There have been some great questions and thoughtful responses from everyone here. I’d like to see what people thought about the specifics of my situation, and also hear about other folk’s situations as well…
Grades: I had a Cumulative GPA of 3.6 with all my hard science courses finished until the last semester of my senior year, where I flubbed (GPA 2.5) and brought my GPA down to 3.4. I continued onto graduate school in chemistry and flubbed that and left after the first semester (personal life issues with coming out, not concentrating with studying). Anything that can be done to “repair this”? I don’t want to hide that that happened in my life, but I’m worried that there would be no way to recover from that past mistake.
I’m planning on taking courses such as physiology and other biology-related courses in the next few semesters at UCF to help shore up my GPA. Should I cram everything into the coming summer and next school year and study for the MCAT at the same time? What types of courses would you recommend for an chemistry major that would be appropriate for the MCAT?
MCAT: I had originally taken the MCAT “cold” (big mistake, took it twice and got identical scores) in 1994 and received scores such as Verbal Reasoning: 08, Physical Science: 10, and Biological Science: 09. Will these affect me even if I now study and get VR:10, PS:12, BS:11 [or something like that, hopefully 
] I am worried that being away from the sciences for 10 years will make this a much harder task. Thank God I still have my old texts for self study, but new books I’m sure are going to cost a fortune!
Experience: I’ve been volunteering in the neurology ward for the past 9 months and the past 1 month in the ER at the local hospital. I do get to see nurses and doctors work with patients in a limited way. I’ve loved every minute of it (even the dull stuff like paperwork and cleaning) as we do have some contact with the patients and can see proceedures and workups done by doctors and nurses.
I’m unclear on how shadowing a doctor would work, however. Is that just a few days where you follow around a doctor, or is it something more regular like volunteering? Getting to know doctors has been a challenge as they tend to stay separate from the nursing staff, which I work closely with. I probably need to be more agressive with the doctors, and ask them to watch and explain what they are doing, but there always seems to be a wall there. Probabaly more of my making.
I’d like to hear about people’s thoughts on these issues, and would like to hear about other people’s situations as well.
Hi Patrick,
You will need to do some “damage control” for your GPA. Don’t try to cram everything into one semester or even one semester and a summer. There is no need to hurry and the more time you put between your past and present, the better. Take some upper division courses and audit the pre-med courses that are remote so that you have some fresh pre-med coursework. Don’t retake anything for credit. Needless to say, you really need to do well and don’t worry about “hiding” anything, as your transcripts will show your work. Just do well from here on out.
For the MCAT, do plenty of practice exams. If you find that you have a huge knowledge gap, after all, your last MCAT was in 1994 (more than 10 years ago) then you may want to invest in a good review course. Again, I would advise auditing a year of General Biology as this course has changed in the past ten years. (you don’t need the lab). Since you did graduate work in chemistry, you should be able to get yourself up to speed with organic and physics with just a review course.
You need to shadow a physician. Ask one of the physicians to help you with this experience and do it. You also need to have updated letters of recommendation so shadowing a physician can provide one of them. You need to have a one on one with a physician that is practicing today as opposed to just watching them. It’s tough but you need to get this done.
If you can’t find anyone at your hospital, then contact your local medical society. This is usually a good place to start. You need not spend days and weeks doing this but a good Saturday afternoon will suffice as long as the experience is meaningful. Take a copy of your CV and get your preceptor to write a letter of recommendation for you.
Again to recap, I would not try to rush MCAT prep and GPA damage control. Take your time and be sure to have a solid knowledge base before you take that exam. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT go into the MCAT with the idea that you are going to take it a couple of times. You need one good shot so be prepared. You need to be sure that your “damage-control” coursework is no less than B+ so take your time here. Take courses that will increase your knowledge base and audit any pre-med courses in which you need a knowlege update but not grade update.
Good luck! Work hard and work strong.
Natalie
Just a quick question on the advice on doing audits of classes…
Don’t audits show up on your transcripts too? Or do they fall off in the final package creation that gets sent out to Med Schools?
I ask cause I’m wondering if I went and sat through the general courses on audit just to “prep” and then went through for a grade, wouldn’t that look a little negative?
Hi there,
You may not audit a class and then take it later for a grade. No undergraduate school is going to allow that and if you attempt to audit, you are ineligible to take the course for a grade. This would look very bad to an admissions committee if you audited the course at another institution and then took the course for credit at your institution. I would consider this an application tanker. You can only audit a course that you have previously taken for credit or that you do not need credit for. For example, you could audit Critical Reading and Writing if you didn’t want the hassle of doing all of the work for the grade but you wanted the information of the course. If you later needed a writing course, you would have to take something else.
Natalie
Quote:
Hi there,
This would look very bad to an admissions committee if you audited the course at another institution and then took the course for credit at your institution. I would consider this an application tanker.
Natalie
What is an application tanker?
I was in a different situation - course work greater than ten years old. I re-took those courses for grades the first time, and again the second time. That wasn’t a problem
Guess I don’t know the issue here. . . .
Quote:
What is an application tanker?
I was in a different situation - course work greater than ten years old. I re-took those courses for grades the first time, and again the second time. That wasn’t a problem
Guess I don’t know the issue here. . . .
At my undergrad, audited courses didn’t appear on the transcript, so I find it hard to believe it would have “tanked” my application if I’d audited a class and later taken it for a grade. Nor did my school have a policy prohibiting students from doing this. Of course, I don’t see how someone could make a practice of auditing every course before taking it for a grade in order to get an advantage. It would take 8 years to graduate!