kelau Posted March 11, 2019 Report Share Posted March 11, 2019 I’ve thought long and hard about making the decision to apply to medical school. Some days I feel pretty confident. Other days I find myself overanalyzing everything, like today. I’m currently 26 with two years of experience as an ICU nurse. I work full time. I don’t have a picture perfect cumulative GPA, but my final two year (full course load) GPA is a 3.95. I’m looking for some help formulating some sort of game plan. My cumulative GPA isn’t competitive. Would it be worth it to go back to school to up my GPA? Or would full time work experience be more beneficial? I’m also finding it kind of tough to broaden my extracurriculars as I’m working full time and trying to study for the MCAT. Any advice on that matter would be appreciated. Does working as nurse count for something in terms of extracurriculars? I’m sorry if this post is repetitive. I just feel like I have no idea if I’m even on the right track sometimes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meridian Posted March 11, 2019 Report Share Posted March 11, 2019 Break down your GPA for each of the 4 years. That may help figure out if you need to / or can up your GPA. You already realize your 2 year GPA opens up Queens and UWO and maybe Ottawa. UofT maybe as well depending on the spread of bad marks in 1st two years (get to drop 8x half credits from GPA calc. With a 2 year 3.95 I would go ahead with it and study and write the MCAT this summer. If you can do well there you can see what schools are available to apply to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
w8list Posted March 13, 2019 Report Share Posted March 13, 2019 How many pass/fail courses do you have in each year? Ottawa and uwo will not consider any year with more than 1 pass/fail for wgpa calculations and I think most nursing programs have more than that in 3rd and 4th year, so a second degree may be something you want to consider. You should check with your manager, if it is possible to drop down to part-time temporarily while you study for the MCAT. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kelau Posted March 13, 2019 Author Report Share Posted March 13, 2019 3 hours ago, orthoooo said: How many pass/fail courses do you have in each year? Ottawa and uwo will not consider any year with more than 1 pass/fail for wgpa calculations and I think most nursing programs have more than that in 3rd and 4th year, so a second degree may be something you want to consider. You should check with your manager, if it is possible to drop down to part-time temporarily while you study for the MCAT. There were 0 pass / fail courses, all work was graded on a letter based system. Also I’m dropping my hours starting April 1st, so I have that already sorted out. I guess I realized that I was really just worried about extracurriculars. I was finding it pretty tough to work and study and do anything else on top of that. I have no research experience. I’m just hoping that having over 4000 hours of direct patient care will benefit me in some way. I’m just trying to focus on the MCAT for now and volunteer more once I drop my hours. In terms of Ottawa, I haven’t taken organic chemistry so I will consider that for next year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kelau Posted March 13, 2019 Author Report Share Posted March 13, 2019 On 3/11/2019 at 3:08 PM, Meridian said: Break down your GPA for each of the 4 years. That may help figure out if you need to / or can up your GPA. You already realize your 2 year GPA opens up Queens and UWO and maybe Ottawa. UofT maybe as well depending on the spread of bad marks in 1st two years (get to drop 8x half credits from GPA calc. With a 2 year 3.95 I would go ahead with it and study and write the MCAT this summer. If you can do well there you can see what schools are available to apply to. 1st year - 2.00 2nd year - 3.4 3rd year - 3.85 4th year - 3.90 5th year - 4.00 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1D7 Posted March 13, 2019 Report Share Posted March 13, 2019 Your GPA is competitive for Western and Queens. Personally I think having 2 yrs experience as an ICU nurse tops most extracurriculars (though adding more wouldn't hurt). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
w8list Posted March 13, 2019 Report Share Posted March 13, 2019 Try reaching out to docs in your department to see if you can do research with them or try reaching out to the research program manager for ICU. (if there is one?) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meridian Posted March 15, 2019 Report Share Posted March 15, 2019 How many of the credits in each of 3,4,5 were pass/fail ? Was year 3 also full course load ? (why 5 years?) . If full time (by each schools terms) Queens, Western, Ottawa and maybe some others could be potentials. MCAT time ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kelau Posted March 20, 2019 Author Report Share Posted March 20, 2019 On 3/15/2019 at 8:50 AM, Meridian said: How many of the credits in each of 3,4,5 were pass/fail ? Was year 3 also full course load ? (why 5 years?) . If full time (by each schools terms) Queens, Western, Ottawa and maybe some others could be potentials. MCAT time ! I had a couple of pass/fail courses taken in the summer. Other than that everything was graded. I did 5 years because I obviously needed to bring my GPA up, which worked out for me, and also I didn’t get into nursing right away. Also yeah, year three was a full course load Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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