Hi everyone,
I’m in a part-time postbac program (2 classes a semester + labs), and I’m one of a very few people in my class who work fulltime. Most others seem to work around 15-20 hours a week, while others have no job. I hear about their social activities every weekend while I have no life except for working, studying, and volunteering but that is besides the point. Do med schools take into consideration what people do in their spare time if they arent fulltime students? tbh we are competing for linkages and people with free time have a huge advantage.
As long as you can put it as a positive spin in your personal statement, your description of your employment may be taken into consideration. But truthfully, you have to get the good grades no matter what. And you can’t point to your situation vs. someone else’s – when it comes time for your application to be considered, it’s not “relative” - the focus is absolutely on your own record, right there in front of the AdCom.
You must do really well in all your courses. If you are not able to do that with your current schedule, then you need to rearrange things so that you can. It’s as simple as that, and it actually doesn’t have anything to do with what anyone else is doing.
Mary
Thanks for getting back to me. I am doing well so far in my classes, and while it gets rough managing a fulltime job and 2 classes I am pretty sure I can pull off A’s.
This post is almost like a rant, but I couldn’t help but think how am I supposed to compete against people for the linkages when they have loads of free time on their hands. There are a few linkage spots only, and we are all competing for them.
Hypothetically speaking, if I was to leave my job (which I may do towards the final semester of my post-bac program to prepare for MCATS and try to shadow a doctor) and just take two classes and have no job, would med school interviewers ask what I did in my free time or anything? Would they look down on me for taking just two courses?
Oh yea I’d like to add that please don’t mind me, I I have just been bitter lately. These thoughts kept coming into my head lately, and I couldn’t help but wonder about all of this.
I’m pretty sure I can use my current career as an asset in the sense of demonstrating leadership abilities by managing projects and mentoring others. I’m a software engineer so it doesn’t really have anything to do with the medical field though.
Just a teeny little FYI:
The pre-meds I go to school with, or at least a few of them:
work full time as directors/executives of multi-billion dollar healthcare/insurance company and get A’s
work full time and raise kids and get A-'s
work part time as athletic trainers and get A’s
I think you need to be very, very careful in how you categorize your fellow classmates for what they are doing in their spare time, just might surprise you. The ones I’ve met in school, applying this coming summer are very active - working, going to school full time, raising kids, engaged in volunteering, etc.
On that same note, don’t beat yourself up either if you’re not like them (I am NOT)… they also have what I like to refer to as, youthful energy. Something that seems to dry up a tad afte 35ish.