<p>Hypothetically, someone finishes college at a decent college with good grades (gpa >3.5, possibly 3.7 or so), with a respectable major, and goes into a different career and 3-4 years down the road they decide they want to pursue medicine and try to get into Med school. What are their options?</p>
<p>I realize this is a general question, but I'm just trying to understand the system a bit more.</p>
<p>Unless they took the correct classes as an undergrad, they’ll usually have to go take post-baccalaureate courses (often via a program) and take the MCAT. Then they apply and that’s that.</p>
<p>Those are pretty much the main steps, but what would you do in order to help the situation? For example, should you take 2 years volunteering and shadowing, etc?</p>
<p>Most of the main recommendations remain intact. If you can do research, shadowing, volunteer work, etc., it’s a good idea.</p>
<p>At what type of disadvantage would you say someone in that situation would be in? Any at all? (in comparison to someone who picked to pursue medicine from the first year of college)</p>
<p>Probably a mild advantage provided that he can talk about his career change clearly and coherently. Grades in the post-bacc will have to be strong; they’re assumed to be pretty easy (even if this is false). Probably harder to get said experiences without benefit of a campus network, but once gotten, they’re about equivalent. Not sure how everything plays out in the end.</p>
<p>We’ve got a physician on here who was a non-trad himself. Maybe he’ll make an appearance.</p>
<p>Probably depends a little bit on the school. There are quite a few people in my class who were in the situation you described. I don’t know how likely that is to be the case at schools like those BDM and Shades attend, they’ll have to tell you.</p>
<p>I think one thing that everyone should realize is that med schools are admitting those that they think will be the most likely to become successful doctors - not necessarily those who are the best students or who have shown the most interest. Certainly those are variables, but the point is that they’re not the end-all, be-all of the discussion of who gets in (or at least I hope they aren’t). With this in mind, I think it’s easy to see that someone who chooses medicine late isn’t necessarily going to be appraised in the exact same way as someone (like myself) who’s known they’ve wanted to be a doctor since they were 3 years old.</p>
<p>I have one such classmate in a class of 122. And maybe not even him, I’m not exactly sure what his story is. He’s the only one old enough for the 3-4 year gap described, though.</p>
<p>That’s kind of what I suspected…I’m still a little surprised, but I thought that might be the case.</p>
<p>There are probably 15 out of my class of 125 that fit the time line or beyond, but probably only about 5 that I for sure know that “found medicine late”.</p>
<p>The path that each non-traditional student takes is different. The only constant is that the path is not usually direct or time efficient. BDM’s and BRM’s advice is on the money: if you think you might want to go to medical school, take the required courses now or you’ll need to take them later at some more awkward time. Because most non-trad students take fewer overall science courses, it is very helpful if your BCMP (sp?) GPA is close to 4.0.</p>
<p>In my class at UCSF, perhaps 5-10% of students arrived via some non-trad pathway. Some were former nurses, some had worked in finance, but all had excelled in their non-traditional activities.</p>