Mature Student: Back in School

[5abi]

Hey All,

 

I'm really a mature student, close to 40 and planning on resetting my career. My undergrad unfortunately is complete junk, GPA of ~2.5. So I plan to evoke the 10-year exclusion rule, which will make my Masters redundant also, but that's ok. I'm one semester into my Athabasca courses, taking 4-per sem, for a total of 24 credits September through April. 

 

For folks with experiences, how do they judge the difficulty of the courses? I'm taking as many courses that relate to my current job, simply as a hedge in the chance of failure at least I got something out of it. So far so good, first semester 4.0 while working full-time and raising 3 kids under 7. 

 

Now, being older and being out of school for such a long time any tips for starting to study for the MCAT? I plan on studying March through July and writing either Late July or early August. 

 

Also, do I have to start volunteering? Would the UofC consider the fact that I'm a parent with a full time job and full time school as sufficient?

 

Best regards and any advice is welcome.

 

 

 

 

[powdermonkey13]

I feel like I was on the same path as you. Feel free to DM me to chat. Currently in 3rd year at UofC and preparing for CARMs.

[3last]

I was a mature applicant and now year 2 at U of C. I'm so happy to see that Calgary has updated full-time status to be 24 credits instead of 30! I wouldn't worry too much about how the difficulty of your courses is assessed - the "global assessment of academic merit" is only worth 10% and your life experiences will probably net you way more points than that in the personal attributes section  One of the most important parts of the U of C app is the Top 10 Experiences and you can certainly write about parenting there! General advice is that it usually doesn't help to volunteer just for the sake of volunteering - they want to see that you have done things you are passionate about over your adult life, not just squeezing in stuff that "looks good" on a med school application. Good luck!!