get strong letters of rec. Just to name a few suggestions.

It will be an uphill battle, but it is possible.

 

[arrakis]

The average GPA for 2015-16 cycle is 3.55 with 0.34 standard deviation. Realistically, even if you do really, really well on your MCAT, med school admission will be difficult, to say the least.

I would suggest going the DO road with grade replacement. Retake those F's. Absolutely ace your pre-req science courses. Do extremely well on your MCAT. Shadow DO and MD physicians. Get strong letters of rec. Just to name a few suggestions.

It will be an uphill battle, but it is possible.

I don't know whether I can retake all of the classes in which I earned Fs; I don't know if they'll be offered again by the time I graduate and question whether I could take them elsewhere (I'll certainly look into this) given their niche nature and credit loading. If I can't, maybe I should just cut my losses? Thanks again,

 

[JustAnother]

I won't question your motivation to go after medicine, but (and I'm asking out of genuine concern) do you think you can handle the course load in med school provided that you manage to get in? For whatever reason, you seem to be struggling with liberal art courses. They are not necessarily harder or easier than science courses, but just imagine taking 24 credits of upper division science courses (plus labs) per semester. To quote a certain someone, the common analogy is drinking out of a fire hose WHILE running after the firetruck.

I rarely discourage people from pursuing their dreams, but if you can't retake those F's, this already uphill battle will become almost too vertical that it might be better to to cut your losses. There's really no point in spending thousands of hard earned money on the application with no real chance of getting admitted.

Do you have any other back-up plans?

 

[arrakis]

I won't question your motivation to go after medicine, but (and I'm asking out of genuine concern) do you think you can handle the course load in med school provided that you manage to get in? For whatever reason, you seem to be struggling with liberal art courses. They are not necessarily harder or easier than science courses, but just imagine taking 24 credits of upper division science courses (plus labs) per semester. To quote a certain someone, the common analogy is drinking out of a fire hose WHILE running after the firetruck.

I rarely discourage people from pursuing their dreams, but if you can't retake those F's, this already uphill battle will become almost too vertical that it might be better to to cut your losses. There's really no point in spending thousands of hard earned money on the application with no real chance of getting admitted.

Do you have any other back-up plans?

I don't know. I've earned straight As taking 8+ liberal arts courses at a time, so I think I'd be fine, but who knows. I did the work or I didn't. For a while, I thought about doing something in social/developmental psychology, but having acquired experience in those fields, I don't think they're for me.

 

[arrakis]

I rarely discourage people from pursuing their dreams

Nah, some dreams are just that, though.

 

[deleted763299]

I agree with others that admission to medical school is probably not impossible, but would be very difficult. We are however missing some critical information, because we don't know how you will perform in your post-bacc, or how you will do on the MCAT. Some questions unrelated to your academic performance have come to my mind though based on your original post. I don't mean these as smart-a** questions, and you certainly don't need to post answers to all of them, but I thought I might offer some food for thought.

I'm a rising undergraduate senior interested in medical school. I've earned 3 Fs & 8 Cs, a couple of withdrawals, & several incompletes in English and psychology courses. Otherwise, I've earned 2 Bs, 2 B-s, 4 B+s, & 19 A-s+As in liberal arts courses (including psychology & English). I've taken no science courses.

How is it that you have become interested in going to medical school? What was your major that you were able to completely avoid taking hard science courses? You said you were originally interested in writing when you started college, what changed?

I'm interested in working as clinician-researcher in psychiatry.

Have you considered clinical psychology? Are there any other aspects of medicine that you think you might be interested in than psychiatry (psych is a relatively small part of medical education)? Are you certain that you want to be providing direct patient care? Do you think that you could be happy in a research-only job?

Re-direct to pre-dental? Or pre-podiatry?

Would you be happy in either of these fields? Are you certain that you want to be a physician, or are you feeling indecisive as you see your graduation coming up in the near future?

 

[arrakis]

How is it that you have become interested in going to medical school? What was your major that you were able to completely avoid taking hard science courses? You said you were originally interested in writing when you started college, what changed?

I majored in psychology. I've worked in clinical psych labs, and I left curious about medicine.

I could see myself in most non-surgical specialties. I'm quite interested in working with people.

I became sick. I was misdiagnosed for nearly two and a half years & ended up throwing myself into figuring out what was going; once I'd gathered enough data, I found and saw the specialist who confirmed the diagnosis (unprompted; no mistaking my data mining for mastery). The issue is neurological and untreated undercut my ability to perform basic tasks. It's chronic but manageable.

I enjoy medicine's ambiguity & appreciate the practice's basis in intuition and evidence.

Would you be happy in either of these fields?

I doubt it. Are you certain that you want to be a physician,

I'm pretty damn sure.

 

[deleted763299]

I'm pretty damn sure.

Then I would say the advice you need is quoted below. Best of luck!

I would suggest going the DO road with grade replacement. Retake those F's. Absolutely ace your pre-req science courses. Do extremely well on your MCAT. Shadow DO and MD physicians. Get strong letters of rec.

 

[OchemOficionado]

If you want it, you can do it. It may take you a very long time when its all said and done so you'll have to decide if it's really worth your blood, sweat and tears. You're going to have to make a plan and a lot of small goals along the way. You're also going to have to obliterate those goals. If you can see yourself loving another career, got for that. If you can't imagine being happy doing anything else, join the rest of us on the long journey. Have the best comeback story of all time. You're going to need a lot of help achieving your goals, and once you do you can give back and help those just starting out.

 

[arrakis]

Then I would say the advice you need is quoted below. Best of luck!

Thanks. Here's one potential issue: I don't know whether I can retake all of the classes in which I earned Fs; I don't know if they'll be offered again by the time I graduate and question whether I could take them elsewhere (I'll certainly look into this) given their niche nature and credit loading.