Old nontrad, want to do research, can't find a a way to get experience

[ngrd2]

So I'm on the old side of nontraditional (39), but my general stats are okay: 3.9gpa, LOR from the dean, assistant dean, and head of regional drug development center, plenty of "life experiences" and volunteering and 140 hrs shadowing in my favor, but the problem is that I've been thinking about research for a while and the more I think about it the more I want to get back into it, but because of a chance occurrence there's no real way I can get some research out to journals by the time I apply.

I'm not lacking for focus: I'm specifically interested in autism and in looking at it from two angles that often don't occur to researchers––I have some insight because I'm on the autism spectrum. I've reduced some broad ideas into over a dozen possible experiments ranging from meta-analyses to large lab experiments involving techniques I'd need to be taught.

I was set to begin in a lab last month but the lab director, who's one of my mentors and who I would be working with, got terrible news: his wife was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He's obviously distracted now and I can't fault him for it at all but I've tried over a dozen other researchers over the past two years and they either don't have time or their research doesn't overlap enough with my interests. I've explained to everyone that any lab experience is good experience, but there's a lot of competition for lab assistant slots at my school and most are taken by grad students.

I wanted to begin autism research now and pursue it through med school, though I am probably too old (and nontraditional in other ways) for an MD, much less an MD/PhD; do I throw together some informatics things on my own and explain my interests and why I haven't pursued them yet, or do I need evidence on record of X months/years of experience in order to 1) get into med school, and 2) pursue any research while at med school?

Right now I feel like I have zero chance of getting in anywhere without lab research experience, so I'm contemplating not even applying if I'm automatically going to be rejected because I couldn't find research. Again, though, with a social sciences and humanities/qualitative background I could do something quick and dirty on my own or with faculty at the local medical college if I can persuade them that making a dual etiological/epidemiological map of autism by slipping in through a diagnostic side door is worth their time. What do I do?

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[Happoldius]

Please take my opinion with a grain of salt;

First of all, don't feel like you're too old to get an MD. There's plenty of evidence that even people in their 50s can enter Medical School and have a successful career as a physician.

Secondly, come on man, with your life experience, GPA, LORs, and (let's assume you get a good MCAT score), I'm sure the admissions people will consider those qualities of your application, rather than instantly rejecting you because of lack of research.

Plus, I've seen a lot of the experienced users here say it depends on the school in regards to the ratio of research time/accepted applicants.

Regardless, I'm looking forward to what the others have to say about your situation, but I have a good feeling about it.

 

[Ad2b]

39 not too old for MD/DO. I'm 52, friend of mine is 56, MS-2.

Is it easy at this (or any) age? No.

Is it fun? I think so! I love being in school, love learning new things, love meeting new people and learning from my younger peers as well as leading them.

 

[esob]

Goro notes all the time about how some of his best students have been older. I just turned 42. One of my adviser's wife started MD at UTSW @ 40. GPA + MCAT trumps high testosterone and good collagen

 

[ngrd2]

Right, thanks, and I expect to do pretty well on the MCAT because I actually seem to do much better on standardized tests than on the sometimes highly weird ones given by science professors; the issue though is that I'm frantically trying to chase any lab research experience at all, or even just any research at all, and can't come up with anything given the very unfortunate situation of my mentor.

It's not just that I want experience to get into school, though, it's that I want training and space and funding to work on what I was going to work on with my mentor and an immunologist we're working with because, from doing select lit reviews in various sub-categories of autism research, I've developed an idea of what autism is and how it works and what might cause it that's quite different from the prevailing confusion and I've spotted areas where research keeps going sour because scientists are making some incorrect assumptions about why persons with autism do X or Y, so I really want to see my research through––I could be completely wrong about all of my hunches, but they still might help somehow.

I doubt, though, that there's a section in the AMCAS application for "Research I Would Be Doing if Life Didn't Have a Way of Sometimes Not Working Out Very Well" so I guess more precisely what I'm asking is whether an interest in research, knowledge of what it entails, and some unrelated humanities research from a decade ago enough to help me be able to 1) find research opportunities somehow, or 2) enable me to work on research in school. I still think my chances are slim because both of the med schools in the state where I live have told me "Don't apply here, you're too old." I'm working very hard to be perfect and special enough to get into school despite being autistic and dirt poor and old, but the research is also part of a Plan B (PhD in neuroscience) in case I don't get into school.

 

[Moose A Moose]

Get your ass in gear and start applying, man! You're good to go. Applicants w/out prior research get in all the time. You can jump back in after you matriculate- and likely on your school's dime.

 

[Goro]

You are incorrect in this notion. Plenty of med schools will take people without research experience. Non-trads get cut some extra slack because they have lives to lead.

I understand you're interest in the subject, but your best chances of doing any sort of research will be to discuss this with your Faculty.

The chances of you getting to do your own research project as you describe below, realistically, close to nil unless at best, you enter a PhD program in either psychology, epidemiology or neuroscience.

Right now I feel like I have zero chance of getting in anywhere without lab research experience, so I'm contemplating not even applying if I'm automatically going to be rejected because I couldn't find research. Again, though, with a social sciences and humanities/qualitative background I could do something quick and dirty on my own or with faculty at the local medical college if I can persuade them that making a dual etiological/epidemiological map of autism by slipping in through a diagnostic side door is worth their time. What do I do?

 

[olderbrooklyndoc]

I'm a nontrad in my 30s without research experience but with interest and this hasn't been a problem. In fact, it's been fun to discuss in interviews how my research interests might align with that school's mission. I think if you can share your knowledge of the scientific method and curiosity and passion, you should be able to find a school/potential mentor you connect with.

 

[ngrd2]

Thanks, everyone, and to reply to Goro, you're right, which is why I am frustrated, because May 2017-June 2018 was about me getting everything paid for and having an actual lab and working on projects in order to apply for even more NIH funding, and I know that doesn't happen every often, or ever, which means I'm ten years away from any research projects now and twenty years from results when that number could've been more like five or six, but it is what it is.

The other problem is that schools that have autism research centers either at the school or in the area are not schools I can get into (Yale, Stanford, Harvard, etc.). I thought I might have had an outside shot if I could've said hey look I co-authored five papers across three different disciplines! But I'll have to just do what I can do along with the 473 other extra-curricular things I need to do, both "career" and other.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Thanks, everyone, and to reply to Goro, you're right, which is why I am frustrated, because May 2017-June 2018 was about me getting everything paid for and having an actual lab and working on projects in order to apply for even more NIH funding, and I know that doesn't happen every often, or ever, which means I'm ten years away from any research projects now and twenty years from results when that number could've been more like five or six, but it is what it is.

The other problem is that schools that have autism research centers either at the school or in the area are not schools I can get into (Yale, Stanford, Harvard, etc.). I thought I might have had an outside shot if I could've said hey look I co-authored five papers across three different disciplines! But I'll have to just do what I can do along with the 473 other extra-curricular things I need to do, both "career" and other.

You should definitely still apply to those places. You can definitely get in without research experience with great ECs and stats and a nontrad story. Research is great experience to have, but you definitely don't need it.

 

[ngrd2]

Thanks, and sorry to belabor this but two things:

1) Research is important because Plan B is to apply to PhD programs and I need research experience for that as well.

2) I forgot to include this, but there are only maybe 15-20 schools I can apply to because I don't have a car. If I had the money for a car I could apply to a lot more schools but I don't, so I've been told not to apply but some schools and really I'm limited to New York, Boston, DC and maybe Philadelphia(?) and that's it. Cities in the south might have public transportation but I'm gay and Jewish so I'm never going to find out. Medical schools seem to operate on the assumption that you have a car and money for living expenses and school materials––I don't, so that makes things dicey, but with an MD/PhD I get free tuition and a stipend. Advice? Also, though, thanks for your encouragement.

 

[Ad2b]

Minnesota has MD/PhD and excellent public transportation that's not sketchy.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Cities in the south might have public transportation but I'm gay and Jewish so I'm never going to find out.

Not sure about the gay thing, but I lived in the South for years as a Jew and never had a single problem. The bigger cities down there aren't the boondocks.

 

[kraskadva]

Well this was not quite what I was expecting when I read the title....

OP - a few points:
~While 39 is certainly not too old for either MD or PhD, combined MD-PhD programs are unlikely to be friendly to you. For those, 24 is considered "old" to start. They have hard data that shows folks starting after 30 are very unlikely to complete both degrees and tend not to accept anybody near or above that age. I'm sure there are some n=1 exceptions, but just because it has happened, don't think it's likely to happen for you.
You could potentially do both degrees separately, but you'd still have to pay for the MD (loans). And if your end goal is to be able to do research as a career, an MD works just as well as a PhD for that. If the research you have in mind is clinical, then the MD could even be more useful than a PhD, as it would allow you to work with patients without needing a collaborator.

~on getting research experience now: you seem dead set on trying to run your own autism research project. While that's a great long-term goal, you're just going to have to accept that it is highly unlikely to happen now. If you want research experience now, you'll have to settle for whatever you can get.
You could get strategic about it and find an opening that will teach you some of the skills you'll need down the road, but you're probably not going to find anything if you keep turning down available opportunities just because they don't overlap with your interests.
You could also get into med school and start doing research once there.
The end point though is, you can do some research now and autism research later, or no research now and maybe (not) autism research later, but you can't do autism research now.

~There are autism "centers" all over the country (as a 15s google search will show you) and in cities other than NY/DC/Boston. Cleveland, Chicago, Philly, lots of places on the West coast, and more all have both med schools and autism research. As well as public tran and locations above the Mason-Dixon line, if those really are deal breakers for you.

Your grades and ECs are super. If you get an MCAT in line with those, and apply broadly, you should be able to get into med school. And you don't have to have research to get accepted for MD.
If you start with any kind of research now and apply this coming cycle, then by the time you find out if you need a back up plan (Dec/Jan), you should have logged enough research hours to be competitive for PhD as well and it will be submission time for those apps.

EDIT: Also look into the schools that offer a funded 5yr MD program (4+1 research). Cleveland Clinic and RWJSM are the two that spring to mind, but there may be others as well.

 

[ngrd2]

Thanks. And I keep unintentionally mis-speaking here, so just fyi:
1) I've never turned down research. I've chased any and every kind of research help opportunity I can think of for several years, any subject, any duties, ranging from medical sociology to drug research and beyond, and came up with nothing. There might be an informatics study I can work on at the local medical college with a professor I'm working with as first author; not sure yet. Autism is the thing I most want to research eventually, but right now all I want is experience. I would be happy with anything but I can't find anything.
2) That's good to know about the unlikeliness of MD/PhD over 30; that's another thing to nudge me toward not applying, but it's good information. I do know about the five-year programs and am planning on applying.
3) My grades and ECs are actually, I've been told by many people, disastrous. I recalculated things because this is my last semester and should end up with a 3.83 total gpa and 3.76 science gpa, both of which will keep me from applying to, I don't know, maybe half the med schools out there? And I haven't been employed in a medical field; I've done some volunteering, I won a scholarship, I did and do misc. fine arts stuff that doesn't add up to anything, I did some academic research a while ago and published one article in a peer-reviewed journal, and I will have good letters of recommendation. That's it.
4) The "do my own research" comes from the fact the mentor whose wife is now unfortunately ill discussed research ideas with me and it was a one-in-a-million situation of this: he was going to teach me things about both research and his research specialties and then we were going to design and conduct experiments on particular elements of my ideas about autism on the school's dime. That's a very, VERY rare thing to happen, and it's okay that it's not happening, and I have *no* expectation at all of just walking in the door of any school and claiming a lab and getting to work––I know it doesn't work that way.
5) My father was from Kentucky and I don't have any stereotypes about the south but I've been assaulted already and I almost suffocated to death and had thing X rammed up thing Y. The cops I reported this to thought it was funny. Living in a blue state doesn't automatically mean I'm safe but it will reduce my lingering paranoia about being an easy target.
6) Given all this, though, being a poor person with a low gpa and nothing but letters from some people who happen to think I'm intelligent and would be a good doctor, it doesn't look like I have any chance at all, which is helpful to know. (I have been repeatedly told by admissions offices and by medical students and medical residents and doctors that any gpa under 3.9 is junk.)

 

[kraskadva]

Thanks. And I keep unintentionally mis-speaking here, so just fyi:
1) I've never turned down research. I've chased any and every kind of research help opportunity I can think of for several years, any subject, any duties, ranging from medical sociology to drug research and beyond, and came up with nothing. There might be an informatics study I can work on at the local medical college with a professor I'm working with as first author; not sure yet. Autism is the thing I most want to research eventually, but right now all I want is experience. I would be happy with anything but I can't find anything.

Ok then, miscommunication above. If you're still taking classes, as you say below, the most likely place to find experience would be within your department then. Talk to every professor you can get to office hours with. Ask about this semester and whether they have summer opportunities as well. IF you can get something, great. If you can't, well, as has been said several times already, you don't need it to get into med school.

2) That's good to know about the unlikeliness of MD/PhD over 30; that's another thing to nudge me toward not applying, but it's good information. I do know about the five-year programs and am planning on applying.

If you had research, I'd say maybe give it a shot at a couple schools. But between age and no research, I wouldn't advise anybody to put money on such long odds. General MD/DO and the 5 year programs would be good choices though.

3) My grades and ECs are actually, I've been told by many people, disastrous. I recalculated things because this is my last semester and should end up with a 3.83 total gpa and 3.76 science gpa, both of which will keep me from applying to, I don't know, maybe half the med schools out there? And I haven't been employed in a medical field; I've done some volunteering, I won a scholarship, I did and do misc. fine arts stuff that doesn't add up to anything, I did some academic research a while ago and published one article in a peer-reviewed journal, and I will have good letters of recommendation. That's it.

Those people are either lying to you or have no idea wtf they're talking about. See more below after your point 6.

4) The "do my own research" comes from the fact the mentor whose wife is now unfortunately ill discussed research ideas with me and it was a one-in-a-million situation of this: he was going to teach me things about both research and his research specialties and then we were going to design and conduct experiments on particular elements of my ideas about autism on the school's dime. That's a very, VERY rare thing to happen, and it's okay that it's not happening, and I have *no* expectation at all of just walking in the door of any school and claiming a lab and getting to work––I know it doesn't work that way.

If this had worked out for you, that would have been amazing and spectacular. But it hasn't. And while that sucks, it's not the end of the world. If you get into med school, even with no prior research experience, a lot more doors will open for you and you may get a similar opportunity in the future.

5) My father was from Kentucky and I don't have any stereotypes about the south but I've been assaulted already and I almost suffocated to death and had thing X rammed up thing Y. The cops I reported this to thought it was funny. Living in a blue state doesn't automatically mean I'm safe but it will reduce my lingering paranoia about being an easy target.

I am sorry.
This is horrible and no one should ever have to experience any part of that. I hope you got/are getting counselling, because no one should have to deal with or process that by themselves.

I could say that most of the urban centers in the south with medical schools/academic research tend to be pretty liberal, but that wouldn't really do anything to assuage your justifiable paranoia. So, sure, avoid the south.
But do take a look at some other places besides just New England. Philly, NJ, Cleveland, Chicago/Milwaukee and the West Coast are all good hot spots to check out.

6) Given all this, though, being a poor person with a low gpa and nothing but letters from some people who happen to think I'm intelligent and would be a good doctor, it doesn't look like I have any chance at all, which is helpful to know. (I have been repeatedly told by admissions offices and by medical students and medical residents and doctors that any gpa under 3.9 is junk.)

Back to this, you have an excellent GPA. These people you've been talking to are completely full of s***.
Here's some real data: The aggregate applicant & acceptee numbers for the past 3 cycles for white applicants (https://www.aamc.org/download/321518/data/factstablea24-4.pdf) (Search AAMC table 24 if you want to look at other racial breakdowns) show that 44.4% of students accepted for medical schools had a gpa in the 3.8-4.0 range. 55.6% of accepted students had below 3.8.

Personally, I just got accepted to both MD and DO with a cumulative 3.1 (2 bacc degrees combined). THAT number kept me from applying to a lot of medical schools, but I still got 2 acceptances. A gpa between 3.7-3.9 will not close ANY doors at all. Invest in the MSAR to see 10th-90th %iles for individual schools. Check out this (https://schools.studentdoctor.net/lizzym_score) and plug in different MCAT scores to see where you'd be competitive depending on what you get on the MCAT. You'll probably be pleasantly surprised.


So your original question - What do you do?
First you study up and take the MCAT.
You keep looking for research opportunities, but stop thinking that that will be the thing to make or break your application.
You also read up, here on SDN, on the AAMC website, and in the MSAR. There are decades worth of helpful posts here and the AAMC publishes actual, up to date data that can show you what the applicant/accepted pool really looks like, across the board and school to school. For SDN, start here, here, and here for basic background info on what the nontrad process looks like. For the AAMC start here and here, then dive into the Fact Tables. The MSAR is available here (if you're going to apply for the Fee Assistance Program, don't pay for it, since it comes with that package.)
And stop listening to those people who are telling you that you don't have what it takes. They clearly have no idea of what the application process looks like now, and may not have understood it when they went through it.

Best of luck to you.

EDIT: adding links

 

[kraskadva]

@Goro is already here, but I'm also going to page @QofQuimica @DrMidlife and @gonnif to chime in on this.

 

[DrMidlife]

1. Ridiculous to think a 3.8 GPA is going to keep you out of med school or keep you out of a MD/PhD program. Absolutely ridiculous. That kind of thinking goes in pre-allo, not nontrad. Everybody above ~3.6 gets in on non-GPA things. A 3.6 with an interesting package slays a 4.0 with cookie cutter crap.
2. MSTP is the fully funded, federal, fancypants MD/PhD program. The other way to get an MD/PhD is the non-free-ride way: go after schools that offer MD and PhD, preferably offering some funding for the PhD. In your shoes I'd focus on finding researchers doing interesting work in autism, in places where being ASD gay and Jewish isn't life-threatening, go after those researchers for mentorship, and target those schools for whatever degree program ends up making sense.
3. I question the need for an MD here. I'm not seeing anything that says you want to do any kind of patient care. MD adds 7+ years to your training with no or low income. Med school, by design, will hammer on your ASD behaviors and will break you to make you - do you want that extra misery? If you want to actually produce meaningful autism research, then just get to work on meaningful autism research. If what you want is permission to do meaningful research and you think that permission only comes in the form of MD/PhD, check that impression with the mentors you identify in your field of interest.
4. I have no damn clue how Harvard/Columbia et al do admissions. Over 40, don't care. There are 100+ more MD/PhD schools, the overwhelming majority of which are blue state. Think Albany, NYMC, Tufts, SUNYs, etc. As an over-40 premed, whatever program puts well-designed obstacles between you and the degrees/licenses you want, and sets you up with enough influential names to get you access to the work you want to do, that's a good enough program.
5. Ideally you get where you want to be with a manageable debt load. Whole nother can of worms.

Best of luck to you.

 

[QofQuimica]

@Goro is already here, but I'm also going to page @QofQuimica @DrMidlife and @gonnif to chime in on this.

I don't really have anything new to add that hasn't already been said. Including the bit about not limiting oneself geographically based on one's preconceived notions.

 

[ngrd2]

Thanks, everyone. Somehow I stopped getting notified of replies to this. As far as the MD part goes, with autism research I have one group of hunches that might help a lot of people like me and I want to explore that, because it means helping people. I don't, though, have an ongoing interest in doing research for the sake of it. I did curve over to the MD years before having a decent idea about autism mostly because of the opportunity to take care of people as a a day job and using spare money for charitable purposes. I don't have any illusions of being some kind of "hero" doctor because life doesn't work like that, and I don't have illusions about being spectacularly wealthy, but what you should realize is that from my gutter/broken class perspective, a salary of, say, $40k/year seems like the very embodiment of luxury, so I'll think I'll be okay with what's left after loans and insurance and expenses etc. And in all the shadowing I did the thing that actually appealed to me the most was palliative care, which is not exactly the height of prestige and large paychecks, but those things are less important to me than getting people from a place broken down into endless moments of suffering to a place where people feel in control again, or at least somewhat in control, and even if the future isn't bright, it can still be peaceful. Autism can't be cured, remember, and while I pass for normal now, that took twenty years of study and mimicry; I wasn't just a wee bit autistic as a child, I was a mess, and every time I leave my apartment I still feel like I'm holding my breath until the moment I get home, and that's never going to go away, and many people feel like that in different ways for different reasons, whether it's a car accident that ends a sports career or terminal cancer, so the question is how do I help people persist regardless of X or Y? That's what led to the research interest.

Because both the MCAT and applying are looming, though, and with this advice, mainly right now I'm entering a kind of bunker mentality of not screwing up my last semester, getting a very good MCAT score, filing the application in June and then be able to turn back into a human being again while I wait for whatever might happen to happen. Thanks, everyone.

 

[ngrd2]

I don't really have anything new to add that hasn't already been said. Including the bit about not limiting oneself geographically based on one's preconceived notions.

I hope what happened to me never happens to you. I'm very grateful for everyone's advice, but rhetorically it amounts to feigned surprise as if I should know I can get into school with a gpa under 3.9 and nothing on my CV. All I'm doing is trying to get into med school, not because it sounds fun or I think I'll be rich or even want to be rich but because of wanting to help people even if only in minor or temporary ways and contribute more to society. I began this thread because as it stands I don't have any concrete plan for helping chances of getting into medical school, research or not, and I'm burned out from failure-harvesting at my school. Some of you seem to think I have a decent chance at getting into medical school, but this is mostly expressed as exasperation that 1) I'd like to improve my chances at getting into med school regardless of how good they might be, and 2) I don't want to live where I don't want to live. Why #2 in particular is so scandalous, I'm not sure. Also let me stress I'm not willfully pessimistic, I'm more than eager to do whatever it takes to get into med school, it doesn't have to be somewhere super fancy and prestigious, I'm just wondering what I can do, especially if I want to have the chance to do some research in some form, which I do, but which is not central to becoming a doc. So:

1) Regardless of what my chances are, how do I improve them? My pre-med advisor, who has been doing this 35 years, agrees with you folks, but a 3.83 is a 3.83.
2) I don't have any extracurriculars except shadowing, and school band/choir, so what would you say is also important? Learning languages, playing sports, volunteering, something else?
3) I'm capable of doing research, I just don't have any legitimacy, so is it possible to find a front at a med school who'll be first author if I do all the work and the research is sound?
4) I have $7.52 in the bank right now and no food. That's not unusual for me; am I too poor to apply to med school?
5) I don't have anything to show for the last twenty years of my life, so how do I explain that? I had some books published; they're literary but one book includes kind of a lot of gay but non-erotic bdsm and the other has the word "mother****er" in the title as a joke because I never thought it would get published. I've had a bunch of art shows, but only one since 2011.
6) How can I hide or talk my way around the fact that I'm queer, poor, Jewish, autistic, ugly, and maybe thin enough but not an athlete? I am not some apple-cheeked, blonde 4.0gpa soccer player a school can use to sell itself.
7) Do I need a car to attend med school, and does the answer depend on whether the place I go has decent public transportation?
8) The main part of not applying to schools in the south is the heat, but if you insist I have to deal with heat exhaustion every day, why apply there, and what schools? And there need to be a range of synagogues near any school.
9) Do I try to beg/fundraise for another year of undergrad classes to raise my gpa before I apply, and hope I get the chance to do some research in the extra year?
10) What's more important, my gpa or my MCAT score?
11) Any recommendations of schools open to nontraditional students and schools that aren't? I don't mean this as an assessment of the quality of the school, just how well it might fit someone with my background.
12) I don't have any LOR from anyone in the arts, and in fact I just got kicked out of men's chorus because I'm autistic. How do I explain the lack of letters?
13) Because the failure harvesting means that about 75% of my physics class is currently getting a D or worse, my gpa might slip a bit and I can't retake the class because I hit my loan ceiling. So consider a gpa more like 3.75 and science gpa of 3.6, so it's sinking like a rock and is pretty hopeless. I had the time to write this because I only studied around 6 hours each yesterday and today vs. the 12 or more beginning last Nov. and continuing through all of winter break and will be back at it tomorrow.

So there you go. I don't want to emit this whine in a lot of posts so I'm cramming it all into this one post and then shutting up about it, since I'd rather post to help other people get into school than whine about my shortcomings.

 

[kraskadva]

I hope what happened to me never happens to you. I'm very grateful for everyone's advice, but rhetorically it amounts to feigned surprise as if I should know I can get into school with a gpa under 3.9 and nothing on my CV. All I'm doing is trying to get into med school, not because it sounds fun or I think I'll be rich or even want to be rich but because of wanting to help people even if only in minor or temporary ways and contribute more to society. I began this thread because as it stands I don't have any concrete plan for helping chances of getting into medical school, research or not, and I'm burned out from failure-harvesting at my school. Some of you seem to think I have a decent chance at getting into medical school, but this is mostly expressed as exasperation that 1) I'd like to improve my chances at getting into med school regardless of how good they might be, and 2) I don't want to live where I don't want to live. Why #2 in particular is so scandalous, I'm not sure. Also let me stress I'm not willfully pessimistic, I'm more than eager to do whatever it takes to get into med school, it doesn't have to be somewhere super fancy and prestigious, I'm just wondering what I can do, especially if I want to have the chance to do some research in some form, which I do, but which is not central to becoming a doc. So:

The surprise isn't feigned. And any exasperation you're sensing stems from the fact that you are asking (and getting replies from) a bunch of salty old farts who answer the same questions over and over on this forum, and expect someone over the age of 25 to have already done some of their due diligence to figure out what they need to know for this process. So your pessimism reads as neuroticism to many, and there's a low tolerance for that around here. Nobody here is insulting or belittling you, but we're not going to sugar coat anything either. And we're all doing this for free - nobody here gets paid to respond to you - so keep in mind that we're only trying to be helpful, in our own ways.

1) Regardless of what my chances are, how do I improve them? My pre-med advisor, who has been doing this 35 years, agrees with you folks, but a 3.83 is a 3.83.
You rock the MCAT, beef up your ECs, and work on writing a compelling personal statement. From what you've said here, I'm sure you have plenty of fodder to work with.
...a 3.83 is a d*mn good GPA. <--FTFY

2) I don't have any extracurriculars except shadowing, and school band/choir, so what would you say is also important? Learning languages, playing sports, volunteering, something else?
I think you have more ECs than you think...
You said you had volunteering - keep that up or pick it back up if you've stopped. Anything that helps underserved/vulnerable populations is well received on an app. Clinical volunteering is great, but not necessary. Habitat for Humanity, ESL tutoring, Big Brother/Big Sister, Soup Kitchens, etc. are all good.
Also, what have you been doing to pay the bills for the last ~20 years? Work experience counts as an EC for these purposes.
And what prompted the head of the drug development center to write you a LOR? Did you do work with him? That would also count.

3) I'm capable of doing research, I just don't have any legitimacy, so is it possible to find a front at a med school who'll be first author if I do all the work and the research is sound?
Not sure what you mean by a front, but there will be lots of opportunities to do research in med school. Just like with undergrad though, the odds of someone funding your personal project are slim, but depending on where you go, there may well be something related that you could jump in on.

4) I have $7.52 in the bank right now and no food. That's not unusual for me; am I too poor to apply to med school?
You're going to have to save up some money before applying for incidental costs (travel to interviews, background checks, sending transcripts, etc.), but there is a Fee Assistance Program (the 2nd AAMC link I gave you above) that will reduce the cost of the MCAT, give you free prep materials, and waive the cost of applying to 16 schools.

5) I don't have anything to show for the last twenty years of my life, so how do I explain that? I had some books published; they're literary but one book includes kind of a lot of gay but non-erotic bdsm and the other has the word "mother****er" in the title as a joke because I never thought it would get published. I've had a bunch of art shows, but only one since 2011.
Start by revising what you mean by "nothing to show" and stop undervaluing your accomplishments. Nobody expects you to have gotten a Nobel prize or be written about in textbooks. A couple books published and multiple arts shows are good starts. What else do you have?

6) How can I hide or talk my way around the fact that I'm queer, poor, Jewish, autistic, ugly, and maybe thin enough but not an athlete? I am not some apple-cheeked, blonde 4.0gpa soccer player a school can use to sell itself.
You don't hide it. You own it.
Med schools sell themselves on diversity, not on recreating the master race.

7) Do I need a car to attend med school, and does the answer depend on whether the place I go has decent public transportation?
Depends.

8) The main part of not applying to schools in the south is the heat, but if you insist I have to deal with heat exhaustion every day, why apply there, and what schools? And there need to be a range of synagogues near any school.
Heat was not the reason you gave before, and is even less of a bar to going south. You're going to be inside all the time anyway, and with climate change the summers in the north can be just as hot.

You're going to have to do your own research on this. Check the MSAR, start looking at school websites, and googling the cities. For example, I know Atlanta has a large Jewish population and autism research, but I don't know how close synagogues, grocery stores, or rotation sites would be to the med school/housing or what public tran looks like there. And I'm not going to look it all up for you.

As to why - dealing with your own prejudices head on would seem a pertinent reason to me. But also because med school applications are f***ing competitive and you should cast as wide a net as possible.

9) Do I try to beg/fundraise for another year of undergrad classes to raise my gpa before I apply, and hope I get the chance to do some research in the extra year?
No. Your gpa is fine. So long as you have a bachelors degree and have covered all the pre-reqs, you're done.
Do raise money for the application cycle. I've seem people do gofundme pages for this before and it seems like a really smart idea.

10) What's more important, my gpa or my MCAT score?
Both. GPA shows your work ethic, MCAT shows your ability to do well on massive standardized tests.
Some schools value one slightly more than the other, but again, you'll have to look up which is which in the MSAR.

11) Any recommendations of schools open to nontraditional students and schools that aren't? I don't mean this as an assessment of the quality of the school, just how well it might fit someone with my background.
All of them are open to non-trads. If you want to get background specific, start reading school mission statements.

12) I don't have any LOR from anyone in the arts, and in fact I just got kicked out of men's chorus because I'm autistic. How do I explain the lack of letters?
You don't need one, so you don't need to explain the lack of one. If you're looking for a "non-science" letter, you could get one from a humanities professor, work supervisor or volunteer supervisor.

13) Because the failure harvesting means that about 75% of my physics class is currently getting a D or worse, my gpa might slip a bit and I can't retake the class because I hit my loan ceiling. So consider a gpa more like 3.75 and science gpa of 3.6, so it's sinking like a rock and is pretty hopeless. I had the time to write this because I only studied around 6 hours each yesterday and today vs. the 12 or more beginning last Nov. and continuing through all of winter break and will be back at it tomorrow.
Even if you failed the class, your gpa wouldn't be impacted that much. And even if it was, you'd still be fine. 3.7 is still perfectly fine. It is literally the average gpa for the number ***** schools like Harvard, Washington University, Johns Hopkins, Stanford, U Chicago and UPenn.
So stop bemoaning your numbers and just pass the class.

 

[ngrd2]

The surprise isn't feigned. And any exasperation you're sensing stems from the fact that you are asking (and getting replies from) a bunch of salty old farts who answer the same questions over and over on this forum, and expect someone over the age of 25 to have already done some of their due diligence to figure out what they need to know for this process. So your pessimism reads as neuroticism to many, and there's a low tolerance for that around here. Nobody here is insulting or belittling you, but we're not going to sugar coat anything either. And we're all doing this for free - nobody here gets paid to respond to you - so keep in mind that we're only trying to be helpful, in our own ways.

1) Regardless of what my chances are, how do I improve them? My pre-med advisor, who has been doing this 35 years, agrees with you folks, but a 3.83 is a 3.83.
You rock the MCAT, beef up your ECs, and work on writing a compelling personal statement. From what you've said here, I'm sure you have plenty of fodder to work with.
...a 3.83 is a d*mn good GPA. <--FTFY

2) I don't have any extracurriculars except shadowing, and school band/choir, so what would you say is also important? Learning languages, playing sports, volunteering, something else?
I think you have more ECs than you think...
You said you had volunteering - keep that up or pick it back up if you've stopped. Anything that helps underserved/vulnerable populations is well received on an app. Clinical volunteering is great, but not necessary. Habitat for Humanity, ESL tutoring, Big Brother/Big Sister, Soup Kitchens, etc. are all good.
Also, what have you been doing to pay the bills for the last ~20 years? Work experience counts as an EC for these purposes.
And what prompted the head of the drug development center to write you a LOR? Did you do work with him? That would also count.

3) I'm capable of doing research, I just don't have any legitimacy, so is it possible to find a front at a med school who'll be first author if I do all the work and the research is sound?
Not sure what you mean by a front, but there will be lots of opportunities to do research in med school. Just like with undergrad though, the odds of someone funding your personal project are slim, but depending on where you go, there may well be something related that you could jump in on.

4) I have $7.52 in the bank right now and no food. That's not unusual for me; am I too poor to apply to med school?
You're going to have to save up some money before applying for incidental costs (travel to interviews, background checks, sending transcripts, etc.), but there is a Fee Assistance Program (the 2nd AAMC link I gave you above) that will reduce the cost of the MCAT, give you free prep materials, and waive the cost of applying to 16 schools.

5) I don't have anything to show for the last twenty years of my life, so how do I explain that? I had some books published; they're literary but one book includes kind of a lot of gay but non-erotic bdsm and the other has the word "mother****er" in the title as a joke because I never thought it would get published. I've had a bunch of art shows, but only one since 2011.
Start by revising what you mean by "nothing to show" and stop undervaluing your accomplishments. Nobody expects you to have gotten a Nobel prize or be written about in textbooks. A couple books published and multiple arts shows are good starts. What else do you have?

6) How can I hide or talk my way around the fact that I'm queer, poor, Jewish, autistic, ugly, and maybe thin enough but not an athlete? I am not some apple-cheeked, blonde 4.0gpa soccer player a school can use to sell itself.
You don't hide it. You own it.
Med schools sell themselves on diversity, not on recreating the master race.

7) Do I need a car to attend med school, and does the answer depend on whether the place I go has decent public transportation?
Depends.

8) The main part of not applying to schools in the south is the heat, but if you insist I have to deal with heat exhaustion every day, why apply there, and what schools? And there need to be a range of synagogues near any school.
Heat was not the reason you gave before, and is even less of a bar to going south. You're going to be inside all the time anyway, and with climate change the summers in the north can be just as hot.

You're going to have to do your own research on this. Check the MSAR, start looking at school websites, and googling the cities. For example, I know Atlanta has a large Jewish population and autism research, but I don't know how close synagogues, grocery stores, or rotation sites would be to the med school/housing or what public tran looks like there. And I'm not going to look it all up for you.

As to why - dealing with your own prejudices head on would seem a pertinent reason to me. But also because med school applications are f***ing competitive and you should cast as wide a net as possible.

9) Do I try to beg/fundraise for another year of undergrad classes to raise my gpa before I apply, and hope I get the chance to do some research in the extra year?
No. Your gpa is fine. So long as you have a bachelors degree and have covered all the pre-reqs, you're done.
Do raise money for the application cycle. I've seem people do gofundme pages for this before and it seems like a really smart idea.

10) What's more important, my gpa or my MCAT score?
Both. GPA shows your work ethic, MCAT shows your ability to do well on massive standardized tests.
Some schools value one slightly more than the other, but again, you'll have to look up which is which in the MSAR.

11) Any recommendations of schools open to nontraditional students and schools that aren't? I don't mean this as an assessment of the quality of the school, just how well it might fit someone with my background.
All of them are open to non-trads. If you want to get background specific, start reading school mission statements.

12) I don't have any LOR from anyone in the arts, and in fact I just got kicked out of men's chorus because I'm autistic. How do I explain the lack of letters?
You don't need one, so you don't need to explain the lack of one. If you're looking for a "non-science" letter, you could get one from a humanities professor, work supervisor or volunteer supervisor.

13) Because the failure harvesting means that about 75% of my physics class is currently getting a D or worse, my gpa might slip a bit and I can't retake the class because I hit my loan ceiling. So consider a gpa more like 3.75 and science gpa of 3.6, so it's sinking like a rock and is pretty hopeless. I had the time to write this because I only studied around 6 hours each yesterday and today vs. the 12 or more beginning last Nov. and continuing through all of winter break and will be back at it tomorrow.
Even if you failed the class, your gpa wouldn't be impacted that much. And even if it was, you'd still be fine. 3.7 is still perfectly fine. It is literally the average gpa for the number ***** schools like Harvard, Washington University, Johns Hopkins, Stanford, U Chicago and UPenn.
So stop bemoaning your numbers and just pass the class.

....Yeah. This was kind of a dumb, selfish build-up of self-doubt, and thank you for answering it, I do appreciate it, and it's not that I haven't done my research about med schools, it's that I don't trust it. Which is something that looks really embarassing in retrospect so I think I'm just going to quietly sneak away and study more and study more and have more freakouts like today's freakout because I have no one to talk to about these things and don't know anyone who's ever been in the same situation and am unlikely to meet him or her. So: oy. Please forgive me for the pushy need to try to verify stuff that doesn't sound true, like my gpa is actually okay. I might go ahead and try to raise that but it'll be tough so who knows. And I don't think I can delete this whole thread but I might try. Sorry. I still am not sure why you're calling me prejudiced and you are all so insistent on humping the South's leg there are med schools in the north and midwest and west and with FAP I'm capped at 16 anyway, though if I've learned anything from this thread it's that 1) don't get my hopes up, and 2) while apparently tons of nontraditional students exist, I have yet to meet or even hear of one so we'll see.

 

[kraskadva]

....Yeah. This was kind of a dumb, selfish build-up of self-doubt, and thank you for answering it, I do appreciate it, and it's not that I haven't done my research about med schools, it's that I don't trust it. Which is something that looks really embarassing in retrospect so I think I'm just going to quietly sneak away and study more and study more and have more freakouts like today's freakout because I have no one to talk to about these things and don't know anyone who's ever been in the same situation and am unlikely to meet him or her. So: oy. Please forgive me for the pushy need to try to verify stuff that doesn't sound true, like my gpa is actually okay. I might go ahead and try to raise that but it'll be tough so who knows. And I don't think I can delete this whole thread but I might try. Sorry. I still am not sure why you're calling me prejudiced and you are all so insistent on humping the South's leg there are med schools in the north and midwest and west and with FAP I'm capped at 16 anyway, though if I've learned anything from this thread it's that 1) don't get my hopes up, and 2) while apparently tons of nontraditional students exist, I have yet to meet or even hear of one so we'll see.

To be perfectly frank, the only thing that worries me about you applying to med school (from what you've told us here) is your lack of confidence and difficulty in accepting facts. Your numbers are good, you have an interesting life story & experiences that you can really use as a selling point, but you're so wrapped up in anxiety knots that I'm concerned you'll have trouble getting through med school. It's a stressful experience, it can break people, and you're not really demonstrating the psychological resilience needed to survive it. Going off to "sneak away and study more and study more and have more freakouts like today's freakout" isn't healthy mentally. It's a bad spiral down. I do understand some of that cycle, my husband is on the autism spectrum and I deal with his issues all the time, but you have to find a healthier way to deal with it. You need to talk it out with other people to stay grounded in reality and not get sucked under your own anxious imaginings. A good place to start at the moment would be your school's counseling center, which would give you free access to somebody who will talk through it with you.
You'll never find anybody who's been through exactly the same things you have, but you certainly can find folks who been through some of the same things that you can relate to. You just have to get out and meet them, either in person or online. Welcome to SDN - we have all flavors here and everybody you've been talking to in this thread is a non-trad (except Goro, he's an adcom). Start reading around and you'll find some of the ones you're looking for.

And nobody is "humping the South's leg" here. I grew up in the deep south, live in NY now, and have traveled all over the country. I'd be one of the first to go on a rant about southern politics that I don't agree with, but I've seen just as much racism/bigotry/hatred in the north as I saw in the south. The only real difference is urban vs rural, and the fact is that population is weighted more to the rural areas in the south and to the urban centers in the north, which is how you get blue vs red states. Southern urban centers can be just as tolerent, liberal, and interesting as any northern city. And guess where med schools tend to be located ... in the cities. So, in the liberal, urban areas.
Nobody's going to twist your arm to apply or go to the south if you don't want to, and yes, there are more than enough med schools in the rest of the country to use your 16 freebies on. Just don't make blanket statements about places you haven't been to. That tends to get folks riled.

 

[ngrd2]

I'm fine. I'm also just inadvertently annoying people so much they feel compelled to lie and I've been down that road and this is not helpful to me at all so I'm deleting my account. Apologies to everyone here; I should've spent a lot of time looking around before I asked any questions.

 

[QofQuimica]

Not clear if you were specifically responding to me even though you quoted my post. But FWIW, I'm female and a Southern Jew, albeit not gay, and I'm guessing it's probably fair to say that I have significantly more experience than you do with growing up, living, and working as a religious minority in the South. I would point out to you that, outside of NYC, the largest contingent of Jews in this entire nation is located right here in my home state of Florida, in the city of Miami, which happens to have two medical schools (plus a DO school up in Ft Lauderdale one county to the north, and a fourth medical school up in Palm Beach County). Southeast FL also has an extensive gay community. That being said, I have zero interest in trying to convince you of anything that you are uninterested in considering. And your posts seem to suggest that you have much larger personal issues to contend with before you worry about getting into (or through) medical school. I'd suggest that you start there, because coming to terms with "what happened to you" is something you should do for your own well-being, regardless of whether or not you ultimately attend medical school.