hello everyone.
I’m having an existential crisis. I’m in my 3rd year of undergraduate college. I am majoring in secondary education in English. And now I’ve decided to go to medical school but the problem is, I never took the pre reqs that are “recommended” for medical schools. like bio or chem or any of those. and i really dont want to spend another year in college doing the pre reqs.
some people have said that pre reqs arent necessary. like i know for a fact i can study for the mcat on my own. that’s definitely not a problem. but a friend of mine said med schools like NYU don’t look at applications that don’t fullfill the pre req requirements even though NYU says pre reqs are recommended. what are my chances of getting into nyu without doing the pre reqs? and how do i go about doing everything?? im so confused :’(
thank you so much to anyone and everyone who replies to this miserable post.
Oh boy, where to start? I have never heard that medical schools are okay with an applicant missing any prerequisites. Missing English probably won’t harm your performance in med school, but inorganic and organic chemistry? Physics, calculus? Uh…without that foundation, you’d be lost in med school. Plus, those courses are the basis of the MCAT. If you are a super genius and can teach yourself those subjects in your own during the next year and take the MCAT, then go for it. But I would check with the pre-med advisor at your college to ensure that medical schools would be okay without any of the science prerequisites.
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Look into “post-baccalaureat” programs. Not uncommon, not looked down on.
Of course, you need the pre-reqs. It’s medical school, not some random first-aid certificate. If you can say you want med school, have you looked into the application expectations? (It doesn’t seem you have.)
ah okay. thank you for explaining. i guess i will have to take the pre reqs. might do a post baccalaureate program. um…another question, i would have to take all pre reqs right? on nyu’s website they said it’s recommended to take pre reqs in statistics and genetics. what’s your take on that?
Look up “pre-req’s” in the dictionary. These are not suggestions. These are the requirements. Even if you could manage to do well on the MCAT’s without the science classes- which is highly doubtful- you would be lost on day three of med school without the same preparation as your classmates.
Go meet with the premed advisor at your college to figure out how long it would take you to catch up. My guess is you’re looking at longer than a year-- but if you want to spend your adulthood as a physician, a year is nothing. And if you can’t handle the idea of an extra year in college- how does four years of med school, and then umpteen years of training sound, even before you can actually work independently as a physician?
I would talk to an adviser where you are going to school. There are probably pre-med advisers that will know your options.
Here’s a good post-bacc program.
My take on recommended coursework is that medical school is extremely competitive in terms of admissions and that most applicants will have completed all of the recommended as well as the required coursework. IMO your application will be at a disadvantage if you don’t have the recommended courses. Note that NYU medical school will be an extremely difficult admit as it has become tuition free.
I suggest you make an appointment with the pre-med (or whatever it is called where you are) advisor at your college to get a clear understanding of exactly what medical schools are looking for not only in terms of coursework but also in terms of shadowing expereince etc.
I agree with everything that has been said above. Medical school admission is insanely competitive. You are going to need to take all of the prerequisites. Your major does not matter, but taking the prereq’s does matter. You are also going to need to get very high grades in these classes. Medical school is also expensive.
One thing that I did not see mentioned above: You also need experience volunteering or otherwise working in a medical situation. For example, I have talked to premed students who spent many hours volunteering in hospitals.
I also agree that life is not a race. If you are two years behind, then you will just graduate from medical school two years older than the youngest graduate – which would still be much younger than the oldest graduate. I only see two issues with being two years behind: (i) You have to be willing to spend the time and effort that it will take to become a doctor; (ii) You have to be able to afford the education (probably with loans – but at least being a doctor pays well enough to pay off some amount of loans).
Do what everyone above says. When I was in clinical psychology grad school, one of my peers was doing research on patients undergoing orthopedic surgery. After observing several surgeries, he realized he wanted to be an orthopedic surgeon (he was probably 24, 25 years old.) He did a post-bacc program, took the MCAT, applied and was accepted to medical school and is now an orthopedic surgeon. These kinds of successes do happen.
It’s good that you asked here, with so many experienced people giving you great advice.
First of all, unless your current GPA is close to 4.0, don’t think of NYU med school at all, because their admitted students have 3.9+ sGPA (ie, science GPA in tough weeder Bio, Chem, Organic Chem, Biochem, not the easy A’s humanity courses) and close to 99 percentile MCAT (520+)… and the competition is getting tougher because of the free tuition.
You should take at least some pre-req science courses at your current college (Bio, Gen Chem) to see how your science capability is. Why rush to go post-bacc while you’re still in undergrad?
If your current college has a pre-health office, go talk to them. You are seriously mis-informed about pre-med and the fierce competition - some people said on CC applying to med school is like apply to college again BUT this time all of them are Ivy-level, so ask yourself, are you at that level?
thank you to everyone who replied to me! i now have a MUCH better understanding of what i am supposed to do. I will work hard to ensure i can get into medical school. Thank you again for being so kind. <3