unexpected interest in meds

[LawDude]

Hey folks,

 

I cannot believe I am posting on this forum. I dropped sciences after a disastrous grade 11 chem (62%) and never even considered being a physician - the sight of blood always made me cringe. Now I'm considering going that route, although to be honest I'm not sure if it's an interest in being a doc or a personal desire for a more "prestigious" profession (yes, I will figure this out and will not apply if it's the latter).

 

I did extremely well in high school taking business and history courses. As a result I was accepted into a top business school. These courses tend to grade very difficult (man, I wish I did something like York arts) and my average wasn't too spectacular (79.5%, and yes I know that rigour of program makes no diff for med admissions). I did well enough in my GPA and LSAT to get into law school and am currently completing my third year. Law has been a grind from the get-go. The people I go to school with don't impress me from a personality standpoint (although I know many people who went into meds who have similar egos) and I'm finding it difficult to find a field that interests me. Basically I would like to help people and make a difference in the world, and although this is very possible in law, I'm not sure that it will suit me in the long run.

 

Any opinions on my situation? My GPA likely isn't good enough to get many interviews, and I know I will need to get my sciences and write the MCAT, which will not be an easy task.

 

Thanks for the help. You all seem really cool.

[LawDude]

I know most med schools don't give you an advantage for the law degree. My concern is that my law degree will significantly lower my GPA. Law schools are funny in that they grade on a very strict (and formalized) B-curve. This is quite different than certain schools being harder than others as it is very clear in student handbooks that only a certain percentage of a class (usually from 15-20%) can get As. The bulk of the class gets B+ and B, and a similar percentage that got As will get Cs (the prof has no choice, except in small classes, they MUST give Cs). This is obviously hard for some to take as most law students have pretty good GPAs.

 

McMaster seems to recognize this grading pattern and actually states that they will look at law grades differently (although they don't offer any further explanation). Other schools seem to just add the grades to your total GPA, which doesn't seem too fair.

 

As for sciences, it seems like your background is more extensive than mine. The only thing I remember from chem is a poster I did about Krypton. Everything came easy in HS and I did little to no work, so my low grade may have been more because I didn't want to put the work in than an inability to actually grasp the course. My math marks were always superb.

 

Wouldn't it be easier if grad programs only looked at OAC grades?

[cary_fan]

Ahhh, the good 'ol days of OAC!

[ploughboy]

Hey,

 

A friend and classmate of mine did law before meds and yes, that curve is brutal.

 

Good for you for considering medicine. It's going to be a tough road so doing a bit of reading, research and thinking right now will save you a lot of potential headaches and heartaches in the future.

 

Unfortunately a lot of the admissions process is a numbers game, and if you don't have the GPA and MCAT scores you're out of the game before it even starts. My advice is to look at the websites of the various Canadian schools and see what they want in terms of GPA etc. Then figure out how to get there. Some schools look at every course you've ever taken, others will look at only two years of undergrad and some are in the middle.

 

I had to do a couple of years of another undergrad degree before getting into meds, so it is possible to rehabilitae a less-than-stellar GPA. It's tough though, so I'd suggest doing a real good gut-check before you even start down that road, just to convince yourself that you are putting your life into this upheaval for the right reasons. If you're heart's not truly in it, it's going to be that much harder to get in.

 

Pretty nonspecific advice, but I hope that helps...

 

pb

 

 

Hey folks,

 

I cannot believe I am posting on this forum. I dropped sciences after a disastrous grade 11 chem (62%) and never even considered being a physician - the sight of blood always made me cringe. Now I'm considering going that route, although to be honest I'm not sure if it's an interest in being a doc or a personal desire for a more "prestigious" profession (yes, I will figure this out and will not apply if it's the latter).

 

I did extremely well in high school taking business and history courses. As a result I was accepted into a top business school. These courses tend to grade very difficult (man, I wish I did something like York arts) and my average wasn't too spectacular (79.5%, and yes I know that rigour of program makes no diff for med admissions). I did well enough in my GPA and LSAT to get into law school and am currently completing my third year. Law has been a grind from the get-go. The people I go to school with don't impress me from a personality standpoint (although I know many people who went into meds who have similar egos) and I'm finding it difficult to find a field that interests me. Basically I would like to help people and make a difference in the world, and although this is very possible in law, I'm not sure that it will suit me in the long run.

 

Any opinions on my situation? My GPA likely isn't good enough to get many interviews, and I know I will need to get my sciences and write the MCAT, which will not be an easy task.

 

Thanks for the help. You all seem really cool.

[muchdutch]

3.14? That's encouraging for us less-than-perfect older apps. So did you get into Dal or UBC? And did they take into account your masters program grades as well, or was that just something they looked at to boost your gpa up a bit?

[LawDude]

Thanks for all of the great responses. This whole discussion seems sort of nuts to me, but hey, what's the harm in exploring possibilities.

 

A few questions:

 

1) I know Mac does not require any science courses or the MCAT. I also know they tend to prefer high GPAs and receive an enormous amount of applications. Do you think throwing an app their way would just be a waste of a hundred bucks and a few hours of my time?

 

2) We've all heard the saying "if you can use a fork, you can go to York". Is there any truth to this? While I'm sure I could get great grades if I went full-time, doing so would cause me to lose out on two years of a new lawyers salary. Do you think I could handle a full courseload at York or Atkinson while working full-time?

 

3) Will I need OAC bio and chem to take university-level science courses? Anyone have some background on how to get these classes? The idea of spending my summer in class with 17 year-olds calling a teacher Mrs. whatever does not sound overly appealing.

[Jochi1543]

 

1) I know Mac does not require any science courses or the MCAT. I also know they tend to prefer high GPAs and receive an enormous amount of applications. Do you think throwing an app their way would just be a waste of a hundred bucks and a few hours of my time?

I believe they are going to require VR section of the MCAT now (and I don't believe you can write just one section, so it means you have to write the whole test, they just won't look at the science scores). Check in the McMaster forum, there's a thread about it.

[Curious P]

Do you think I could handle a full courseload at York or Atkinson while working full-time?

 

I don't know specifically about York, but if you're willing to put in the hours, it is definitely possible. As an entry level engineer, I was working and going to school full-time (taking only bio & chem prereq courses). Don't forget about distance ed programs (Waterloo has a fairly extensive one). Be careful with which firm you article with, I have friends that put in 70+ hrs/wk, while others who never went above 45. If you're going to be in school full-time, you'll want a 45 hr work week!

 

Good luck!

[LawDude]

What's this about distance ed? Could I do a full complement of correspondence courses somewhere like Athabasca?

[ploughboy]

What's this about distance ed? Could I do a full complement of correspondence courses somewhere like Athabasca?

Yes.

 

Do a search on this board for some posts by Elaine_I She did a combo of brick-and-mortar courses at Ryerson plus DE through Athabasca while working full-time as a paramedic in Toronto. She described the ins and outs of it in a couple of places

[Jazzie]

2) We've all heard the saying "if you can use a fork, you can go to York"

 

 

Makes me wonder if they give extra points to those who can use chopsticks and know which fork is the dessert fork.