What are my chances at NYU Stern MBA for Fall 2025 in Round 1 with a GMAT waiver and no work experience?

princeap657

Columbia's post-bacc pre-med program was the most challenging and trying time of my life—hands down, no social life and, in my honest opinion, more demanding than roles in IB. Regarding the linkage programs, they guarantee admission into a handful of medical schools. While most still require the MCAT, the required scores are not as high as usual. Additionally, there are some lesser-known schools within the linkage program that don’t require the MCAT at all.

Oh and to answer your question, yes I did have to take the MCAT because my GPA wasn’t high enough to qualify for linkage, I’ll admit.

I’ll be honest, I regret ever having gone to Columbia, and I was forced into it by my parents. Initially, they promised to fund me all throughout; however, when I completed the program, they changed their tune and told me that I was out on my own. 
 

I would have been just fine without Columbia, and I regret not having put my foot down. At the time, I was building the foundation in my career, after all, I did land two IB internships, I would have found a job if only I just had more faith in myself and tried harder, but I was only 24 at the time, so I was far too weak to fight back.

As for why you were looking into Columbia’s post-bacc, I'm curious—were you thinking about becoming a doctor at some point?

As for being smart, I may be, or I may not be, but luck hasn't been on my side, which really makes me think. After all, what’s the use of being smart if you're struggling financially? It seems like society only values money, which is a sad truth to reckon with.

I was considering an MD/PhD at one point and then just possibly an MD. I’m interested in psychiatry/neuroscience. What kind of doctor did you want to be?

The MD/PhD required 1 year in the hospital so I spent 8mo in various neuroscience roles until I wasn’t into it anymore. Research moves so slow and it was a bit more boring than I originally thought it would be, so then was thinking of just an MD for psychiatry.

I studied for the MCAT and I was good at some topics like Physics, but was frustrated by other subjects like biology (lots of memorization, less intuition than Physics), biochem and organic chem. I didn’t have all the prereqs and thought I could just study for them in the MCAT and do well and apply for med schools that didn’t require the prereqs, but my MCAT studying was just lackluster.

I took a Kaplan MCAT review course, but it was not comprehensive at all. I wanted a top MCAT score, not just mediocre. I decided that I needed to take the full courses that I didn’t take in college, so I enrolled in a Biology course at a local college. The professor had a horrible score on ‘rate my professor’ and after a week I was learning nothing in the class and decided to drop the course.

Then I found out about the Columbia post-bacc pre-med program. It looked like just what I needed, especially with the linkages that didn’t require the MCAT. I researched the program extensively and read all kind of reviews on Student Doctor dot net. The program seemed easy to get into and extremely difficult to obtain top grades. I also read there was a biology professor in the second year that was absolutely screwing people.

The other thing about Columbia was the cost. It was a lot of money. My Dad said he would pay for it all, but I was receiving backlash from my siblings about it so didn’t let him pay. Then I saw a finance position open up at Columbia and I thought I might be able to get free tuition with it, but when I went in to the interview, they told me the position had just been filled.

I’m still intrigued about being a psychiatrist, but the amount of work to get there is massive. And then, I could make it all the way and sit in front of a person and give good advice and medication to them all for them to ignore my advice and not take the medication. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. Maybe someday I will try the Columbia post-bacc premed program when I am older, but am interested in other things for now. And I find finance very interesting. I did have a lot of good experiences on my journey as I’m sure you had some, but I’m also thinking of an MBA and genuinely like business subjects significantly more than the subjects in premed and med school.