Hi Everyone-
I’ve got some questions about how to best go about this desire to be a physician that just won’t go away. I’m 35 have 2 kids plus a stepchild and am the primary bread-winner for the family. I’m geographically bound to where I live for three more years so I have to go about this now in the event that I apply in three years and get accepted, i’ll pretty much go anywhere.
My undergraduate GPA (graduated 1991) was terrible… a combination of immaturity and working my way through school. I went on to pursue a Masters, 3.6ish (finished 1996) to boost my GPA to apply to med school afterwards. After 1 round of trying and not getting in, I got discouraged and planned to try at a later date. Since then, I’ve gotten married, had 2 kids…
I’ve still got this desire that will not go away, my classes are too old to use to apply, should I just consider a 2 year post-bacc program or take courses independently? How do other people afford to take the time off work just to re-take classes?
Any suggestions would be most helpful.
Hi there,
The first thing that you should do is contact the schools that you are interested in applying to. Your coursework might not be too old but you need to find out this information.
The next thing that you should do (and you can do it at the same time as the thing above) is figure out how much money you need to take care of your family. How much can you budget and get by for four years? What can you liquidate and still be able to live indoors?
The third thing you need to do is plot a strategy for getting into medical school based on the answers to the above questions. You may not need to re-do courses since you have a masters degree. Again, you need to get specific information from your schools of interest.
If you do need to re-do classes, because of expiration, find the cheapest way to accomplish this. Depending on what you need, there may be ways to do things on-line or in the evenings, that might not interfere with your work for now.
When you get further along in the process, start tucking money away for emergencies. Once you get into medical school, having a bit of a “nestegg” is a great thing.
Good luck!
Natalie 