Hello everyone my name is Jonathan. I’m a 30 year old, non-traditional pre-medical student. Unfortunately I’ve been on this journey for quite a while. It was probably around 10 years ago when I first decided to pursue medicine as a profession. Over that time I’ve really done nothing but underachieve and fall short at every time the opportunity presented itself. So as I mentioned before, I decided I wanted to be a doctor about 10 years ago, in ~2006. At that time, I was taking courses at my local community college and just barely scraping by. I was never a good student in high school and had really never had any form of academic success. I had taken a little time off between high school and community college… Moved to another state, got married, and just kind of did life for a little bit. My plan in going back to school to begin with was simple… There wasn’t one. I just figured it would all come together eventually. I was struggling to keep a 2.0 in my basic community college classes, and had been putting off the more difficult requirements such as biology until the end. Well eventually I took the introductory biology course… I failed. Next semester I took the same course with the same instructor and failed again. After that second semester I went to my instructor and asked for some advice on how I could succeed in her class and what I was doing wrong… She eventually told me that she didn’t think I was capable of passing and that I should consider other options. Something changed in me that day. I had always been very good at anything I tried at, and finally decided I was going to try. Not going to lie, I was furious. It took the next few semesters to find my rhythm, but once I did I excelled. I finished my community college experience 2 semesters later, scoring mostly As with a few Bs sprinkled in and finally moved on to a local university.
When I got to the university things were different. I was dialed in. I finished my bachelors in biology in 3 semesters with 2 summer semesters, climaxing with a 22 hour semester that I finished with a 4.0… Most of these classes were science courses with labs (Physiology with lab, Cell Biology with lab, Medical Microbiology with lab, Regional Botany with lab, Evolution of Vertebrates, Senior Seminar, Professional Communication). It wasn’t all great. I ended up with a few Ws from trying to over extend myself. I was working and taking classes full time during each semester I was there. But I had graduated and I was ready for my next step. But I had no idea what that was…
I really didn’t have any guidance along this path. The one guy I was friends with who was also pre-med eventually gave up and I was left with nothing but questions. I wasn’t smart enough to reach out to my piers or my advisors for direction. I didn’t know I need to take my MCAT while I was in school. I didn’t know I needed to be volunteering and shadowing. I was kinda in a bad spot. Eventually I reached out to the pre-med advisor at the university. I was told I needed to keep taking classes off and on because schools like to see recent course work. I was told I needed to study for my MCAT, get clinical exposure and shadowing. So I took some classes and started studying for my MCAT while still working full time. That didn’t work. I ended up having to drop classes to make time to study, and sadly enough I even ended up pushing back my MCAT… So I decided I was going to cut down on my work schedule to part time, take one class, find volunteer/shadow experiences, and study for the MCAT… A few months later I find out my wife has been cheating on me… I was devastated… Broken. I fell into a deep funk. Quit my job, quit school, quit being a pre-med, started drinking heavily… I just stopped doing everything.
Maybe a year later I started coming out of this funk. I’d found a decent job, started taking a class, and started studying for my MCAT again… Finally took the MCAT and got a 24… I had been making 27s on the AAMC practice tests. I wasn’t happy, but it was all I had to work with, so I went ahead and applied. I applied to the two in state medical schools. One was MD the other DO… I got interviews to both and was rejected by both. I saw this as a sort of affirmation that my scores, volunteering, and shadowing were good enough and I just lost a numbers game… So I applied to the same two schools the next year and didn’t get an interview at either. I know now it’s because I did nothing to improve my applications. I didn’t know I was supposed to… Not getting interviews really kinda broke me again. This was in 2011 and 2012. My already substantial drinking turned into heavy drinking again and I spent 2012-2016 on the fence about whether or not I was going to continue trying to get into medical school. I’d be all in one month, and out the next… And that all leads to now. I’m more focused and determined than ever. I’m ready to destroy this new version of the MCAT in January, continue shadowing/volunteering, and just making the world a better place.
Wish me luck.