Getting Into Medical School--Poor Academic History

[tawnymarie1985]

Hi Everyone,

First, thanks for reading this over.

I am 27 years old. Long story short...I had my son at 20. I attended 6 schools (most distance education). My final degree ended up being a general studies degree. However, throughout my 5 years though I had quite a few withdraws from courses and some poor grades. I moved around a lot. I worked as a nursing assistant and ward clerk. I'm currently an admin for a psych group.

Annnnyway, Medical School has always been in my mind. It's what I wanted to do and still want to do. I'm in an EMT program hoping to get a per diem/part-time position in an ER soon since I have experience as a nursing asst in an ER. Ultimately I'd love to work in Emergency Medicine or maybe Hospital(ist) Medicine.

I know with my current academic history I don't stand a chance getting in. I'm just not sure what my next action should be if I want to pursue a pre-med curriculum. Should it be an add'l bachelor's degree? (starting all over again) or a post bacc pre-med certificate? I'm just wondering if admission committees consider the whole picture? Are they going to realize I turned things around? I keep wondering if I do a post bacc program that includes ALL the science prerequisites etc if maybe they'll just consider that for the most part. I'm okay starting over...I'm just hoping it will be worth it and that my previous history hasn't "doomed me". Has anyone else been in this situation? Had a poor academic history and turned it around?

Thanks Guys!

--Tawny

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[tawnymarie1985]

Hi Everyone,

First, thanks for reading this over. I think it's best I ask people who are already medical students instead of pre-med since you've been there and been accepted to medical school already. I'm hoping to find someone out there with a similar background.

I am 27 years old. Long story short...I had my son at 20. I attended 6 schools (most distance education). My final degree ended up being a general studies degree. However, throughout my 5 years though I had quite a few withdraws from courses and some poor grades. I moved around a lot. I worked as a nursing assistant and ward clerk. I'm currently an admin for a psych group.

Annnnyway, Medical School has always been in my mind. It's what I wanted to do and still want to do. I'm in an EMT program hoping to get a per diem/part-time position in an ER soon since I have experience as a nursing asst in an ER. Ultimately I'd love to work in Emergency Medicine or maybe Hospital(ist) Medicine.

I know with my current academic history I don't stand a chance getting in. I'm just not sure what my next action should be if I want to pursue a pre-med curriculum. Should it be an add'l bachelor's degree? (starting all over again) or a post bacc pre-med certificate? I'm just wondering if admission committees consider the whole picture? Are they going to realize I turned things around? I keep wondering if I do a post bacc program that includes ALL the science prerequisites etc if maybe they'll just consider that for the most part. I'm okay starting over...I'm just hoping it will be worth it and that my previous history hasn't "doomed me". Has anyone else been in this situation? Had a poor academic history and turned it around?

Thanks Guys!

--Tawny

 

[GoodmanBrown]

Tawny, have you taken all the pre-reqs for medical school? Biology, physics, general chemistry, and organic chemistry? If you haven't, start taking those courses. If you have, but got less than stellar grades, take them again. From now on, you have to get straight As. Even Bs won't cut it because you need to prove that you've righted the wrong actions of before and you're an excellent student now. After you take those and get As, take some other sciences courses. Repeat any science courses where you got a grade lower than a B+.

When you apply to med school (in a few years), apply to MD and DO programs. DO schools are slightly more forgiving about repeat courses (they replace old grades with new), so you'll have a better shot there. If you're truly ready for it, don't let age stop you. I have classmates who are over 30 (I'm 30 myself.), who have kids, and who have lots of different experiences. Search for schools (via SDN) that are non-traditional friendly and apply mostly to those. Good luck!

 

[CatFactorial]

(B+s and up in post bacc) + (>= 30 MCAT) = medical school acceptance(s)

 

[GladifImakeit]

Are post-bac courses easier than regular premed courses?

 

[CatFactorial]

Post bacc courses are regular premed courses; what makes them "post-bacc" is the participants of a post-baccalaureate program already have college degrees.

Each of my premed courses had a bunch of post-bacc students, who, with few exceptions, were extremely annoying.

 

[tawnymarie1985]

Post bacc courses are regular premed courses; what makes them "post-bacc" is the participants of a post-baccalaureate program already have college degrees.

Each of my premed courses had a bunch of post-bacc students, who, with few exceptions, were extremely annoying.

Thanks for the info Yeah most major universities offer special post bacc pre-med programs. I live within a few blocks of UC-Berkeley which has a pretty good program as does SFSU and Mills College. The better part of those programs is that it works perfectly for those of us with families who have to work during the day. All of UC-Berkeley's post-bacc courses are in the evening. I'm hoping I can just keep the grades up and rock the MCAT.

 

[DrMom]

moving to pre-allopathic

 

[sector9]

Merged both related threads and moved to "What are my chances"