Am I crazy for considering this?!

[SueK]

So...please tell me that I’m crazy

im 36, married with two little kids and a qualified accountant. We just immigrated to Canada and I can’t stop thinking that this might now be possible with all that Canada offers.

am I too old?!

[rmorelan]

are you crazy : Maybe

Too old, quite possibly not....but of course that depends on your goals, your family's goals, and how much work you want to do. 

Mostly it depends on what you have done, and what you are willing to do. I would suspect you wouldn't want to repeat everything etc - and most degree outside of Canada are treated in a special way. 

[SueK]

Thank you so much for the kind encouragement!

do you perhaps know how I need to have my overseas degree assessed?

[rmorelan]

usually it is through https://www.wes.org/ I believe

they have to figure out how your degree would equate to one here. 

[SueK]

i Actually have done that as part of my immigration process - and it does.

i suppose I just have to figure out exactly what to submit 

[rmorelan]

2 hours ago, SueK said:

i Actually have done that as part of my immigration process - and it does.

i suppose I just have to figure out exactly what to submit 

so the next step is what your GPA works out to be under that system (?)

[apple94]

The process of becoming a physician is definitely taxing for traditional applicants since it is so long and drawn out. Being married with two kids won't make it any easier, that's for sure. But it has been done by others and you can do it too, if you are willing. Good luck

[1D7]

If you are considering it, you should plan out your complete career. Realize that medical school is 3-4 years, residency is 2-5 years, and fellowships are 1-3 years--and at each stage, you will potentially move cities. At a minimum that's a 5-6 year commitment and 2 potential moves, meaning a significant disruption to your children's/spouse's lives. That's assuming you already have everything else in place.

[maplesyrup]

I have seen people older than you in med school, and vet school. Nothing's impossible!

[Monkey D. Luffy]

No, not crazy - there are people older than you in my class right now. But you should definitely plan out the pros and cons of this move and discuss with your spouse and kids, it will be stressful and require lots of effort/sacrifice from you and your family. You just have to decide if that's worth it. 

From an admissions perspective, age does not play a role. What's more important here is your GPA, what province you live in, and whether your overseas courses satisfy prereqs. If your GPA is not high enough you may have to go back to school to take more courses. You will also have to take some time off to study for and write the MCAT.

Good luck!

[SueK]

Thank you so much for you encouragement. 

My hubby is very supportive and encouraging. I realize that this will prob take a toll on my family but I did my undergrad degree as an adult student so I’m aware and expecting the road to get rough. 

But its worth it and I want this. As I said, we just immigrated so it’s a fresh start so rather do this now then later. Love that there is people older than me doing this lol!

[SueK]

5 hours ago, rmorelan said:

so the next step is what your GPA works out to be under that system (?)

Yes! It equates to 4.7 GPA. I hoping the fact that I have a professional qualification (accountant) and 10 yrs leadership experience will count in my favour.

 

[rmorelan]

3 minutes ago, SueK said:

Yes! It equates to 4.7 GPA. I hoping the fact that I have a professional qualification (accountant) and 10 yrs leadership experience will count in my favour.

 

hey - our GPA scale is out of 4, did they give you one in that range? Plus how it is calculated is extremely important

[SueK]

Ah I must check how yours is calculated then. No, Wes doesn’t  provide a GPA score 

[SueK]

Ok so I checked and it works out to a 3.6 GPA (of my calculations are correct)

i have an MCAT question. It will obviously be in my best interest to start studying for that ASAP. I read up and understand as follows:

1) study

2) register when you ready

3) write

my question is: how do you know WHAT to study? Where do you get the study material/books from? Do you get it when you register? 

Sorry if this is silly?

[frenchpress]

47 minutes ago, SueK said:

Ok so I checked and it works out to a 3.6 GPA (of my calculations are correct)

i have an MCAT question. It will obviously be in my best interest to start studying for that ASAP. I read up and understand as follows:

1) study

2) register when you ready

3) write

my question is: how do you know WHAT to study? Where do you get the study material/books from? Do you get it when you register? 

Sorry if this is silly?

It can be a little overwhelming because it’s 128 pages, but I think it’s work looking at the AAMC official PDF of all the topics on the MCAT (https://aamc-orange.global.ssl.fastly.net/production/media/filer_public/44/e8/44e8b9aa-5000-490c-8a6a-c7ff8d01874d/combined_mcat-content_new_013118.pdf)

I used that to guide WHAT to study, and then I used a combination of different resources (Kaplan textbooks and Khan Academy videos mostly) to help me cover each topic. I used the AAMC and NextSteps practice exams to practice.

But there’s lots of ways to do it. Some people just buy an MCAT dedicated textbook set (The exam krackers, Kaplan, and the Princeton review books are all pretty popular) and go through that along with doing practice exams from various sources (AAMC has the most realistic tests and are worth buying, but many companies also offer them). Some people take dedicated prep courses (again offered by Kaplan, Princeton Reciew, etc.), which tend to guide you through the the material in a very intense way, and they usually include some practice tests (but they’re also $$$$).

Different things will work well for different people — there’s lots of threads on the mcat section about resources you can look at to get a sense of what people liked and why.

Unfortunately you don’t get any resources when you sign up for the exam. It can be an incredibly expensive process. The exam costs close to $500 Canadian, most texts are a couple hundred dollars, and you can pay hundreds just for the AAMC practice materials. If you want to do a prep course, that can be in the thousands

[SueK]

Thank you French press. Do people sell their second hand books- is that a thing?

thanks so much for clearing that up!

[rmorelan]

9 hours ago, SueK said:

Ok so I checked and it works out to a 3.6 GPA (of my calculations are correct)

i have an MCAT question. It will obviously be in my best interest to start studying for that ASAP. I read up and understand as follows:

1) study

2) register when you ready

3) write

my question is: how do you know WHAT to study? Where do you get the study material/books from? Do you get it when you register? 

Sorry if this is silly?

we will need to break that down in more detail at some point - as many schools will give you a boost for various things. A flat 3.6 is a low for med school admissions but you haven't apply the various gpa policies yet. 

You situation will be complex ha - always is when you do something a bit less usual.

[SueK]

1 hour ago, rmorelan said:

we will need to break that down in more detail at some point - as many schools will give you a boost for various things. A flat 3.6 is a low for med school admissions but you haven't apply the various gpa policies yet. 

You situation will be complex ha - always is when you do something a bit less usual.

Oh gosh ok so how do I do this?

[rmorelan]

3 hours ago, SueK said:

Oh gosh ok so how do I do this?

part of it is unfortunately learning all the rules (the forum helps ha)

you need the GPA on each course you took. Hopefully there are a few courses weighing you down, or clustered great courses in one or two years - those combinations just happen to work best overall with the GPA rules. 

[goleafsgochris]

On ‎9‎/‎13‎/‎2018 at 9:36 AM, SueK said:

Oh gosh ok so how do I do this?

You need the GPA for each year of school (Year 1- 3.55, Year 2- 3.87, etc), and whether all the years were full time or not.

[frenchpress]

On 9/13/2018 at 4:49 AM, SueK said:

Thank you French press. Do people sell their second hand books- is that a thing?

thanks so much for clearing that up!

Yes, they do!

If you want to buy directly from people, there’s a section for buying/selling on this forum, so you could post a wanted ad there (with your location) and someone might respond. Or try searching MCAT on Facebook marketplace — if there’s a lot of students in your city there may be a lot of options.

You can also buy online from used book sellers like Abe Books Canada. Amazon occasionally has some ok used deal, but they sometimes heavily discount slightly older editions of books too. I doubt there’s much difference between the newest editions and ones from 2015/2016 for example.

Just make sure anything that you get as your primary study source is for the ‘new MCAT’ or the ‘2015 MCAT’ or published after ~2015. They made major changes to the test for that year, so older sources won’t be as helpful to you.