Potential paths for me and which ones seems the most viable?

Currently im an undergraduate students at rutgers university, and I plan to have a major in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry (MBB) with minors in chemistry and biology (should they let me) and am pretty much on a premed track. Also as a sidenote, i would like to know if taking a minor in computer science will help me later for applying to med school as being part of the thing that makes me different from the regular set of candidates.

I know this comes common here, but I was really hoping to look for an answer dedicated to me. I’ve always had hopes of going to med school and going through that entire long doctor path (looking to possibly become an MD or DMD in the future) but most important i want to work in the medical field as a doctor, however as reality hits me now, things aren’t working to have the best chances of going down that path without hitting massive bumps in the road.

My general level classes (biology, chemistry, calc) aren’t going as well as i thought they would (Bs and Cs) and i believe that would have a detrimental impact on my GPA and chance at admissions as i know the competition is very very tough. While i see now that i have to really do my absolute best in the rest of my classes, i believe this is one of the anchors that makes med school very hard to get into as my GPA also will not be top notch. and even if it were to retake them and take up even more time, i can’t guarentee its success in replacing it with a higher grade.

Personally i don’t mind the length of the program, but i do wish to go about my career for a doctoral/professional degree in the most effective and “less bumpy of a road” manner and complete it in the standard/minimal amount of time.

Here i ask the community to comment on the potential pathways i have thought of as well as suggest further ones and see which one is the “best”:

  1. go about the regular pathway for undergrad + medschool, continue to try my best in all future classes, MCATS, etc. and continue towards getting into medschool in the "normal" manner
  2. Go about the regular pathway as step 1: but should i not get into med schools in America, look for opportunities abroad, such as in the carribean, europe, or in asia (China, South Korea, Philippines), and then probably look to take a licensing exam to practice here in America in the future
  3. instead, pursue graduate school for a professional degree, pursue a research or laboratory career/ corporate job, as i know my major can flex into various job opportunities

Please, i am looking for as much input as possible, and should you have any other pathways, please do suggest. I am very dedicated towards this doctoral/professional pathway in the medical field. I just feel that i am held back from my previous courses as i know they are very important and even though i have potential to have a moderately high GPA, MCAT scores, interviews etc., i also know there are an incredible amount of candidates more qualified than I. Thank you all so much in advance.

No. First off it’s only a minor which means basically nothing, second, it won’t make you different, third, being different doesn’t really matter much. The goal is to be someone the school sees as a future physician.

So to be clear, you would rather choose an alternate career for the remaining ~60 years of your life than potentially spend an extra year or two getting yourself into your desired career? For the record, ~50% of medical students do not enter medical school straight out of college.

For MD, you can’t replace the grade anyway. DO however does allow it, and would be an infinitely better option for you if you can’t get into an allopathic medical school in the US.

In terms of your plans:

Absolutely not 2. Go read the thread on caribbean schools in the pre-med section on this forum or go to SDN and read theirs. The only person I know who has successfully gone abroad for med school and come back was someone who became a drug addict in college, tanked his grades and bombed his first MCAT, got clean, took the MCAT again, went abroad and was literally #1 in his class at every stage and did extremely well on the licensing exams. Unless you have an extenuating circumstance like that where you have an obvious reason why your academics will completely turn around in medical school, do not go abroad. Even then, it’s still a gamble that I wouldn’t advise (see DO above.)

For 3: PhDs aren’t really backup careers for people interested in medicine (not sure if this was one of your options). They a) require a strong research background and lots of advanced coursework b) are still very competitive. They also obviously involve no treating of patients. Certainly other types of medical graduate programs (PA, NP, DPT, OD, etc) would probably still be on the table and are things you should consider if MD/DO is not an option.

First of all, thank you for responding to me so thoroughly and quickly. I appreciate it a lot. I just have a few questions.

So for the minor, even though it wouldn’t help for admissions, would you suggest still pursuing it for the sake of extra qualifications for job opportunities later?

Second, I’m a little bit confused about what ur saying, maybe i think there was a misunderstanding on my part? I just wanted to say that even though my first choice is to be undergrad+med, into a career treating patients directly, my second choice is to do undergrad+grad, into possibly a research/corporate job career at a laboratory etc. I more so wanted to just point out that im fine with the length of the years of either program but i really would like to aim to do it in the least years as possible or the average amount of years (8 for 2nd option, and 8-9+residency for 1st). i hope it cleared things up?

Third, again i just need a little bit more details, so for MD the med schools will still see the grade even if the course was retaken? and this wouldnt be the case for DO? and going the DO path does sound a bit more of a direction that i was heading towards, so ill keep that option open.

For option #2, i believe i was leaning more towards med school in a third world country like china, philippines, and south korea, so would this apply the same for these countries? because i know the carribean is the based off of the popular belief that thats where people who arent in med school go to, but i actually have family and background in these other countries to possilby help out a little (?).

and lastly, i do have a pretty well background and experience in a research/laboratory setting but i do consider treating patients directly as more of a primary goal/dream, so should i decide against the other medical graduate programs, would my degree call for this being a viable option?

Again thank you so much for your feedback.

i think IWB was pretty clear but perhaps I might clarify things a bit. A minor is is not important for medical school admissions. In your case I might recommend classes in English and Literature as the writing of your post is a bit torturous and communication skills are very important in medicine. MD schools see both grades of a retaken course and both are calculated into your GPA. DO schools will also see all the courses you have taken but will only use the last grade of a repeated course in calculating your GPA. I would also not recommend going abroad for your medical education if you wish to practice in the US. The large increase in MD/DO graduates in the US will make residency matching for FMG’s quite difficult, and without postgraduate training you cannot practice medicine in the US.

“Minors” are pretty useless in general (e.g. Brown doesn’t even offer them). I do believe that CS is now becoming a critical skill and I wish I had taken at least one course but a minor might require you take some relatively useless courses. Take the CS courses that you think will benefit you the most without worrying about the minor. If that ends up satisfying the requirement for the minor or if you are struggling to find one more course in general to take and there’s one you need to fulfill the minor then might as well get it.

I’m assuming the 9 in your med school path means you would take a gap year? Would you take 2 gap years? I was under the impression you wouldn’t want a gap year. Also, a PhD in the biological sciences is usually 5-7 years (not 4) + post doc before you’re really competitive for employment as an independent researcher. You could probably skip the post doc if you didn’t want to be running a lab in a biotech/pharma setting and wanted to occupy some other role in the company.

MD schools will see every grade from every course you took at any college (including dual enrollment in high school). I don’t know the details of how replacement works exactly in DO (sounds like mjscal does), but the key thing is that “your GPA” for the purposes of admission in DO schools is using only the most recent grades rather than MD where they will be averaged together. So if you get a C, retake the class and get an A, that is just a single A in the GPA calculation of the DO while it’s a C and an A (essentially two Bs) in the GPA calculation of the MD.

That’s probably even worse. Just don’t go abroad if you want to practice in the US. The minority of people who go abroad are able to practice in the US compared with 95% of US MD graduates and 85-90% of DO graduates.

The PhD is the only one of the degrees I mentioned where you wouldn’t see/treat patients. Physician’s Assistant ¶, Nurse Practitioner (NP), Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT), and Doctor of Optometry (OD) all see/treat patients.

FYI, don’t get OD and DO confused. DO is Doctor of Osteopathic medicine and is for all intents and purposes (these days) equivalent to an MD. They started out much different from each other in philosophy and training but have been progressively moving towards each other over the last century. OD is an optometrist and is a type of medical professional who only deals with certain conditions of the eye (primarily correcting vision).