<p>I’m currently strongly considering joining the Army National Guard. If I do, I may very likely become a medic. While this will have no bearing on my choice of of job in the National Guard, I am curious:</p>
<p>What will Medical School Admissions Boards Think?</p>
<p>An Army medic is trained roughly as well as an EMT, with additional training and different experience. Would a med school care about this? I’ve heard it both ways - that they only care about GPA and MCAT, and that this experience looks so good that it more than compensates for mediocre stats.</p>
<p>From my understanding, med schools will look at your GPA and MCAT scores first, and weed out anyone that falls below a certain standard. After the initial round, then they would look at your ECs, recommendations, etc. to pick who they would admit. Since one of the things they are looking for is medically related experience, an army medic would definitely stand out. That said, you would still need the high GPA and MCAT scores to get past the first round.</p>
<p>i might be wrong, but i think the OP means will it be looked on more favorably then a civilian EMT due to the different experience and training. I would think so.</p>
<p>No matter what type of volunteering/medical work you do unless it is groundbreaking and national award worthy it will not make up for bad grades. Focus on grades first, both GPA and MCATs, then think about this stuff. If your grades start to suffer tone back whatever volunteering you are doing to try to raise the grades.</p>
<p>Ah, I apologize for not being entirely clear.</p>
<p>Right now my GPA is solid: >3.9, as a Junior, and with a 4.0 in science.</p>
<p>No MCAT yet, but I test very well, and I will of course give the test its due time for preperation.</p>
<p>I’m asking purely as regards E.C.s. Now, I am aware that such a career may detrimentally affect my grades or MCAT score, and although I’ll do my best to keep them up, should they fall, would a board understand?</p>
<p>Especially if I wind up in Iraq for a year, wouldn’t this be considered particularly relevant?</p>
<p>Additional questions: Would applying to med school after say, getting an MBA (or serving in Iraq) hurt me? Or do my MCAT scores need to be fresh? </p>
<p>I’ve heard that the average age of matriculation is 25, so if I took an extra year to finish my degree, got an MBA, AND served a year in Iraq, I would matriculate at that age. But is that true?</p>
<p>Your MCAT score is good for about three years, although some medical schools may want more recent scores. Also, a lot of people will complete additional degrees (MS, MA, etc.) before entering medical school.</p>
<p>I don’t know if medical schools would take into account the fact that you’re an army medic when they look at your grades. I do know that other posters (sakky comes to mind), have said that medical schools don’t care about a student’s major or the difficulty of the course the student is taking; they only look for the high GPA.</p>
<p>i dont think that medical schools ONLY care about GPA. There are plenty of other factors that matter, maybe not as much, but they certainly matter a great deal.</p>
<p>Just to clarify what I said earlier, what I meant was that when med schools are looking at your GPA, they are looking for a high GPA, and may not take into consideration the various factors that may have resulted in a lower GPA, such as taking a very difficult courseload, or working. Of course, there are many other important factors when they are considering admissions.</p>
<p>I would point out that don’t think that doogie and I disagree. Nobody, least of all me, is saying that GPA is the only factor that is important. Obviously the MCAT is very important. EC’s (both medical-related and non-medical), interview skills, research projects, and that sort of thing are important too. And even I suspect that there may be some bonus from taking difficult courses as long as you do well in them. A 3.5 earned taking highly difficult courses is better than a 3.5 taking cheese.</p>
<p>However, my point is that I don’t think there is much of a bonus to taking difficult courses, and in particular, the bonus doesn’t seem to properly compensate you for the lower grades you will almost surely get. Hence, it’s usually not a 3.5 in difficult courses vs. a 3.5 in easy courses that you are comparing. Instead, it’s usually a 3.0 in difficult courses vs. a 3.5 in easy courses. In that case, the 3.5 in easy courses is, for the purposes of med-school admissions, preferable. In short, it’s better to get an easy A than a hard-fought C. As a corollary, unless you’re a genius, you should probably avoid difficult classes and difficult schools, because it’s better to not take a difficult course at all than to take it and get a bad grade. Med-school admissions, sadly, seems to reward “academic cowardice”.</p>