Mature student trying to pull up GPA to apply, suggestions?

[Guest alicrmt]

Here it is, another one of those "my GPA sucks, but I want to go to med school"....

 

First off, I am a mature student - 31 yrs old, currently own my own practice as an RMT and I'm finishing my B.Sc. through UW distance ed. I finally decided after being completely unmotivated up to this point, that I really want to go to med school. I actually always wanted to, but never took myself seriously because I thought I couldn't do it.

 

So....I have completed 20/30 undergrad courses, but I realize that to pull my GPA up enough to be considered, I would have to achieve basically 100% in all 10 remaining courses.

 

Any advice as to how to proceed would be appreciated as I REALLY want to try and make this happen. I would need to complete all undergrad through distance ed, as I need to keep my full time practice until med school, if possible. I know that some schools take your best 2 years, but I am also really leaning towards MAC, and I know they don't do that.

 

Is it realistic to think I could take a 4th year of courses to try and pull up the average, or is there a better way to proceed in my situation? Maybe it's all a pipe dream, but I know I won't be happy unless I at least try!

 

Thanks in advance!

[Guest Steve MD09]

You might want to look into doing a victory lap (taking an extra year of courses beyond degree requirements). That could pull up your best/most recent 2 years, and also have a significant effect on cumulative GPA.

[Guest nucleardove]

Hey there,

 

How long ago did you start your degree?

 

I was in a similar situation to yours (RMT, went back to university at 26, did a 4-year degree, now in first year meds), and my cumGPA kinda sucked since I blew off my first 2 years when I was 18/19. I used UBC's "ten-year rule" to advantage, dropping the old course.

 

If the courses are more recent, do the victory lap, and make it count. U of M might be good if you kill the MCAT (which I certainly didn't)-- it's worth ~50% there. Mac seems to be pretty GPA focussed of late, so best to try to bring it up (the gpa).

 

What province are you in? (e.g. can you benefit from above things from "in-province biased" schools like UBC and U of M?)

 

ND

[Guest alicrmt]

Originally I went to UofGuelph in '94 for my B.Comm. I left after 2 years when I attended college for massage. I have been taking courses part-time for nearly 2 years now from Waterloo, distance ed. I actually switched to the B.Sc. program as well, so I only got credit for 10 of the 20 courses I took at Guelph. (I'm in Ontario) I really haven't worked at it at ALL until this point because I just "wanted the piece of paper". I could kick myself now, because I actually want that piece of paper to get me somewhere! My average right now is in the low 70's, AAK!

 

The other thing I'm unsure of is whether the Guelph courses will count toward the GPA since although I was given credit for 10, I wasn't assigned marks for them. And if they ARE part of it, I wonder if the 10 I wasn't given credit for at Waterloo will be counted?

 

So the degree I am working on now is a 3 year, and I had thought about the "victory lap" since I don't think any ontario schools have a "ten year rule". Can I just keep taking courses until my GPA is high enough or is there a limit? Other thing too though, is I am not taking a full course load, due to having a full time business - I am unclear as to whether I would be considered or not, based on this. I would be willing to take 3, or even 4 courses per term, all three terms but there is no way I can take 5 per term while running my practice. And unfortunately I can't close my practice and attend school full time due to financial constraints. Perhaps I can get around these things based on being a "non-traditional" applicant, but so far from what I have seen on the various school sites, no specific info is there for me.

 

I was thinking it might be a good idea to arrange a meeting with a faculty advisor at Waterloo, but I am not sure how much they would be able to help.

 

Thanks again for the advice!

[Guest Mimicat65]

The full-time requirement likely varies from school to school, so you probably should contact someone at the schools you are are most interested in to get the info if it isn't available on their sites.

 

I believe at Dal, the minimum admission requirements specify at least two years of your degree must have been completed on a full-time basis. I don't think they make exceptions to this rule. They also state that they will sometimes accept applicants with a three year degree, but a four-year degree is strongly recommended.

 

Although it is difficult to consider piling on debt at our age :\ , if you really want to pursue medicine, this might be one more hoop you need to jump through (sidelining your business and entering school full-time for a year or two). Is there any way you could still run your business, but with hired staff rather than yourself? Maybe a recent grad would welcome the opportunity to step into a "no-hassle" practice with no upfront cost to themselves for a year or two, and you could still benefit a little bit financially for having built up your client base and set up your premises... You could still take on some clients at night or on weekends, and attend school full-time to work on your gpa and meet requirements.

 

Good luck alicrmt!

[Guest satsumargirl]

The other thing I'm unsure of is whether the Guelph courses will count toward the GPA since although I was given credit for 10, I wasn't assigned marks for them. And if they ARE part of it, I wonder if the 10 I wasn't given credit for at Waterloo will be counted?

 

Hey Alicrmt

 

You will need to submit transcripts from all schools you've ever attended. So while Waterloo gave you "credit" for 10 of the courses you did at Guelph, the admissions committees will in fact, have your marks for those courses.

 

Whether or not those courses are counted will depend on the school. For example, MAC looks at everything ever taken in undergrad. Ottawa will only consider undergrad courses taken as part of a degree (and since you didn`t finish your degree at Guelph, I would guess - and call to be sure - that they wouldn`t count those). Ottawa also looks at your last 3 years....so your earlier years may not count if you've done in excess of 3 years.

 

The full-time thing may be an issue. MAC won`t care. I believe Ottawa does. Best to contact the schools though and ask about your situation.

 

Good luck!

[Guest TheChosenOneDDS]

First I would like to say no offence, because I am very straight forward and may offend. To pull up GPA, a suggestion would be to take a degree in something easy or do a masters, since you would have a lower cutoff for marks 3.0 or something if you have a masters.

 

Just curious, if you are 31 now, assuming you get into med school at 32, you will be done at 36 + two years of residency minimum that's like 38. Aren't you thinking about having a family? Is it possible to support them? By 40, most doctors are already accomplished and making a good living in the peak of their practice. You start at 40, you probably won't get to practice as much as you would like..Not to deter you from your dream.

 

I really don't want to come off as a jerk, but i just think people have to look at the reality of the situation. May be I am just misinformed or have different values. Me personally, I just think life is too short to be spent on school trying to pursue something that might not happen. I do understand that you really want to do meds etc. etc. but is it practical? Why not apply to the US? it might be easier. Because if you are worried about pulling your marks up, you will probably need to spend another few more years trying to get in.

 

I do wish you the best of luck and my advice is to either take some easy courses to pull up your overall GPA, do the MCAT and apply for the USA as well as all over CAnada. What about the Carribbean medical schools? I mean if you were so passionate about medicine I don't think it would matter where you get your degree and where you will practice right?

[Guest Kirsteen]

Hi there,

 

To offer an alternative point of view to the above, there are many different ways to merge a medical career with the rest of life's priorities. Many folks start medicine in their 20s, but there are also many now who don't begin medicine until later. Currently, there are plenty of medical students now who are in the latter half of their thirties, and who are interested in both, entering a specialty career path and having a family (myself included). Some decide to fit this in by starting or adding to their families during medical school (not uncommon at all). Some begin or add to their families while in residency. There are also doctors out there--both, male and female--who have done the same and who are currently on faculty in their late thirties and early forties who enjoy a good clinical career and rich family life.

 

In short, if family and career are equally important factors to you--and they are to most medics I know--then the medical field, from medical school and beyond, is happy to accommodate and provide resources for you.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[Guest ploughboy]

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"Everybody's got their problems

Everybody says the same thing to you

It's just a matter how you solve them

And knowing how to change the things you've been through" - _Hell Song_ , Sum41

 

 

Hey there,

 

I was interested to read TCODDS's comment about life being too short, because I came at meds from the exact opposite perspective. One of the deciding factors for me in pursuing medicine was thinking, essentially: "life is too short not to make the most of it. I don't want to be 80 years old, looking back on my life and going 'shoulda, coulda, woulda...'"

 

It's a hard decision to make, but like Mimi said, you might want to reconsider working full-time. It would undoubtably be a huge financial hit to only work part-time or not at all, but if you "REALLY want to try and make this happen" then your primary focus should be on jumping through all the hoops that you need to jump through to get to where you want to be. Is there any way you can get some sort of locum to run your practice for you at least part of the time? If you can do that, and maybe leverage the equity you've built up in your practice, can you at least pay your bills while attending school full-time?

 

My advice is influenced by my own experience. I essentially put my life on hold for two years, didn't work and went to school full-time in order to make myself competitve for meds, and started meds 1 at the ripe old age of 32. It worked out for me, but (I think) I was psychologically prepared for the huge financial hit if things never worked out. I was prepared to spend a few years digging myself out of a financial hole in order to get to the point where med schools were interviewing and rejecting me, rather than being in a position where I was screening myself from applying because I didn't stand a chance (whew! run-on sentence!)

 

Changing topics...You say you're done 20/30 courses. So you're doing a general degree? You might want to think about doing an honours degree for a couple of reasons: 1) it will give you another year's worth of courses to pull up your GPA (and then do a victory lap on top of that?) and 2) UWO requires an honours degree to apply, and Western is one of the easier schools to get into if you're carrying around a bunch of bad-GPA-baggage. [full disclosure: I'm a UWO student] Off the top of my head, other schools that are friendly toward reborn premeds include: Dal, UBC (the "10-year" rule mentioned above), UMan (if you kill the MCAT), Queens, Ottawa (if your recent GPA is really high). Of course, all of this assumes that you do really well in your courses, which gets back to my previous point about making "jumping through hoops" your first priority. Most of those schools also require full-time study, although the definition of "full-time" varies between schools.

 

You don't have an easy task in front of you, and there's nothing wrong with sitting down, looking at the costs, benefits and your chances of getting in and saying "Hey, this probably isn't for me." On the other hand if you're going to do it, give it your absolute best shot so that you're not second-guessing yourself in the future.

 

Hope this helps. Good luck!

 

pb

 

 

 

 

 

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[Guest siobhansiobhan]

UMan is only good if you kill the MCAT *AND* you meet manitoba residency requirements. they set a gpa cut-off for out-of-provinces. no special consideration for out-of-provinces. That may change, but it was like that this year.

Siobhan

[Guest ploughboy]

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I don't think it was like that last year, but I stopped paying attention once I got in...

 

I stand corrected.

 

pb

 

 

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[Guest alicrmt]

Well, first of all, thank you to everyone who has offered advice on my situation. It has certainly been great to read so many different opinions on the matter.

 

I was glad to read the responses from kirsteen and ploughboy, because I must admit I was feeling pretty deflated after having read TCODDS's reply yesterday morning. (and DDS, I do appreciate your honesty and was not offended at all)

 

Anyway, fwiw, my personal life looks like this: I am 31, F married (common law) with 2 stepkids (alternate weekends). My family knows about my desire to pursue meds and is very supportive. As for us, we are not planning to have children of our own, so it's a non-issue.

 

My SO has a great job which means 2 things - 1.technically I guess we'd survive if I closed my business (unfortunately it's not possible to get a locum since i work in a multi-disciplinary clinic)

 

2. I had been leaning toward Mac and UofT since moving is not an option for him, due to job and kids. Doesn't mean I CAN'T do it myself I suppose, but I don't know whether that would be something I'd be willing to do.

 

Anyway, I guess the main reason I hesitate on closing my practice is because if I DON'T make the meds thing happen, I am left where I started with my business over 4 years ago and it took a lot of time and effort to build my practice to what it is today.

 

Regardless, I certainly have a lot to think about. Sorry for the long-winded response, but thanks again for all the advice.

[Guest marbledust]

Alicrmt:

Welcome to the board

 

Please don't let certain people who post here get you down--some (thankfully a very few) crave attention and/or enjoy trying to raise trouble and provoke peope. As you can see from the responses you recieved, there are many people who are non-traditional or mature students. Some have already made it into medicine, others are in the process of applying, and others are like you and trying to decide which way to go. That was one reason the "Non-Tradtional Applicants" forum was set up---there are so many of us!

 

Like you, I became interested in medicine later than the average applicant. I left a well paying career that I was very happy with to pursue my dream. The reality is that I took a big financial hit and I don't even want to think about how long it will take me to "make back" lost earning potential. The truth is I may never be able to, even when I begin to practice medicine. Depending on how the residency match goes this year, I may very well be closer to 40 than 30 when I am finished. So I know some of what you are going through and the choices you must be struggling with.

 

My partner, who has now finished his residency training, also came into medicine later than the norm. We plan to start a family while I am doing my residency. We have several friends in medicine who have similar stories. Several of them have children--either born before they applied or while they were in medical school or residency. It's a challenge for sure, but very doable.

 

You will run into people who just don't understand or criticize the decision to study medicine later in life (how ridiculous is it that 30 is considered "old"?) Even within my own class there are people who just don't "get" that you can combine a satisfying family life, including starting or raising a family, while undergoing training. Some of the best docs I know, including a few surgeons, came into medicine after having other careers or taking time off for their families. If it is something you think you want, then by all means go for it!

 

Good luck

[Guest BeEasyy]

Thechosenone, How old r u, if I may ask?