Why I'm going to AUC

I'll be starting at AUC in August...which I'm very excited for!! August 28th is the first day of my med school career. Since so many people have been asking me, I figured I'd post why I'm going to AUC (instead of somewhere in the US) here.

To make a long story short...I did bad my first year and a half of college, very bad! My GPA was somewhere around a 1.2. Before second year, second semester, I dropped out to get a job as a paramedic. I figured this is what i'd do with my life. 3 years later, I realized that dropping out of college to be a paramedic was not a great idea and not even close to being a doctor. So, after a brief stint at the Naval Academy Prep School, it was back to UMBC.

This time around, I did substantially better, getting anywhere from a 3.2 to a 4.0 per semester. However, no matter what I did and how many classes I re-took, it was never going to be enough to bring my cumulative GPA to where it needed to be for the US. The bastards over at AMCAS believe that if you re-take a class, you deserve the averaged grade, not the new one. So, my GPA (according to them and therefor all US medical schools) was about a 2.9, even though UMBC thinks it's closer to a 3.4. I got a 27 on the MCAT which is not bad, but not outstanding either. I decided that it was good enough though and would never take it again (fortunaely, AUC agreed).

So I applied to AUC and a couple US med schools, mostly the ones close to home. I got into AUC, but none of the US schools. Maybe I could have applied to more US schools and had a shot, I could have gotten into a DO school, or I could have tried again next year, but I just didn't want to. Now, I'm content with my decision and excited to get started!