Hi guys! Our account is made up of four medical students currently in our second year and we had very different journeys to reach here. One of us is a traditional student, and three of us took gap years (one of us took 1 year for mental health, one of us took 3 years for a masters and working in health tech industry, and one of us took 7 years working in a different field and then getting a post-bacc before applying). It was a challenging journey to say the least and we didn’t have family members in healthcare to advise or guide us. If y’all have any questions we can answer, please ask and we’ll do our best to answer! We created an instagram for this purpose. Not looking to become an influencer or anything, but we truly do just want to help future students with the experiences we’ve had. Either leave a message here, or shoot us a DM (we check those more often and are new to this site) and we will try to get back to you! Good luck! It’s a long, but worthwhile journey.
Hey guys.
I am a Junior in my undergrad and I am looking for opinions on what my best options would be going forward. So I’m sitting at a 3.4 Cum GPA, plan to graduate with a 3.58 ish. Since I have a relatively low GPA, I want to beef up my application with paid clinical experience. My other attributes include 4-year student-athlete, extensive research (plan to publish soon), upward trend, Tri-beta, and Pre-med association clubs, and shadowing hours (100+). I have not taken my MCAT yet. So my plan was to take summer classes while also pursuing an ECG technician certification at my local community college, then go on to complete my senior year. After graduation, I had planned to get a phlebotomy certification and get paid clinical experience in either ECG or Phlebotomy. I plan to take the MCAT after a semester of paid experience. After listening to the podcast, I realize that it looks like I am just “checking boxes.” So if anyone would be so kind to respond with any thoughts, I would greatly appreciate it.
Hello!!
I am most worried about not doing perfectly in my post bacc classes as a non-trad going back to school (I graduated in 2014) and trying to get through all the pre-reqs. I was wondering how you guys got through your post bacc classes successfully while also working full time, taking other classes, and shadowing, etc.
Thank you!! 
@roomies_on_rounds !. First I want to congratulate you on your success to get accepted into med schools. Second thank you for volunteering your time to support bright-eyes premed students like me.
I’m a nontraditional premed in the final year of a BA in Community Development degree at a college (Canada). The terminology of degrees and postsecondary schools can be a bit confusing sometimes; Canadian BA/PostGrad vs American PostBacc/??
I’m 38 finishing up a BA in a non-science degree. Age is a big worry for me because I have family(kids) and financial responsibilities. I read often in premed forums that age shouldn’t be a problem getting into medschool so I’m crossing fingers and going with that. My question is where should I start picking up on science courses. I have almost nonexistent knowledge of science material?
Would love to know what post bac youre in— do you like it? I’m considering doing one too, I’m in a similar boat and am looking for advice or recs on post-bac programs!
Hey there - I am doing my post bacc through UCLA extension (working towards their Pre-med certificate). I know UC Berkeley has an extension program as well, and maybe even UC San Diego (if you’re in CA). There are formal post bacc programs, less formal programs (like mine), and then you can also take classes a la carte at any university. This program is a pretty good fit for me because a lot of the formal programs near me (like at USC, for example) are twice or three times as expensive as the informal program I’m in now. This was also a good fit for me because the classes are challenging (we are proctored the same exams as UCLA main campus) but there isn’t an application process like there is for formal programs - you can sign up and start classes any quarter and you only take the classes you need, there isn’t a rigid structure. Happy to answer any other questions you may have!
Hi y’all!
So I am writing my experiences doc and really enjoyed Ryan’s walkthrough video of what to NOT do in writing them. It encouraged me to be myself and focus on telling stories about each in a way that was actually pretty fun and engaging.
HOWEVER, I sent a first draft of this to my premed advisor (done through a private company I will not name) and they completely eviscerated me. He/she took some of my stories, deleted them and put bulleted lists in their place sometimes, sometimes with generic and cheesy statements that I could barely read out loud without getting a toothache. They even left comments for me to outright say how I’ve grown, when it is my understanding the stories do that on their own (i.e. show not tell…?).
My problem is that I know he/she’s gotten tons of people into medical school (fairly sure they boast 100% success rate of their applicants over decade) – what should I do?
I want to respect their knowledge and expertise, but I absolutely hate the cookie cutter crap I have to say in place of some of my original stories. It came as a surprise given how much you (Ryan) emphasized the latter in podcasts and videos.
Please help!
Thanks!