Hey fellow nontraditionals, new poster here seeking some advice for this coming cycle.
I am 27 years old with a somewhat convoluted journey through college, which I know isn’t uncommon, but I am beginning to have serious doubts upon revisiting my earlier academic and personal history.
I spent the first 3 semesters of college intensely struggling without direction back in 2011-2013. I managed to get myself kicked out of my junior college while accruing 15 units worth of D’s and 6 units worth of F’s overall over 4 semesters. Around this time frame I also received a misdemeanor driving under the influence. I do not condone drinking and driving by any stretch of the imagination and as you can imagine the consequences that I earned from this in tandem with my poor school performance put me at a well-deserved low point in life full of self-reflection.
I put my head down and harnessed the negative emotions tied to this dark time and translated it into motivation. Fast forward a couple of years - Clean record since the incident. Redeemed myself academically and expunged my grades via academic renewal which then helped me into a top four year university here in California. I graduated with distinction with a campus GPA of 3.81 and 3.84 science GPA. I just took the MCAT last month and scored a 511 (128/126/130/127). I have spent the past 2 years volunteering in the emergency room, nearly a year doing clinical research, 2 years working as an EMT, and have non-clinical volunteering under my belt as well. I am still actively involved in all of these activities/work so the numbers reported should be higher by matriculation.
Now that the MCAT is over I’ve been calculating my grades using Mappd to see them as medical colleges will. I was horrified to see how my academic past tanks my cGPA. I sit roughly around a 3.1 cGPA once the D’s and F’s from 2011-2013 are reincorporated. I do have a strong upward trend, but after researching the potential impact of a past DUI in tandem with academic dismissal, I am beginning to doubt that a positive outcome will result from the hard work I’ve put in on this path to redemption. There is surely a strong case to be made about my performance over the recent years juxtaposing my 18-20 year old antics, but I am thinking too strong of a negative picture has been painted of me for admissions to see the drastic improvements. Just wondering what you all think.
Thanks for reading and I appreciate any and all feedback.
tldr: DUI and dropped out of jr. college 7 years ago but have since excelled but wondering if it’s too little & too late.