The long road to med school

[medisforme]

so i am pretty sure, no one here has heard a story such as mine on their road to med school, but i just want to put it out here to see how competitive i might be for a spot. (this forum is awesome btw)

1) high school grades sucked (never thought of becoming a physician, didn't even know if i could get entry to university), a week after high school, i moved to south america and volunteered for a year in the state psychiatric hosptal (an absolutley "insane" experience)

 

2) Came back a changed person, wanting to work with people, got into a BA stream at university - did it one year full time (volunteered as a youth support worker, and worked in supportive care at the time as well)

 

3) Changed my mind and decided i wanted to pursue nursing (which meant spending a year retaking all high school sciences)

 

4)got into nursing school. Had way too much fun while i was there (partied non-stop, and also worked part time as a mental health worker. i literally never slept). though by some miracle I graduated (BScN) with a 3.73 gpa (on 4.33 scale)

 

5) spent a year working full time in an acute surgical/thoracic unit where the work was extremely intense but very rewarding, and working also part time in community mental health, concentrating on dual diagnosis clients. For a myriad of reasons (which i won't get into here) i realized that i wanted to become a physician.

 

6) had 0 pre-reqs, so i had to go back to uni for two years (59 credits, i already know i should have taken 60 credits so don't bring this up) to take all sciences, english etc... (while working part time in nursing)

 

7) so i am now (maybe) at the end of this insanely long road, doing all my prereqs has brought my gpa up to 3.8ish (4.33 scale, probably 3.7ish on 4.0)

 

WHAT ARE MY CHANCES?

-having not planned on going to med school my EC's are not strong, absolutely no research. (volunteer year in paraguay, backpacking europe, backpacking peru, bolivia, ecuador, youth support worker, political discussion club all of which was over 5 years ago) - most of my free time is spent earning money to pay off my mortgage and help raise my girlfriends son (and study for MCAT in june)

 

thanx in advance for your replies, this forum is a very supportive environment.

[AdamP]

That is a sweet story. I feel like EC's are a way of gaining some experience in something outside of academics. Traditional med students get most of this experience through clubs at school which are generally easier to document and fill in to little boxes on applications.

 

That being said they can also make for somewhat bland applicants like me. You have amazing health care experience plus it seems like a bunch of really cool other experiences (i've always wanted to go to Boliva). So i wouldn't worry. I think your GPA is decent coming from nursing, I've heard the marks are somewhat lower in that program.

 

Anyways, I think you have a good shot, but then again I've said that to basically every thread like this. That being said you miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

 

Good Luck in June.

[chemgirl]

I don't think you need to worry about EC's... what you have done with your life so far is fascinating, and health care has been a major part of everything you have done. You have already demonstrated your interest and commitment to health care, and your travel experiences have no doubt made you a well-rounded person. To top that all off, you were travelling with a purpose, to volunteer, and I think med school adcoms look favorably on that, just judging from the EC's of my classmates. Don't worry about a lack of research experience.

[ghewson]

I think you're pretty golden, considering all the life experiences you have plus marks that will make most cut-offs in Canada. Helping raise a child is a really important example of maturity so that is totally valid as an extra-curricular/life experience. Hopefully you're MCAT marks will be good enough to meet most cut-offs because it is frustrating to miss an interview because of one letter difference in the writing sample, for example. This process is random a lot of the time, but it only takes one acceptance. Good luck!

[medisforme]

thanx for all the replies you guys,

man, until a few months ago, i was a little naive to the entry stats (grades) of med school matriculants, and did a double take when i saw them (UofS is disgusting - 90% cut off OOP!). I now realize why so many other pre-med students in my classes (but no one here of course) act like they have a stick up their ass in terms of being obsessed with grades. Though from what i have researched you could have 3 PhD's, and discover the cure for AIDS but if you get a C in organic chem you are screwed (so i now realize the extreme importance of grades).

[AndyDude]

Though from what i have researched you could have 3 PhD's, and discover the cure for AIDS but if you get a C in organic chem you are screwed (so i now realize the extreme importance of grades).

 

lol, not entirely. but you are close.

 

good luck!

[doc2B]

I think it definitely depends on the school and whether or not you are OOP or IP. Did you mention where in Canada you are from? I was just accepted to Dalhousie in Halifax and my undergrad marks are no where near yours. A lot of schools just look at your last 2 years and your earlier years don't matter that much. I am an IP student for Dal, so that definitely made it easier, otherwise I wouldn't have met the cut-offs.

 

My overall GPA for undergrad: a 5 yr double-major in Computer Science and Biology is under 3.0, I don't know the exact number. 2.8 maybe. That's out of 4.3

 

My last 2 or more like 2.5 years of undergrad are probably 3.4ish out of 4.3. I had a really bad semester at the beginning of 3rd year and for reasons I won't try to explain or justify I got 3 D's an F and a B-. Up until that point I was mostly doing Biology the B- was in a pretty difficult CS course, that's when I picked up CS as a second major and then I only did a couple more Bio courses just to keep that as one of majors.

 

Anyway, I think what really helped me for Dal was grad school. My marks in a mostly course based program would work out to be 4.something out of 4.3 if we had GPAs in grad school at Dal. The adcom ended up combining my grad marks with my last 2 years of undergrad marks in some way which gave me a 3.7/4.0 for their purposes. Because Dal focuses a lot on ECs and well-rounded applicants my GPA combined with my newest MCAT of 31P was enough academically for acceptance.

 

I'm sure this doesn't make those of you who worked super hard to get that 4.0 GPA very happy, but to those of you who haven't gotten such marks it's still possible to get into medical school. It just depends on which schools you apply to and your residency status. I knew I had pretty much no chance of getting accepted anywhere that I was considered OOP. Dal was pretty much my only hope, but its okay because it paid off in the end for me and I'm really excited to start school in the fall.

 

Good Luck!