Ok. I have finally made the leap to retake the MCAT after 13 years and go for med school. I have been a mostly stay at home mom for the last 6 years and recently completed one semester towards my LPN certificate. What I’m wondering is should I spend $10,000 more just to get the certificate and experience or find a good job that will help pay some bills before I get into med school. I do have clinical experience, although not patient care and have also done shadowing. I have 4 children and right now my biggest card is life experience. I know there is no right answer, I am just looking for any advice.
thanks!!
Unless you will make enough additional salary to justify the expense, do not take the LPN detour on the way to medicine. You can volunteer to have more patient contact if you like. If you can find a good job that will get you on the road more quickly, do that!
- docdoc55 Said:
Ok. I have finally made the leap to retake the MCAT after 13 years and go for med school. I have been a mostly stay at home mom for the last 6 years and recently completed one semester towards my LPN certificate. What I'm wondering is should I spend $10,000 more just to get the certificate and experience or find a good job that will help pay some bills before I get into med school. I do have clinical experience, although not patient care and have also done shadowing. I have 4 children and right now my biggest card is life experience. I know there is no right answer, I am just looking for any advice.
thanks!!
thanks!!
Well......
13 years ago you did the premed? This may be a problem.
Life experience as a Mom is good but you still need
Volunteer
Shadowing
Patient Contact experience
So lets see what others say but I think you need to go back to school and do some science for at least a year if your premed is 13 years old, some schools will not accept the application.
That was a concern of mine also so I checked with the schools I am applying to and they have no time limit on pre-reqs. I have also done, and am currently, shadowing and volunteering. I have worked with patients, just not in a take-your-blood-pressure, administer-meds kind of way.
- docdoc55 Said:
That was a concern of mine also so I checked with the schools I am applying to and they have no time limit on pre-reqs. I have also done, and am currently, shadowing and volunteering. I have worked with patients, just not in a take-your-blood-pressure, administer-meds kind of way.
That's okay. You'll learn the patient care stuff in med school. Being around patients and just getting used to dealing with sick people is the main point of clinical volunteering as a pre-med. It would be a shame to discover in third year that you didn't like that part, and that's what med schools want you to figure out before admission.
Thank you so much for the input!!
- docdoc55 Said:
That was a concern of mine also so I checked with the schools I am applying to and they have no time limit on pre-reqs. I have also done, and am currently, shadowing and volunteering. I have worked with patients, just not in a take-your-blood-pressure, administer-meds kind of way.
Yes I understand, You still may have problems since the schools also print this " applicants for medical school should have a grade C or better in the Preqs, taken the MCAT and 90 credit hours" There is a difference from technical standards and what is being accepted, the "No age for grades" is a technical standard but the ADCOMS have the last word. The schools accept 40% or less of the 100% that apply ( I posted a recent stat of competition at an average state school University of MD it was less then 20% of all that applied) in this way just want you prepared if you do not get accepted the first round, I would plan on a year of college to prove myself to the Schools if you are not accepted the 1st time. Just do not become discouraged if this happens because I think it is a reasonable possibility. The competition is tough for medical school seats.
Good Luck
I didn’t think I had anything new to contribute to this thread, but when I was writing a response on another thread, your question came to mind.
Regardless of how old your prereqs are, and whether they’re acceptable, I do think that you are going to find that med schools want to see some recent coursework - it doesn’t have to be prereqs but it does need to be science. I had a couple of acquaintances when I was applying who found this out the hard way; took them two cycles to get in as a result.
The other thing is, who is going to write your LORs? If you haven’t done any academic work recently, you’ll have “social” LORs which are not going to reassure schools that you are up for the extremely demanding academic lifestyle of med school.
You can submit your application this year but I would suggest that you also devote some time during this application year to taking a course or two - in order to get a current academic LOR and show schools that you’ve “still got it.”
Good luck!
Mary
I have taken some courses this past semester. A&P,Nutrition, Human Growth and Development. I know it’s not O Chem again, but I did prove to myself that I was capable of learning again. I am having one of my profs write a LOR.
- docdoc55 Said:
I have taken some courses this past semester. A&P,Nutrition, Human Growth and Development. I know it's not O Chem again, but I did prove to myself that I was capable of learning again. I am having one of my profs write a LOR.
Then you may be OK, If I came across too strong, forgive me I tend to worry too much.