Well I am glad I read some of your posts. I am no longer feeling that my decision is a crazy one. I am currently 44 years old. My background has been primarily in construction, a trade I never intended on pursuing. I went as far as a commercial building inspector for the city of Los Angeles and quit after realising I was drifting down a river that I did not want to be in. I had always had an internal passion to be an MD. I would enroll in school and do very well only to chase after another construction project that would pay my tuition, similar to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, it never happened. I am now closing out my business, wiping out debt and pursuing full force an education towards med school. I have no wife or children, therefore no excuse but myself. I do not want to live with the regret that I never pursued my dreams, therefore I feel I must at this time chase it whole heartedly. I believe this forum will serve as a prod and encouragement I am glad to have come across it. Now where to start? Daniel
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Well I am glad I read some of your posts. I am no longer feeling that my decision is a crazy one. I am currently 44 years old. My background has been primarily in construction, a trade I never intended on pursuing. I went as far as a commercial building inspector for the city of Los Angeles and quit after realising I was drifting down a river that I did not want to be in. I had always had an internal passion to be an MD. I would enroll in school and do very well only to chase after another construction project that would pay my tuition, similar to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, it never happened. I am now closing out my business, wiping out debt and pursuing full force an education towards med school. I have no wife or children, therefore no excuse but myself. I do not want to live with the regret that I never pursued my dreams, therefore I feel I must at this time chase it whole heartedly. I believe this forum will serve as a prod and encouragement I am glad to have come across it. Now where to start? Daniel
Hi there,
Your starting point should be finding out what you need to before taking the MCAT. Do you need all of the pre-med courses or just some of them? Do you need to upgrade your math skills or is your algebra and trig skills solid enough to get you through General Chemistry and General Physics? Do realize that some medical school require calculus so make sure you have that requirement before you apply if you are interested in one of those schools.
The MSAR (Medical School Admissions Requirements) is a good start along with a smaller book about getting into medical school. There are tons of them out there. The MSAR is available from AAMC Page. There are links from this website to the MCAT site too so just follow them.
Good luck!
Natalie
Hey!
Well first of all congradulations! Welcome to the club of people who figured it out after having a life first 
As far as where to start the answer is Pre Reqs. Typically you need these:
Chem I & II with Lab
Bio I & II with lab
Physics I & II with lab
Organic Chem I & II with lab
English Comp I & II
Also, if you took them over 10 yrs ago, some schools wont accept them.
The best way to get on track is to call a local med school (MD/DO) and talk with their admissions people so you can find out whta you need.
Good Luck!
Quote:
Well I am glad I read some of your posts. I am no longer feeling that my decision is a crazy one. I am currently 44 years old. My background has been primarily in construction, a trade I never intended on pursuing. I went as far as a commercial building inspector for the city of Los Angeles and quit after realising I was drifting down a river that I did not want to be in. I had always had an internal passion to be an MD. I would enroll in school and do very well only to chase after another construction project that would pay my tuition, similar to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, it never happened. I am now closing out my business, wiping out debt and pursuing full force an education towards med school. I have no wife or children, therefore no excuse but myself. I do not want to live with the regret that I never pursued my dreams, therefore I feel I must at this time chase it whole heartedly. I believe this forum will serve as a prod and encouragement I am glad to have come across it. Now where to start? Daniel
I am a bit confused as to whether or not classes at a cc carry over and if so, what level do they need to be. I’ve taken a semester of chemistry, anatomy and have reached pre-calculus. I started physics but found that there are different physics classes and not all are the correct pre req. These courses were one semester each. I know that the req for some classes is a year. Should I be looking for two part courses that span 2 semesters? Daniel
To begin with, you are still young! I started my prereqs when I was 48, and am now a third year student at WVSOM. As to the community college issue, I think most of your basic sciences should carry over. The weight they are given by adcoms depends on the ranking of the community college.
I finished biology, physics 1 and 2, gen. chem 1 and 2, and organic 1 (all with labs) at a community college before transferring to a 4-year institution. They all transferred just fine. If you are going to be transferring to another university, then you might check with them ahead of time. But if you are just taking the classes as prereqs, the most important thing is to do well in them.
Best of luck!
Hi again Dan,
I just noticed that you are taking Pre Calc in the fall. There is a great website for that www.aleks.com. It’s like $18 a month but it is great and they do a free trial. The Precalc book we used was awful and that website is a God send since it constantly assesses you and doesn’t drive you over the edge with repeating the parts you got the first time through!
Jenny
I got to thank everyone for such a quick response and all the advise. I can tell that this forum is going to be a major factor in my life as I pursue this goal. I will probably have about 50,000 post by the time I am through.
Thanks again everybody!