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Session 43 In this episode, Ryan tackles the issue of a student who is struggling with very low undergrad and postbac GPA scores and a low 2015 MCAT score. Find out what options you could possibly take when facing this kind of situation. Your questions, answered here on the OldPreMeds Podcast. Ryan again dives into the forums over at OldPreMeds.org where they pull a question and deliver the answers right on to you. OldPreMeds Question of the Week: Poster is in need for help and advice for applying to medical school; graduated in 2002 with a very low GPA  (2.01) and have take classes with postbac GPA of 2.7 and Science GPA at 3.3. Overall GPA at 2.37. Because of low undergrad GPA, poster is unable to get premed help from the school where they've taken current postbac courses. Overall Science GPA of 2.7 is because of classes taken while doing research which are graduate level courses taken in order to be able to work in a lab. Not prepared for the classes but needed the job to pay rent and help his soon-to-be wife at that time to pay for physical therapy school. Have worked in basic research labs for 3 years, published 2 papers, and post tier presentations at international conferences. Work experience: clinical research (4 years) and lab assistant at a medical school (anatomy lab and orthopedic surgical training center); MCAT 2015 score of 26 and 3; currently working on physical therapy research and teaching; looking for premed advising help. Here are the insights from Ryan: Figure out why you're not doing well in school. No excuses. What is your struggle? A Science GPA of 2.7 is not going to cut it. An overall GPA of 3.7 is not going to gut it. An MCAT score of 26 is not going to cut it. And it's getting old since most schools are going to stop accepting the old MCAT score. You probably have to take it again. Do some soul searching and figure out where the issue lies. You need to improve your grades if you want to get into medical school. There is no point in doing more postbac classes unless you can do really well and only apply to DO schools to take advantage of grade replacement for GPA calculations. Another possible option is a Special Masters Program (SMP), basically a postbac masters level program that goes into the different category in your application under graduate school courses whereas your postbac classes are still lumped in with your undergrad classes and undergrad GPA. Try to see if there is any Special Masters Program near you and see if they have linkage to medical schools, where if you do well in the SMP, you will have a guaranteed spot in the medical school it's associated with. Your last option is the Caribbean school. Reach out to them and see if your GPA is good enough for them. These schools are for profit institutions and they usually take anybody and everybody. But they might not even accept your low GPA. Major takeaway from this episode: You have a lot of work to do. Your research and clinical experiences are great but they're not going to overcome your GPA or MCAT score. So figure out how to improve those or look at doing something else. Links and Other Resources: OldPreMeds.org

Session 31 In this episode, Ryan focuses on the medical school interview process, an important topic to discuss considering that it's interview season and Ryan has a book coming up on Kindle. Find out more about it on www.medschoolinterviewbook.com and sign up to get notified when it releases. This book will also hit physical bookstores by the first part of next year. Ryan pulls a statement from the forums over at OldPreMeds.org and he discusses how critical preparing for an interview is. OldPreMeds Question of the Week: Poster got an interview feedback from one of the schools they applied to last year. The school quoted the committee stating that they felt the interviewee was extremely nervous, talking very rapidly, so rapidly that they often could not understand what was said. The committee felt as though the interviewee came across as closed-minded and lacking of self-awareness due to a combination of the choice of words and phrases used during the interview as well as the inability to fully answer some questions. Some comments were not received favorably by the committee and viewed as very disrespectful. Poster is at a loss as to how to correct this. Here are the insights from Ryan: This is what happens if you don't prepare properly for your interviews. Mock interviews are very, very important to understand how the words floating around your head come out of your mouth and land on the interviewer. It's your job to make sure the words you're saying land favorably on the interviewer. You can't control everybody listening to you to agree with you but if you're saying stuff that are very off-putting then you're obviously doing something wrong. As you prepare for your interviews, record yourself with a video camera or an audio recorder. Have somebody go through the interview process with you. If you need a list of questions, check out www.medschoolinterviewbook.com to sign up and get notified when the book is released. It contains almost 600 possible questions as well as questions you can throw at your interviewers. The book also has over 50 real answer from mock interviews Ryan has done with students including the feedback he gave to students. Links and Other Resources: OldPreMeds.org www.medschoolinterviewbook.com

Session 22 Your questions, answered here on the OldPreMeds Podcast. Ryan jumps into the forums over at OldPreMeds.org where he pulls a question and delivers the answers right on to you. In today's episode, Ryan tackles the topic on taking a postbac or SMP for a 32-year old science major with a lot of credits while having poor numbers. Listen in to learn more about this.  OldPreMeds Question of the Week: The poster is a 32-year old nontraditional premed student; graduated in 2007 with a chemistry/computer science double major; Science GPA with 3.05 and accumulative of 3.13; lots of credits to GPA's. Should they take the basic prerequisite science classes considering the not-so-stellar grades? Formal postbac program would be great but most of them specify that the applicant cannot have more than 50% science grades completed. Here are the insights from Ryan: Two types of postbac programs: Career-changers Where you haven't taken a lot of science courses They don't want you to have any of your sciences done or at least not a lot of them done Record-enhancers You went through school as a science major, knew you wanted to be premed, but you struggled so you need help to enhance your GPA They have specific postbac programs for students like this poster Out of 223 postbac programs, there are 152 record-enhancing programs Are SMP's high risk? SMP's are great because they're usually tied to the medical school and you're taking classes with medical students You are performing for the school to say that you're doing just as well as their medical students and that you're building relationships Caveat: If you do the math to enhance the record with a lot of credits to take more science courses and get straight A's, the GPA is not going to move very much. In this case, consider a special masters program because it will be a separate grade in the application. Links and Other Resources: OldPreMeds.org AAMC List of Postbac Programs - Special Program Focus MedEdMedia.com

Session 2 In this episode, Ryan and Rich dive into the forums over at OldPreMeds.org where they pull a question and deliver the answers right on to you. OldPreMeds Question of the Week: What age is too old for medical school? Here are the insights from Ryan & Rich: Age is not a factor. Here are some facts and figures: About a thousand a year over the age of 30 matriculate every year into an allopath medical school which is about 5% of the total number of students who start the year. From that number, about 200 are of the age of 35. About 350 people a year over the age of 31 start osteopathic school 10-12 people a year over the age of 50 start medical school Success Story: One of our more recent success stories is Laisha Heedman, a nurse/midwife who recently graduated from the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine at the age of 57. She has gone onto residency and family practice medicine. Is there any bias that goes on with age? The percentage of applicants is nearly the same as the percentage that you get accepted regardless of age range. Applicants who are above 40 years of age seem to be less represented but there is no bias going on. Factors that may be affecting the demographics are difficulty in preparing, getting the grades, and doing things that need to get done when you are working full time and you have a family. Many people who have been successful in other medical careers such as nurse/midwife, nurse practitioner, nurse, PhD researchers have also been successful at getting  into medical school at 40 and above. MD vs DO? The applicant base for MD schools is about 50,000 while for DO schools, it's under 20,000 - large difference. For an applicant per seat basis, it is therefore more competitive to get into an osteopathic school than it is to get into an allopathic school. Do older students have less years of good working time? Different variables to consider: Burnout as one of the common issues of physicians Prior working experience in healthcare as a nurse/midwife or other medical-related What the admissions committee will actually be looking for: Will this person be a good physician that you want to be treated by? Links and Other Resources OldPreMeds.org Listen to our first episode at OPMPodcast.com/1 to find out more about who we are. Find us on iTunes and go to opmpodcast.com/itunes and leave us a rating and review. Check out MedEdMedia.com for all the shows that we produce including the Medical School Headquarters and the OldPreMeds Podcast. We will soon be launching a medical school podcast as well so stay tuned! Email Dr. Ryan Gray at ryan@medicalschoolhq.net or connect with him on Twitter @medicalschoolhq.

Session 1 Welcome to the inaugural episode of the OldPreMeds Podcast! OldPreMeds.org is a site dedicated to nontraditional premed and medical students. This podcast is going to take questions that students post in the forums over at OldPreMeds.org which will be turned into episodes. Your questions will be answered to help you on this journey to becoming a physician. If you're a nontraditional student entering the medical field on your terms and you may have some hiccups along the way or perhaps changing careers and you're ready to change course to go back and serve others as a physician, then this podcast is here to help answer your questions and educate you. The OldPreMeds Podcast is published by Dr. Ryan Gray who is also the publisher of the Medical School Headquarters Podcast, which has been around for more than 3 years now. A Brief Overview - Who We Are OldPreMeds.org was founded in 1998 by six slightly older students who were getting harassed for some online forum for an MCAT prep course. They decided to create a mailing list that began with six students. Rich Levy eventually got involved with the site since 2002 and formally took over eight years after serving as both executive director and publisher of the OldPreMeds.org. OldPreMeds.org has now joined the family of Medical School Headquarters where Ryan has taken over on the role of publisher of the OldPreMeds.org website as well as in helping direct the society that it runs under. Currently, the site has over 10,000 registered members and over 25,000 monthly unique visitors, being the largest organization that is solely dedicated to nontraditional students who tread the path of medicine. OldPreMeds.org  is founded under the auspices of the National Society for Nontraditional Premedical & Medical Students. Where we are headed to moving forward What used to be the nontraditional is now the new traditional and with so much misinformation out today both for nontraditional students and the regular students about medical school prospecting and application, we are dedicated to overcome this major challenge and put clear emphasis on accurate, referenceable, attributable information. OldPreMeds.org provides a safe place for students to go and ask questions and not be judged in the same way that you will be in other sites. Rich is not exiting completely as he will still get on the podcast, along with Ryan, to share their wisdom to listeners. If you have questions you want answered here on the OldPremeds Podcast, go to oldpremeds.org and register for an account. Go into the forums and ask a question. Links and Other Resources OldPreMeds.org Visit medicalschoolhq.net for tons of information about the premed journey Email Dr. Ryan Gray at ryan@medicalschoolhq.net or connect with him on Twitter @medicalschoolhq.