Hello nontrads!
I’m new to oldpremeds.org. I figure I can find information more relevant to me here as compared with SDN.
Introduction, then advice:
Served 11 years Air Force. Couldn’t get time from work to take the lab sciences, so I separated as an E6 to pursue this dream of mine… Job was survival equipment, parachutes, oxygen equipment, and more.
-Married, no kids, age 32
-BA Health Care Studies
-AAS Industrial Management
-Shadowing Hours: 60 (soon to be more)
-Hospital volunteer hours: 115 (mostly in ER and increases by 3hrs each week)
-Research Experience: Pain Medicine and Anesthesia in the Pharmeceutical Phd program. I am assigned my own mice for the experiments and do the procedures without supervision. Recently told I will be first author when this project is finished/published. My work is in part of a grad students Phd project, so I may have my name on other publications from this lab. Will get a good letter from this professor. My end goal is to be an Anesthesiologist, unsure of subspecialty.
I will have enough GI Bill left over to cover about 2 years of medical school tuition (as long as it’s a public school).
Prereqs left:
Physics 1 & 2
Ochem 1 & 2
Am taking more sciences to boost my sGPA. Will be taking 12+ science credits each semester until I apply. Using student loans beginning Fall to save GI Bill for med school.
Current Accum GPA 3.35
sGPA 2.9ish
Not many sciences in my academic history so it shouldn’t take long to boost it up. Didn’t have this goal when I started classes, so I messed up my GPA when I was younger. Currently working to fix it, grades are much better. Goal is to have sGPA up to 3.2 by next summer. I plan to apply next summer, may post-pone a year for more sGPA cushion.
Advice:
The premed advisor at my university isn’t very personable, many students have issues with her, she’s told some of them they should think about pursuing another career path. She seems to do more discouraging than advising and encouraging, and seems to play favorites. She could just be coming off the wrong way, but seems that she doesn’t care much about most of us. Spends more time “prioritizing” than advising, doesn’t have good answers, and it’s hard to tell if she really cares or not and rarely smiles. She gets mad if anyone stops by without an appointment. I feel I know more than her about the whole process. She couldn’t help me calculate my GPA because with military P/F credits and five different college transcripts, it is very complex. I have no clue which credits count for freshman, sophomore, junior, senior. This is important for the way AMCAS calculates the GPA and for the schools that do weighted GPA calculations such as UWSOM.
Problem: I likely need a committee letter, but not all schools require it. I’m thinking to not pursue committee letter but understand it can help tremendously with many schools.
There is no post-bacc premed program here.
Thoughts, comments, advice, critiques?
Sounds like you have a good strategy in mind. I might retake bio and gen chem if it’s been a while so as to have it fresh in your mind for MCAT.
Regarding committee letters - the rule is generally that IF your institution offers a committee letter, the med school wants you to get one. If it does not, then they will likely require 3 letters, 2 of which should be from science faculty. Your research director might be a good third one.
Kate
Sounds like a plan. Steer clear of the advisor unless you need her for something, in my experience and many others they do more harm than good. There’s a reason there is a market for premed consultants.
Keep moving forward and you’ll be nontradMD before you know it.
I just took bio and gen chem last academic year, hopefully I don’t forget too much. I plan to take an MCAT prep course after next spring, that should refresh the important stuff. Good idea though if it had been longer.
You’re right, i’m only worried about the committee letter. If I didn’t need it I would use a better advisor. I’ve had med school admissions tell me they “prefer and highly encourage” the committee letter. Some require it. Tough choice.