jchambers4

I am a senior at UMass Amherst and I am trying to develop some sort of realistic plan for the next couple of years of my life. I am going to graduate in the spring with a degree in Kinesiology with a GPA of 3.2 and want to do some sort of graduate school. My original plan was Medical School until I took organic chemistry 2, and failed. I started to second guess Med School as an option and began to explore other options such as Physician Assistant and Physical Therapy schools. PT school lined up more with the classes I have taken so I started shadowing a physical therapist and enjoyed it. I also shadowed PAs and MDs and both were more stimulating than the PT was, but that is not to say I did not enjoy the work I did with the PT. Now, ideally, I would like to go to Medical School. I plan on retaking Organic Chemistry 2 next semester, but I do not expect my GPA to get much higher than 3.2. With that being said, is Medical School realistic? I know everyone always says "GPA does not define your chances" but realistically, it does, especially with Med School. I am not going to lie, PA school was sort of a "settling" decision, where I said if I could not go to Med School I will do the next best thing. I had the same mentality going into the PT shadowing but after doing the minimal hours that I have done for both, they are careers that I did enjoy and can see myself doing. I have accumulated about 50 hours of PT shadowing, 30 hours of PA shadowing, and probably 20 MD shadowing hours. I have not taken the GRE or the MCAT yet as I am not sure what exactly my plan of action is. Regardless of what I choose, I am going to have to take the year off to build up my resume but I guess the point of this thread is, where should I dedicate my time? Med school has always been the dream but I do not want to waste the next year or two preparing for something that is unrealistic.