Howdy

Hi, I’m Keith and I want to be a medical student. Good grief.


I’m 40, almost 41. I graduated in the early 90’s with a biology degree and a 3.1 GPA. A few years after that, I decided to go back to school, re-take some science courses and apply to med school. I took ~40 hours with a GPA of ~3.75. Took the MCAT, got a 34 (11, 11, 12). Applied but got wait-listed and ultimately rejected.


So then I got frustrated, packed up and went to school at Purdue and worked full-time. Was wishy-washy between engineering and computer science. Did well, but had a couple F’s for personal reasons. Ultimately got an MBA (which I hated). I finished near the bottom of my class for the MBA. It was the antithesis of my very being; I never felt so out of place. But it is a top 20-25 program, so I guess that’s something.


Now it’s 8+ years later.


I’ve never been able to come up with anything I wanted to do outside of medicine, as silly as that sounds.


I have 2 children that don’t live with me full-time, so I’m really limited to IU med school, which is a large state school.


So I have a mix of great and horrible grades. I have good MCAT scores that are 15 years old. I do believe I could easily do as well on the MCAT again (I think that’s the only thing I have going for me. lol).


My work experience has been in psychiatric hospitals (long long time ago); chemist at pharmaceutical companies; quality management at coca-cola.


Do I need to re-take my pre-reqs for the 3rd time since it’s been 15 years?


My plan:

  1. start volunteering at the hospital

  2. start reviewing for the MCAT

  3. start classes summer 2011.

  4. take the MCAT, take more classes, apply, repeat.


    Any advice?


    Thanks and hi.


    K-

Keith -


Since you have a particular school in mind, contacting their admissions department and talking to someone there may get you some specific answers.


Regarding redoing the science classes - I wouldn’t think you’d need to do them all. My personal opinion is that biology changes so rapidly that taking a new biology course might be very worthwhile as we know a lot more than even 15 years ago. If I were to guess, I’d say an admissions committee might like to see a recent organic chemistry as demonstration that you are able to be successful in that more challenging academic course. I think your plan of doing some shadowing and volunteering is excellent.


Meanwhile - welcome to Old Premeds! It’s a lovely place


kate