Brief Profile:
I am a fifth year Pharmacy student looking to attend a medical program in the fall of 2013. Upon matriculation, I will have a PharmD. My passion lies with research and I am applying MD/PhD. I hope to impress upon the admissions committee members my distinct and broad introductory background in medicine. I believe my personal statement thoroughly explains my desires to progress from being a pharmacist to being a medical scientist.
Far be it from me to hamper the ambitions of other pharmacy students; I leave this here as a history of the battles I have faced, and more importantly, what you can do to get into medical school the same way I hopefully will. I am leaving my complete application so you can get a gauge of what I have done, and how you compare to myself.
As I come from St. John's, I face a few obstacles worth mentioning here.
Our program classifies all courses as undergraduate. This is reflected on our transcript. It was a headache and a huge hassle to argue back and fourth with AMCAS about this. The argument that always came up: "How can a student go from a high school degree to a doctorate degree in six years with solely undergraduate level classes?"
Continued from above, since we are a 0/6 with no clear distinction between graduate and undergraduate, many schools are refusing to believe the story even with my dean's letter explaining that we are technically 3/3. It is a detriment not only to myself, but the schools, for misunderstanding my degree. It is impossible to know a true science GPA the way this is set up, unless and until AMCAS agrees with the classification and verifies my transcript
Our classes often have pharmacy designations on them, which interferes with traditional classifications. Example: Anatomy and Physiology is classified as PHS: pharmaceutical sciences. Of course it's really biology!
Schools are beginning to reject me because of the lack of a bachelor's degree. I have fought hard, and got my associate dean involved, but referring back to bullet points one and two, they do have an airtight case. Some schools require only a hours certificate, which I have! So those schools I will apply to, especially MD/PhD. I am going to create a list of schools that I safely applied to, and those that I could not/rejected me.
We take three semesters of inorganic chemistry/organic chemistry, and one semester of biology. In combination with course classification, this has proven to be another huge thorn in my backside, as my adviser has to write an equivalency letter. I also had my Dean write an equivalency letter.
Beyond that, I have great rapport with the majority of my professors and clinical staff. I have asked for, and received no less than twelve letters of recommendation, all from my strong and repeated experiences with them.
// Applications //
Application Cycle One: 06/07/2012
Undergraduate college: St. John's University
Undergraduate Area of study: Nursing/Pharmacy/Medical Technology
Total MCAT SCORE: 516
MCAT Section Scores:
B/B 130,
C/P 129,
CARS 126
Overall GPA: 3.68
Science GPA: 3.83
No applications have been submitted yet during this cycle.
pfaction took the old MCAT and scored a 34 which is in the 94th percentile of all old scores.
We converted this to a 516 on the updated scale which is in the 94th percentile of the updated MCAT. We also converted pfaction’s section scores as follows:
pfaction scored a 13 on the Biological Science section of the old MCAT which is approximately equal to a 130 on the Biological and Biochemical Foundations of Living Systems.
pfaction scored a 12 on the Physical Science section of the old MCAT which is approximately equal to a 129 on the Chemical and Physical Foundations of Biological Systems.
pfaction scored a 9 on the Verbal Reasoning section of the old MCAT which is approximately equal to a 126 on the Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills.
