HoldingontoaDream Posted June 6, 2009 Report Share Posted June 6, 2009 Hey everyone. I'm new here, although I've been following this wonderful site for a while now. I searched around a bit and although a lot of stuff has been said that was useful, I am still in need of some more advice unique to my situation. so I thought I'd start a new thread for some advice...I'm sorry if it's a bit long... basically, i just finished my 5th year of undergrad in Honours Health & Society (it's a Social science degree). i started off my undergrad career not as great as i wanted it to be. first two years were 3.2 and 3.5 (they were full course load). after that, things really went downhill. mother having to quit work because of disability and so me having to take some time off school to work full time and take care of the house, severe family issues ie: escaping a forced marriage, anxiety attacks, you name it....pretty brutal. anyway my grades seriousllly suffered. but luckily, i was able to petition a few of those courses and so i'll find out my new grades soon enough. i took everything part-time because of the way things were at home, i couldn't possibly do a full courseload at the time. which is why it's taken me 5 years to finish everything up. my guess is that my final cGPA will be around 3.4-3.6 with this year included. anyway, i had given up on my dream to become a doctor a long time ago. my family was against it so i just gave up. but for the past little while, that passion I once had for medicine has been haunting me....and i'm considering pursuing it again. it's what i always wanted to do and i think i may regret it for life if I didn't at least try....but realistically, i know i don't have much of a shot of getting into Ontario schools with that gpa, ECs are fine though. so now to finally cut to the chase, I am not sure if i should do ONE more year of undergrad, because i wanted to write my honours thesis and pick up minors in women's studies and political science since im pretty close to getting them anyway, and take a stats course in the event that i may apply to do a masters in the future should i not get into medical school (the program requires it), or should I just start a second undergrad degree and forget the 6th year (since i can graduate this year anyway)... would medical schools look badly on taking 6 years to complete an undegrad, even with compelling reasons? it's bad enough that i took 5 years...basically i was thinking that perhaps i can try to aim for a 3.8/3.9 next year and apply to med school right after that.....or just do a second undergrad. i haven't taken any pre-reqs yet so the schools i'd be applying to right after the 6th year would be limited anyway....if I do the second undergrad, i was hoping to do something strictly in the sciences since my first degree is in the arts. so i'm really confused now and can't make up my mind as to where i should go from here......any advice? p.s. thanks for reading this essay-post in advance. and im happy to join the board! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mildoc1 Posted June 6, 2009 Report Share Posted June 6, 2009 I honestly have no idea how ontario medical schools would look upon your situation, but your GPA would be a definite liability for someone with a FT course load. If you didn't make the initial GPA cut off your application probably wouldn't be looked at closely enough to determine if there were other factors that would impact your GPA. Those are my thoughts anyway. If I were you I would persue your 6th year and do an Honours. At this point what do you have to lose? By choosing this route you leave the door open for doing a Masters and I think you would be employable sooner then if you were to start another 4 year science degree. If medicine is your dream, keep working towards it-don't let naysayers in your family (or on an anonymous premed site) get to you. I hope your personal situation is going better- all the best. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HoldingontoaDream Posted June 6, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 6, 2009 I honestly have no idea how ontario medical schools would look upon your situation, but your GPA would be a definite liability for someone with a FT course load. If you didn't make the initial GPA cut off your application probably wouldn't be looked at closely enough to determine if there were other factors that would impact your GPA. Those are my thoughts anyway. If I were you I would persue your 6th year and do an Honours. At this point what do you have to lose? By choosing this route you leave the door open for doing a Masters and I think you would be employable sooner then if you were to start another 4 year science degree. If medicine is your dream, keep working towards it-don't let naysayers in your family (or on an anonymous premed site) get to you. I hope your personal situation is going better- all the best. Hey, thanks so much for your advice! I should just clear up that I would still get my Honours if I graduated this year. The only reason i was thinking of doing a 6th year was to a) write the honours thesis (it's a subject im really passionate about) and improve my cGPA and pick up the two minor degrees as a bonus. and then apply right after it instead of going for that second science degree.....i'm just worried that doing a 6th year might not be looked upon so well, that's where im stuck....but you're right, i guess i don't have much to lose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
future_doc Posted June 6, 2009 Report Share Posted June 6, 2009 Hey, thanks so much for your advice! I should just clear up that I would still get my Honours if I graduated this year. The only reason i was thinking of doing a 6th year was to a) write the honours thesis (it's a subject im really passionate about) and improve my cGPA and pick up the two minor degrees as a bonus. and then apply right after it instead of going for that second science degree.....i'm just worried that doing a 6th year might not be looked upon so well, that's where im stuck....but you're right, i guess i don't have much to lose. However, why not contact one of the med schools by email or phone directly an admissions officer and explaining concisely your situation (perhaps in a generic way)...you really want to know if taking 6 years (discussing years where there is no full course load if this is the fact) and see what they say. Based upon what I saw in these threads, I recently sent a lengthy email to one med school with my situation (I did not know if I had a prayer to be considered as an applicant based upon the information on their website) and within 48 hours, I got back an email saying based upon the information provided, I would be considered as a candidate (so, when I apply, I will send them a copy of our email exchange). You are at a critical juncture, your decision is important, et some moreinput and then do whatever appears best in your situation. Good luck in this marathon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmorelan Posted June 6, 2009 Report Share Posted June 6, 2009 Wow, I hope you came out of all that alright. It sounds like you have gone through a world of pain! For most schools the GPA is used is a rather automaded way, so at many schools, and in particular the schools that you are more likely to get into the length of time it took you will not be particularly important. That is good thing thing for you. There are things like full time status and prereq but those are managable in your case as well with what you are proposing. It is tricky going over all the options in one post, so please ask more questions/PM me etc for more clarity. I am sure we can figure out some options for you I am not sure what province you are in (which is important for out of province vs. in province acceptance) but for Ontario at least you would need two years above the particular schools GPA cut offs to be considered. Those would be western (two years over 3.75) and queens (last two years over the cut off). The next "easiest" school to reach the cut off is Ottawa which considers your last three years in their wGPA system (although just hitting those cut offs does not guarantee an interview). This suggests you need to do at least two more years of UG, BUT if you start a new degree western will make you finish it before you can apply. So I would suggest that doing just one more of undergrad won't help that much (I believe). Now if you did those two years and got past the GPA hurtles (your 3.8-3.9 you mentioned would be excellent for that) then you would be competitive at western and queens! If you are willing and able to do an entirely new UG degree that will let you apply with in a sense "clean slates" at western, queens, ottawa, and nosm. There is a chance for Toronto, and Mac as well but we would need to look at things in detail when the time comes If you were able/willing to go to another province then the IP province status you would obtain would actually be very useful. There are few other options OP that would involve you doing a masters there, which may also work for you that I can go over if you like. Thats all I can think of now, but I will add some more later if I can. Now is definitely the time for very careful planning and info seeking, including contacting the school best of luck! Hey everyone. I'm new here, although I've been following this wonderful site for a while now. I searched around a bit and although a lot of stuff has been said that was useful, I am still in need of some more advice unique to my situation. so I thought I'd start a new thread for some advice...I'm sorry if it's a bit long... basically, i just finished my 5th year of undergrad in Honours Health & Society (it's a Social science degree). i started off my undergrad career not as great as i wanted it to be. first two years were 3.2 and 3.5 (they were full course load). after that, things really went downhill. mother having to quit work because of disability and so me having to take some time off school to work full time and take care of the house, severe family issues ie: escaping a forced marriage, anxiety attacks, you name it....pretty brutal. anyway my grades seriousllly suffered. but luckily, i was able to petition a few of those courses and so i'll find out my new grades soon enough. i took everything part-time because of the way things were at home, i couldn't possibly do a full courseload at the time. which is why it's taken me 5 years to finish everything up. my guess is that my final cGPA will be around 3.4-3.6 with this year included. anyway, i had given up on my dream to become a doctor a long time ago. my family was against it so i just gave up. but for the past little while, that passion I once had for medicine has been haunting me....and i'm considering pursuing it again. it's what i always wanted to do and i think i may regret it for life if I didn't at least try....but realistically, i know i don't have much of a shot of getting into Ontario schools with that gpa, ECs are fine though. so now to finally cut to the chase, I am not sure if i should do ONE more year of undergrad, because i wanted to write my honours thesis and pick up minors in women's studies and political science since im pretty close to getting them anyway, and take a stats course in the event that i may apply to do a masters in the future should i not get into medical school (the program requires it), or should I just start a second undergrad degree and forget the 6th year (since i can graduate this year anyway)... would medical schools look badly on taking 6 years to complete an undegrad, even with compelling reasons? it's bad enough that i took 5 years...basically i was thinking that perhaps i can try to aim for a 3.8/3.9 next year and apply to med school right after that.....or just do a second undergrad. i haven't taken any pre-reqs yet so the schools i'd be applying to right after the 6th year would be limited anyway....if I do the second undergrad, i was hoping to do something strictly in the sciences since my first degree is in the arts. so i'm really confused now and can't make up my mind as to where i should go from here......any advice? p.s. thanks for reading this essay-post in advance. and im happy to join the board! 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HoldingontoaDream Posted June 6, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 6, 2009 Wow, I hope you came out of all that alright. It sounds like you have gone through a world of pain! For most schools the GPA is used is a rather automaded way, so at many schools, and in particular the schools that you are more likely to get into the length of time it took you will not be particularly important. That is good thing thing for you. There are things like full time status and prereq but those are managable in your case as well with what you are proposing. It is tricky going over all the options in one post, so please ask more questions/PM me etc for more clarity. I am sure we can figure out some options for you I am not sure what province you are in (which is important for out of province vs. in province acceptance) but for Ontario at least you would need two years above the particular schools GPA cut offs to be considered. Those would be western (two years over 3.75) and queens (last two years over the cut off). The next "easiest" school to reach the cut off is Ottawa which considers your last three years in their wGPA system (although just hitting those cut offs does not guarantee an interview). This suggests you need to do at least two more years of UG, BUT if you start a new degree western will make you finish it before you can apply. So I would suggest that doing just one more of undergrad won't help that much (I believe). Now if you did those two years and got past the GPA hurtles (your 3.8-3.9 you mentioned would be excellent for that) then you would be competitive at western and queens! If you are willing and able to do an entirely new UG degree that will let you apply with in a sense "clean slates" at western, queens, ottawa, and nosm. There is a chance for Toronto, and Mac as well but we would need to look at things in detail when the time comes If you were able/willing to go to another province then the IP province status you would obtain would actually be very useful. There are few other options OP that would involve you doing a masters there, which may also work for you that I can go over if you like. Thats all I can think of now, but I will add some more later if I can. Now is definitely the time for very careful planning and info seeking, including contacting the school best of luck! Thanks so much for all your advice, guys! I am an Ontario student so right now, i'm looking into Ontario schools only. going OP right now just wouldn't be possible, so I'll have to work with the options I have for doing more school here. I'll start off contacting the schools first and see where they stand on a 6th year and how they'd calculate my cGPA etc. and work out the options from there. rmorelan, thanks so much for offering your assistance! i'll definitely take up the offer and ask more questions after making some phonecalls. it's been a long, difficult road and i don't exactly see the light yet...but coming this far and seeing the success stories on this board alone will hopefully help me to keep going. good luck to all of us. =) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sticky1 Posted June 6, 2009 Report Share Posted June 6, 2009 @HoldingontoaDream I am in a exactly the same situation as you and I'm not sure what I should do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmorelan Posted June 6, 2009 Report Share Posted June 6, 2009 Thanks so much for all your advice, guys! I am an Ontario student so right now, i'm looking into Ontario schools only. going OP right now just wouldn't be possible, so I'll have to work with the options I have for doing more school here. I'll start off contacting the schools first and see where they stand on a 6th year and how they'd calculate my cGPA etc. and work out the options from there. rmorelan, thanks so much for offering your assistance! i'll definitely take up the offer and ask more questions after making some phonecalls. it's been a long, difficult road and i don't exactly see the light yet...but coming this far and seeing the success stories on this board alone will hopefully help me to keep going. good luck to all of us. =) Great! The forum will still be here when/if you have questions Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NewfieMike Posted June 6, 2009 Report Share Posted June 6, 2009 escaping a forced marriage jeeze, what a nightmare! Where are you from? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ToHellInAHandbasket Posted June 7, 2009 Report Share Posted June 7, 2009 First of all, don't give up! You are here because you want to be a doctor. Remember that. Let that be your driving force. You owe it to yourself to give it a shot. There are many different paths to medicine, what matters is that you get there in the end and you can look back (and forward) with pride. You will be doing what you want to do. I can relate to experiencing extreme hardship while in undergrad and trust me, it will get better. PM me if you'd like to chat. You WILL figure out what to do next, and you WILL feel in control again. You have gotten some excellent advice here from everyone else, so I have little to add but support. I will agree however, that you should contact the schools that you wish to apply to directly and tell them your situation. You may be able to apply as a 'special applicant' at some schools. In some cases, they will accept your GPA from non-full-time years, provided you have a legit reason. You likely would have to have a stellar MCAT, etc. though to prove that you can handle meds. Again, this is just my own musings, take them with a grain of salt. They may refer you to an advisor, and you can decide what you need to do to make yourself competitive. Your main issues are your GPA and non-full-time studies. You may be better off starting fresh with another degree program, or you could try going the Master's route. Admittedly, I'm not qualified to say what you should do, this is just my opinion. Start emailing admissions offices. Best of luck and let us know! P.S. I really liked rmorelan's advice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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