Feeling Defeated

I am, like many of you, a non-traditional pre-med, starting over at the ripe age of 29. I will do my best to keep my story short & sweet…

During 2008 to 2010 I was in an abusive relationship, my “escape” if you will, was college - of which I took classes part time, on and off and failed nearly all of them. In 2010, I enrolled in classes, but did not actually attend a single one of them as I was secretly meeting with an Air Force recruiter. The fall of 2010 I mustered enough courage to leave my relationship and April 8th, 2011 I swore into the military. The Air Force has made me the strong, determined, “take no crap from anyone”, person I am today and literally saved my life. I remember being a little girl and watching my grandmother go through chemo and thinking I wanted to a doctor, and in 2016 I re-started my college journey with aspirations to accomplish just that.

I downloaded one of those GPA calculators from SDN. As of this moment, my cGPA is 1.01% and my sGPA is 2.27%. Since enrolling back into school in 2016, I’ve managed between a 3.7-4.0 GPA, but that does not help that I have 56 failing credit hours from 2008 & 2010, and the only other hours I have are “pass/fail” credits from the military (of which I was told does not actually count (?)) I am working my tail off, I attend school full time, I work full time, and I volunteer part time at a hospital. I plan to gain clinical hours by enrolling in an EMT-B class. I’ve also reached out to a women’s crisis center and I am setting up orientation with them to become an advocate volunteer. Lastly, and miraculously, I have been accepted to a 4 year University (as of today, YAY!) of which I was sure they’d see my transcripts and put me into a shredder.

With the fact medical school is SO competitive, and they really do have digital shredders… I’m afraid all the advocating for myself in the world, will not get my future application a glance (at least not with the GPA standings I have) If I put 17 “A’s” into this GPA calculator - I still am in the mid-2% GPA.

I’m unsure where to go from here. If I should plan on doing a second bachelors when this one is completed (I’m currently at 90-ish credit hours), if I should explore an SMP, or if I should run away and join the circus.

Any advice would be sincerely appreciated!

I am in the same boat. I had a 1.18 GPA, and none of the extenuating circumstances you had. I was immature. I joined the navy at 21 and since then have had a great upward trend. I am now 30 with three kids. At the end of the day, you have to put away all the BS and decide on your path. Is medicine right for you? Are you willing to do anything and everything it takes to achieve your goals and dreams. Aside from that, here’s my advice. It seems you need to boost your GPA and for that I would really have you look in to a post bacc, its what I am planning on doing. My main focus is getting into a career changer program with a good linkage agreement. That way if I obtain a certain GPA I will be entertained an interview at the linked schools. AAMCAS has a list of post bacc and SMP’s. Keep volunteering and obtaining your clinical hours! Now I’ve never applied to medical school, and this is only from my research so take this with a grain of salt. I don’t intend on giving up on my pursuit of becoming a doctor. I think your development as a person will stand out from a lot of medical students, so while you may not get an interview at your TOP choice school, I think that many schools will in fact look at you. You also have military experience which is actually looked upon favorably. I hope you don’t give up and in the future you can give me some advice (I don’t get out of the navy until July 2021 but who’s counting). Right now I am deciding on finishing my bachelors with National University online or applying out to 4 year universities. Best of luck. Remember everything that has happened in your past that you have grown from is what makes you an amazing person, DON’T GIVE UP!