Going to medical school after receiving bachelors in different degree?

And expensive.

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Haha, well at least now you don’t have to move to Mississippi (no offense to the MS folks… just joking).

Here is a link to the NYU dental school requirements page. If you are seriously considering this course, you should research each school of interest. I would also suggest contacting their admissions to confirm CC and online courses are accepted because that is not the case at all schools. Even if they do, you do not appear to currently meet the minimum GPA requirements.

https://dental.nyu.edu/academicprograms/dds-program/admission-requirements.html

You have a time-consuming and expensive road ahead if you continue on this path. I question how serious you are based on the lack of research on your own. There are so many wonderful careers available to you without med or dental school.

What was your career goal when you started down the environmental science path? Why are you no longer interested?

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Look at the link provided upstream about health related careers. Just about ALL work directly with patients. The allied health professions all work directly with patients.

So are you looking for a job with direct patient contact…or one that pays very well.

Read @blossom’s reply above. You CAN do these things after you get your bachelors degree. Many students take a couple or more years to gain some shadowing, volunteering and work experience after undergrad.

BUT your undergrad, and especially the online courses, might not satisfy the requirements for medical school applicants. That’s important for you to remember…and why folks are encouraging you to keep an open mind about other health related careers.

I will add, it’s not only residents that don’t get paid six figures. Many doctors also choose to to a fellowship…and those don’t pay 6 figures either.

Doctors have undergrad degrees, four years of medical school, residencies that range from 3-7 years, and sometimes fellowships that follow. Add up the years. It’s a LOT of years.

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It sounds like you want to live in Boston, work in a patient-related field, and make enough money to have a comfortable, perhaps very comfortable life.

Is that true? If so, is there a dollar figure you think you need to live that life in Boston? If so, you can use that info to query the salaries of the different health-related fields to see if any seem appealing and meet your salary requirements.

I don’t understand why you thought a bachelor’s degree would count for half of med school.

I meant all premed courses.

Going to reply a much longer response when I get out of work today. All great advice. It looks like UMMC accepts online degrees, as long as they are a science degree.

I mean this sincerely… where are you getting your information? A five minute search on the UMMC website provided this insight. (Bolding of text added by me)

Prospective Students

The UMMC School of Dentistry’s mission is to prepare scientifically-minded, clinically competent, community-oriented, ethical dental professionals to serve the oral health needs of the state of Mississippi.

Preference is given to applicants who are legal residents of Mississippi. In recent years, non-residents have not been considered for admission to the School of Dentistry. Applicants must be U.S. citizens or have permanent immigrant status. Applicants must have completed all required courses at an accredited U.S. or Canadian college or university.

Have you taken all the prerequisite courses? Please review the link.

Unacceptable courses

Correspondence courses or online courses, courses in physical training, military science, dogmatic religion, or courses in mathematics or science designed for non-science majors WILL NOT satisfy the 90 semester hours of coursework listed as required or recommended.

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Oh that makes sense, but no. All applicants have to have those requirements, so no shortcuts. Those are pre-requisites, not part of the med school curriculum itself.

Not to make light… but they are called PREmed for a reason. Pre(before) medical school. :crazy_face:

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True, but graduates of Caribbean dental schools cannot practice in the US without first earning a DDS or DMD from a US dental school.

Foreign dental grads can petition to enter with advanced standing so that they only need to complete 2 or 3 years of dental education at a US school instead of 4.

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One more thing to consider @BenKlesc . You have mentioned shortages of doctors, etc. I’d like to point out, the biggest shortages of doctors are in primary care fields in more rural areas. So are you interested in being a family practice, internal medicine, etc type of doctor?

And yes…it very well could take you an additional 10 years before you are an independent physician practioner.

I was reading "science for non science majors, but I’ll have to checkup with them on science for science major. I’m really looking for my STEM preq to transfer.

I’m not sure I understand this response. Did you review the UMMC site?

So the way I’m reading it and maybe I’m wrong. It says, does not accept online science credits from non science majors. What about science classes from online science majors? I may be wrong, but pretty sure it just wants you to have completed a bachelors of science.

To clarify: you are looking for your undergraduate STEM pre-med courses to transfer to credit-bearing courses in medical or dental school?

As far as I know, that just doesn’t happen. Again – that’s why they are called “pre”-requisites.

Did you read somewhere official that it might? If so, can you share that resource so that knowledgeable posters can address that?

And… @WayOutWestMom – does that ever happen?

Edited to add: perhaps you instead of “transfer”, you meant “be accepted as meeting the pre-req requirements”? In that case, it seems pretty clear – they don’t accept online science courses (even if they are science for science majors") AND they also don’t accept in-person “science for non-science majors” courses. For the latter, I think they are referring to courses that are designated as “math for humanities students” classes and “physics for humanities students” ckasses.

Perhaps I’m misreading it so I hope others will jump in. I’m interpreting it as saying online courses will not satisfy the required coursework.

But this is somewhat a waste of time for this particular dental school, isn’t it? Since they only accept Mississippi residents.

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I see I read it wrong…

I was reading this online.

“A couple online classes won’t raise any eyebrows, but trying to complete the full dental school prerequisites online won’t fly. Plus, classes like Biology, Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, Physics, etc. are going to have lab components that you would need to be present for.”

If you’ve already taken classes online, it’s not like you’ve done irreparable harm to your application. Just make sure you take all the important science prerequisites in-person."

So I’ve already taken Chem 1 & 2, orgo, and physics in person. All I have left is bio courses. What I could do since I only have two semesters left at SNHU, this Summer I could take a few in person courses at my local Middlesex Community College and get credits that could transfer. Keep racking up points. I also heard that SNHU offers in person classes, but my degree specifically will be an online degree. That being said, half of my transfer credits are from Middlesex and not SNHU.

After I graduate I’m going to apply to multiple dental schools and see where I’m accepted. The most likely candidates Mississippi or NYU. I’ll be willing move to a new state for 4 years to get the job done. All you need to do is live there for 1 year to be considered a citizen. Again risking debt and no guarantee I wouldn’t fail. But heck worth the risk.