Hello,
I’m new to this group, so forgive me if I’m posing an old question buried in a thread somewhere.
I’m 34 yrs old and want to apply to med school again because it has always been my dream to be a physician. I applied a long time ago, right after graduating from undergrad in 1997 from Cornell (BA, Psych), but was rejected. I want to re-take pre-med coursework again, retake the MCAT and reapply, but I don’t know if it can ever make up for my failed past applications in the eyes of admissions committees. I want to go for it if there is a real possibility that, if I have good numbers, I can get in.
Some background…
While in undergrad, I took Bio and O Chem at Cornell, but did very poorly in O Chem. I ended up taking G Chem and Physics during summers home at SUNY Buffalo and then O Chem at Columbia University after graduating. I took the MCAT in Apr 1998 getting only a 28 (S,11,9,8). I retook it 3 months later, but got the same score (I attribute some of this to the fact that I was going through a difficult personal period at the time and was in treatment for depression). This experience made me afraid to take it a 3rd time and I stupidly convinced myself that I could get in with a 28 somewhere. I made another major mistake in my application process back then: I had no hospital volunteer experience (For some reason, I also convinced myself that my bio-med academic research experience and recommendations from physician researchers was a decent substitute).
After being rejected, I worked in academic bio research for 8 years at Columbia and Rockefeller and was able to get co-authorship on a couple of publications. Lab work wasn’t really paying the rent though, so I got and MBA and now I work at a major pharmaceutical company in a marketing management track program. Over the past 10 years, I’ve seen the many faces of medicine through my work experience and I’m convinced that my first dream, to become a physician, was the right one, but I don’t know if my history of rejection will prevent me from ever getting in.
Now I am older, happier, wiser and better able to apply myself and I sincerely think I could get good grades and MCAT scores if I tried. But can the “sins” of my past failure ever be washed away in the eyes of admissions committees?
Looking for brutal honesty,
AETYL
Duplicate post. Please only post your message once so that multiple answers won’t be scattered around.
Thanks