I recently graduated from UVa with a math and computer science degrees. My GPA is only 3.0, but I guess it was good enough that I got a job at a presentable consulting firm right after graduation. The pay is really good, and the job itself is challenging. I have made a lot of friends at the firm. Life seems to be going along pretty well. However, I still regretted for dropping out of the pre-med program back in first year. My parents convinced me that they would not have the money for me to go to medical school and that I should focus on having a family in the late 20s. I gave up because I was afraid of taking up so much loan and believed what they said. I was quite pathetic. I was also afraid of not getting into medical school and being jobless after graduation. Now, I am having a job. I can easily save money. My plan was to have a 3 years preparation for med school. That being said, I am going to live at home for the next 3 years saving all the money I earned from work for tuition. I have not taken any prereq classes. Should I take my prereq classes at community college (they are so cheap… i need to save money for the school). My biggest problem is English. I suck at reading comprehension. I have been reading articles from science daily everyday. I want to read more of them and challenge my reading skills. Any other websites you think that they have good medicine related articles? I am willing to work hard, just need some guidance on how to start. Any advices are appreciated.
Hi there and welcome to the OPM.
3.0 is a very borderline GPA - meaning that for many schools it’s a cut-off mark below which they may not even cosider an application. Having said that, you really want to bring your GPA up, so that you are somewhat more competitive. It means geting As in most or all of your prerequisites and… taking your prerequisites in a 4 year university. If you enroll in a state school it won’t be awfully expensive (although surely more pricey than in a CC). Forget about saving cash for med school! Most of the people in med school (at least at mine) live of student loans. I guess save whatever you can, but not at the expense of your prerequisites.
As to reading comprehension… I assume your worry here is the verbal part of MCAT. This test does’t only focus on scientific writing; in fact the passages in the verbal section are often concerned with philosophy, humanities etc. The best way to prepare for this is to read a variety of stuff - books, scientific articles, editorials; and when the time comes take a good number of practice exams before the real one!
Hope it helps,
Kasia