3) What's your sign? - med student
4) Briefly describe your career and or academic history. Including your pre-doctor life (if applicable) and bouts of time in between school. What makes you non-trad? - decided in my junior year of college that medical school might be a good idea, and then started taking pre-med classes. I somehow finished them in two years...but after that, I wasn't sure if med school was right for me. I went ahead and applied anyway, and spent a few years working in social services. I did get in, but it was difficult. This was probably because my undergraduate college didn't believe in grades...like at all. We got "narrative evaluations" and so my transcript was 31 pages long...
5) What propelled you to switch into the medical field? - Honestly? I didn't think I could do it. So I did.
6) Family status... married? children? how old are they? - married and contemplating children w/in the next year or two.
7) What's your experience with the MCAT? If you are a successful applicant will you share your academic stats and application highlights? - MCAT - third time was the charm. Managed to get a 29S (I think)...it might have been 30S...I'm not sure. I spent two years working with special needs youth in the inner city, which affirmed that I do NOT want to be a social worker. Helped to run an indigent medication program at a small community health center for a summer. Did undergraduate research in cognitive neuroscience...it was basically me playing w/ photoshop.
8) Biggest hurdle getting to med school - getting in. seriously.
9) Are you going MD or DO? Why? - DO, for a combination of factors. I applied to both simultaneously, because to me, there wasn't really a difference. Both take two years of science classes. Both do two years of rotations. Both do residencies. I basically researched schools and applied to ones that appealed to me for some reason. Either they emphasized community service or they were in a neat location (University of Colorado, I'm looking at you) or my husband liked the area or we had family there. I didn't apply anywhere I wouldn't have wanted to live. I interviewed at both MD and DO schools and liked the DO schools better, so here I am. After nearly two years, I would say that there is little/no difference between the two. I worked at Harvard last summer and easily held my own with the Harvard medical students.
10) Best advice to other pre-meds (non-trad or not)? - Don't be annoying. When you interview, don't ask me about treatment of asystole, because chances are I've forgotten or will think you're showboating. Ask about weather, bars, roads, things that matter.
11) Anything else you'd like to say... or something cool about your story you'd like to share? - the hardest part is getting in...but make sure you want to do this, because at the end of your first year, you're already crazy in debt and have no marketable skills.
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