Sounds like the poor kid could have done anything in life, but instead is wasting time being an MA for 2 years and begging to get into a for-profit DO despite busting his tail for 4 years in college. Now he’s 4 years behind (with the mission and 2 failed cycles) and facing 7-10 years of indentured servitude to end up with 300-400k debt at 37 as an employee of whatever mess corporate medicine is in ten years from now.

Good news is it does become a little more of a meritocracy during residency and fellowship and the MD school keeps a few more options open and hopefully with a little less debt. Good luck to him. He’ll be fine in the end but these poor kids have no idea what they’re walking into.