Yes, agree. She could achieve that if she worked full time x approximately 6 mos in a patient care capacity. She’d have to research the PA programs as the hours required vary. I’ve seen some require as little as 500, others 1000 hours +. Obviously the more the better for your application. Many doctors’ offices provide on the job training to become an MA.
Agree 100%. She needs to find a full time job and support herself. This is not an unrealistic goal.
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Wikipedia tells me that there are 155 MD-granting universities in the US. She only applied to 27 of those. If she picks some of the other 128 schools I think it would be okay to apply again, but agree that working on her resume by adding relevant experience is key.
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IMO the first step is for the parent to stop supporting their child financially. This young adult needs a full time job where she can live with roommates and live within her means. It can be done.
The second step is that this young adult needs to realistically understand what it means to apply to medical school, and she needs to really want to do it. There is no easy path and reapplying now will likely result in the same outcome. She needs to put in the work and the time.
Like I said, she isn’t ready. I do not mean to sound harsh- that is not my intention.
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My D’s friends had a 53 year old woman in their class when they started med school. It will still be there later for your D, if she really wants it. In the meantime, she needs to get a job & support herself. If she really wants to apply again so soon, that’s fine - but don’t support her financially. She needs to figure things out for herself, but you would be holding her back by giving her money. It’s time for her to grow up a bit.
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My 21 year old pays rent and food in Boston (3 roommates) while in her full time dpt program by bartending 2 - 3 shifts a week (no classes on fridays this semester which is great, she works until & am Thursday nights, decided to do her clinical over winter break instead of having it on fridays). If only working PT the pay needs to be great.
I am confused by the term “proper” job. Your daughter teaches- that is a proper job. Maybe she can find full time work teaching? She also works in a lab- she can certainly find a lab position that pays. There is no need to work without compensation.
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One thing that I thought might be worth adding…
I mentioned above that one daughter is working in biotech. My other daughter is currently studying for a DVM. The required pre-vet classes that she took as far as I know were the same as the required premed classes. Many of her friends were premed (one graduated with their MD this past June). The experience that my daughter gained had a different class of patients – most of which in her case had four legs and didn’t talk much (most just say “moo” or “neigh”).
Her undergraduate GPA was not much different from your daughters (I think it might have been 3.56). However, she was very successful in her applications to DVM programs. Perhaps none of us really know why, but both she and I think that her success was largely based on her experiences and the related references. She had a LOT of very good experience in a variety of veterinary environments. This very extensive experience has been very helpful to her now that she is studying for a DVM.
This makes me think that experience in a medical environment is probably not just a check list item. It is an area where it is possible to be “just good enough” or where it is possible to really excel. With a “good enough” (3.48) GPA it might be necessary for your daughter to excel somewhere if she wants to get into an MD program.
This might be part of what I am trying to say. Determination and drive are important to get through medical school (and veterinary school also), and a student who is likely to do well in an MD program is also likely to show this determination and drive prior to applying. I would expect admissions to look for this.
However, there are many other paths that a person can take after graduating with a degree in biology. Getting a paying job and working for a couple of years is likely to be a very good way for a recent graduate to spend the time to figure out which of these paths makes sense for them.
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Have her read through this profile of U Rochester’s med school’s accepted students and google a few others (this school puts them out each year). Then if she still wants to be accepted, she should have ideas of how to become someone her future med school would write about. It shows the competition, esp since most med schools are looking for the same types of students. This one just puts it in print.
It’s been very helpful for several pre-med wannabies from my high school. It’s common for students to not fully understand the competition out there.
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One very important question—in your previous posts, you mention that your daughter didn’t have a green card and had applied to college as an international.
Has you daughter received her green card/ US citizenship? If not, your daughter is extremely, extremely unlikely to ever get a US med school acceptance. Very, very few internationals are admitted to US med schools. (Only 153 in total to all US med school combined during the 2022 cycle.)
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Depending on the daughter’s state residency, she’s not eligible to apply to all of those 128 other med schools. Many public (state) med schools have restrictions on accepting OOS students and only consider state residents or students with a strong affiliation/connection to the state. (Like graduating from high school in the state or having immediate family members living there.)
For example,TX requires that 90% of med school seats go to TX residents. East Carolina categorically will not consider any OOS applicants for admission.
Other medical school have specific mission goals they expect all applicants to meet–like a strong community service commitment with hundreds of hours working with the disadvantaged or those who are committed to working to meet a particular community’s need. HBCU med schools and Catholic med schools fall into this category.
So applying shotgun to all med schools is not a good strateg and will only lead to more rejections.
Plus every application requires completing a separate secondary application for each school. This usually means writing up to 10-12 unique essays for every secondary application. 128 schools x 6 (average number) essays = 768 unique and thoughtful essays that need to be completed within a 2-3 week period in August. That’s just about impossible to do and do a good job on.
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Agree with all that it is a waste of time and money to apply with her current résumé. Many, many people get rejected from medical schools and are admitted on the second or third time. Those that are successful are determined to improve their résumé by working somewhere they can obtain clinical hours, becoming an EMT and working in that job, etc. and honestly, getting into medical school is almost the easy part. She’ll have a minimum of seven more years of extremely hard work ahead of her. As an outsider looking in, it doesn’t seem like the drive and motivation are there to accomplish that. Physicians give up the majority of their 20s in pursuance of their first private practice job.
I get that it’s frustrating from your perspective, but absolutely stop supporting her. She needs to figure this out. With a degree from a top 20 university she should be able to get a very good job with almost a 3.5 GPA. However, you can’t make them motivated and it has to come from them. Perhaps cutting off her support will motivate her.
If I were you I would tell her it’s a waste of time to apply again, that you won’t fund the applications, and make her examine how she can improve her résumé if she decides to do it next cycle. Also refusing to apply to DO schools with her resume in this environment is a mistake.
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From OP’s first post:
I think that your plan is a good one. You have given her notice that financial support will be ending. My question is, does she think that your family is likely to change its mind at the last minute or if she pleads enough? If so, I would make it abundantly clear that the Family Bank is closing and offer any support or suggestions about budgeting (perhaps offering to pay the first year of a budgeting software like You Need a Budget) or job search (i.e. use her college’s career services, or recommendations of helpful books she could check out from the library, or even emailing her some positions that you think could be promising). But she needs to feel 100% positive that come two months from now, she will not be getting additional support.
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I’m not sure how you jumped to the conclusion that I was suggesting that she apply to all 128 schools she hadn’t applied to. I clearly said she could apply to SOME of the schools she didn’t already apply to and bolster her resume by adding relevant experience.
Please don’t put words in my mouth.
When does she plan to apply? We have no idea. If for the coming year, she needs to be doing those things to bolster her resume now. And, in my opinion, she needs to do them continuously until she gets a medical school acceptance. IOW, she needs to show some long term commitment to these things.
Does she plan on completing applications this year for hopeful enrollment in 2024?
I’d also like to know her reasoning about not including DO schools in her new search. The training is the same, most of the tests are the same, and the chances for residency placement are very very close. The merge of the residency match for MD and DO candidates is one reason. I will opine that she might want to at least look into some of these schools. She can reach her goals being a DO.
There are plenty of students who apply a second time…and a third time. They need to carefully choose the schools. The daughter already knows how much work it was to do 20 some applications.
I hope she is looking for ways to bolster her resume…now.
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Apologies if I misconstrued your comment. I was reading and responding on my phone while bouncing a 4 month old with the other hand and keeping an eye on a pair 26 month old twin toddlers
However there are individuals who think it’s a good idea to shotgun 40 or more med school applications. It never ends well
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What’s the plan for paying for another round of applications? Start there. Seems like a good way to introduce the idea that while your love is eternal, your financial support has a ticking clock!!
There are dozens of terrific health care careers that don’t require an MD. Might be worth some of your D’s time to explore some of them…
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I’ll post this link again…that was posted upstream by @WayOutWestMom .
It might be very helpful for this daughter to look at this.
Agreeing with @blossom
Since I recently had a reason to look into this…
https://chp.mercer.edu/admissions/admissions-requirements/physician-assistant/upload/PA-FAQ-2020.pdf:
Applicants are required to complete a minimum of 1,000 hours of direct (hands on)
patient care experience. Successful applicants often exceed the minimum number of
hours. Current students accepted in previous admission cycles had direct patient care
experience ranging from 1,000 to over 13,000 hours. Applicants without previous health
care experience are often able to acquire acceptable direct patient care experience
working as a medical or nursing assistant or aide in settings such as hospitals, clinics, or
physicians’ private practices where a wide range of patients is seen and there is an
opportunity for exposure to numerous types of health care providers. Volunteer patient
care experience in a long term care or hospice setting is also acceptable.
Applicants are also encouraged to shadow a PA to learn more about the daily
routine/role of the PA; however, this experience does not count as “direct” patient care
experience.
This document then has a lengthy chart of desirable, vs. partially acceptable, vs. not acceptable examples. I found this informative!
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Applying to medical school, PA school, grad school etc takes drive, dedication, hard work, maturity, and commitment. Based on what I read, it doesn’t sound like this young adult is there yet. It sounds like she has some growing up to do.
Hopefully she matures a bit and figures it out once the bank closes and she is forced to work full time. I am still taken back by the comment about needing grad school to get a proper job. There are many bachelors level jobs that help make you competitive for med/grad school, and that also provide an opportunity to earn money and contribute positively to society.
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