Hi All,
I am 42 years old, and want to search my options of becoming a Doc. I don’t have a clue about many things, so please Help …
Is a Bachelor’s Degree Required ?
Is MCAT Required ?
How do we prepare for MCAT - Other than Books, CDs, etc…
Is Volunteer work required ?
If someone could please guide me, I’ll be grateful.
Thanks, 
- want2badoc Said:
Is a Bachelor's Degree Required?
Yes.
- want2badoc Said:
Is MCAT Required?
Yes.
- want2badoc Said:
How do we prepare for MCAT - Other than Books, CDs, etc...
This is up to the individual and how much preparation you think you need and how much money you're willing to spend. Most of what you need to know for the MCAT is learned during the required undergraduate pre-requisite courses. Some people find it helpful to take a formal test prep course (e.g. Kaplan), or buy the review books sold by these companies. Still others review on their own.
- want2badoc Said:
Is Volunteer work required?
No, but it's very highly encouraged!
- TicDocDoh Said:
- want2badoc Said:
Is a Bachelor's Degree Required?
Yes.
- want2badoc Said:
Is Volunteer work required?
No, but it's very highly encouraged!
Actually, I've seen at least one school (Baylor) that says they don't *require* a Bachelor's degree, as long as you have at least 90 credit hours and have covered the required courses.
But, in answer to both needing a degree and volunteer work: why wouldn't you do everything possible to make your application as competitive as you possibly can? Getting into med school is difficult when you have a degree and hours and hours of volunteer work-how much more difficult is it going to be if you handicap yourself by not doing at least the minimum that essentially every other applicant is going to be doing?
There’s a line here between technicalities and realities. Many med schools don’t “technically” require a bachelor’s degree. However, the reality of it is that despite the fact that most of them state a requirement of a minimum of 90 semester hours (which is typically 3 years anyways), they admit VERY few people without it. The 90 credit hour requirement is, in most cases, there to accommodate students they are admitting to a combined BS/MD program (again a very small minority of students). The majority of students applying for medical schools have bachelor’s degrees when applying so not having one would make it highly unlikely that you would be a competitive candidate.
As to volunteer work - absolute requirement, no, but definitely highly recommended. There are pretty wide criterion on what counts as volunteer work.
Oh, I agree completely that you’d have to be a bit crazy to not get your Bachelor’s before you attended med school, that’s what the second paragraph of my post was all about. I was just pointing out that it’s at least theoretically possible to attend med school without a Bachelor’s degree.
Hi,
You asked:
I am 42 years old, and want to search my options of becoming a Doc. I don't have a clue about many things, so please Help ....
- Is a bachelor's degree required?
- Is MCAT Required ?
- How do we prepare for MCAT - Other than Books, CDs, etc...
- Is Volunteer work required ?
If someone could please guide me, I'll be grateful.
Welcome! As a recently new member but one who has harbored the unrequited dream of attaining physician-hood for decades, and joined every organization I could find about it, I have found all the answers to questions here. For brevity sake,
I will not repeat the answers, but give you resources.
Resources in General:
OldPreMeds.org is excellent. Just cruise around. Most questions have already been answered recently, plus there are annual archives listed.
The AAMC (Association of American Medical Colleges) guide for admissions for 2011. It lists the core course requirements and anything individual schools may have added. It is published and sold at major bookstores and the AAMC web site.
Kaplan review web site has excellent and up to date encyclopedic resources.
Bachelors degree is a solid requirement for nearly every -- if not all -- US Schools of Medicine, as well as for the four leading and accredited Caribbean schools (Ross, American Univ of the Caribbean, St. George's University, and Saba).
Pre-Med Courses: For requirements by US medical schools, consult the AAMC guide.
MCAT: All require the MCAT. Check out the MCAT Forum: MCAT Forum on Old Pre-Meds
The AAMC also designs and administers the MCAT.
MCAT Prep: You can prep on your own, at a commercial prep company's classes and/or online (e.g., Kaplan, Princeton Review, etc.) or by buying books published by the commercial review companies, or second hand on Amazon and others.
Volunteer Work: Where it is paid or unpaid, most AdComs want to see your true commitment to the field, so meaningful (stress meaningful) experience exposed to medical profession is vital, as well as to confirm to you how deeply you understand the profession and your willingness to spend a decade training for it. But it can be paid research or policy position, not necessarily unremunerated volunteering. If you are near any medical school, the largest medical centers (called Academic Medical Centers, or AMCs) have large, well staffed Volunteer Offices geared to helping pre-med hopefuls gain placements for a year or more of volunteer work; just steer clear of tangential jobs that help patients but are not "clinical" or pertinent to your career, such as distributing magazines to patients! Use your creativity to develop an experience of value. You can network and ask doctors in the field you want if they can take you on as a shadow to observe their practice with patient permissions.
In-Person Information Gathering and Networking: Attend the upcoming annual OldPreMeds conference in Las Vegas in June 9-12, 2011.
AMSA: Join the American Medical Student Association (AMSA) chapter at your college where you will take your pre-med coursework or join online at www.amsa.org where you will find tons of valuable resources including a special and very active set of pre-medical guidance and chapters nationwide. They are student-run and very dedicated to social justice and encouraging would-be doctors who are caring and leaders advocating for their patients.
This is just a start. Good Luck, Follow all leads, and continue to post here.
you are God sent. Thanks for all the resources. I would have spent a good deal of time researching for all these.
I will be posting my updates. later.
Now, need to take the kids to school.
ttyl.
N.
- NightGod Said:
Oh, I agree completely that you'd have to be a bit crazy to not get your Bachelor's before you attended med school, that's what the second paragraph of my post was all about. I was just pointing out that it's at least theoretically possible to attend med school without a Bachelor's degree.
The minimum of 90 credits is across virtually every medical school and is highly unlikely to apply to oldpremeds. It appears it is from an old "policy" guideline of AAMC so that young, bright juniors could be pulled out of their undergraduate programs and go right into medical school. Usually it was done in house (ie columbia undergrad pulled in to columbia medical school)