hectic senior yr vs. post-bac?

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
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<p>so for my first two years of college, i was a neuropsych major. i was taking bio, chem, and neuropsych sophomore year, when due to extreme circumstances at home, i had to withdraw from my courses. i switched majors so as to not further affect my gpa. heading into senior year, i switched majors into the humanities at have a 3.3 cum. </p>

<p>now that things are a lot more stable, and i'm thinking about life post-grad, i want to take another shot at tackling these reqs again. there is an accelerated integrative bio,chem,phys course at my school which i may be trying to get into, but i've never taken physics so i'm not sure if i'd be at a disadvantage. however, i also have five classes i need to complete in order to complete my major.. i was also going to take easy electives in my major to boost my gpa up to a 3.5 before grad. ive already taken calc and have familiarity with college bio and chem from when i was a major.</p>

<p>so basically, my options are to:</p>

<p>1) focus on major GPA in humanities, graduate with about a 3.5 to 3.6 in my humanities major from top five LAC. do post-bac/mcat after graduation.</p>

<p>OR</p>

<p>2) take the integrated science course, which means less courses in my humanities major, graduate with perhaps lower gpa? (prob. 3.4 max). however, would only have to take ochem post grad. i just wouldnt be able to boost my gpa as much, and the accelerated class would be demanding.</p>

<p>im also at my school of full scholarship, so thats why its also a little hard to decide</p>

<p>thanks for the advice</p>

2

<p>A few questions first:</p>

<p>1) what did your science grades look like? (Before you withdrew, what were your grades?)</p>

<p>2) do you have any science credits right now? Count any co-enrollment from high school and any community college coursework you may have. (Both will be counted in your GPA for med school.) If you have science & math credits, what’s your science-only GPA?</p>

<p>3) Have you done any medical volunteering, community service, physician shadowing?</p>

<p>If the answer to question #3 is no, then you really cannot apply to medical school right now or even next year. Medical volunteering is a critical component of your application and your application will basically be thrown out without it. </p>

<p>I think the combination of a weak GPA plus your lack of science credits means your best option is a post bacc program for career changers.</p>

<p>Medical school admissions are intensely competitive (and expensive! Plan on several thousand $$ per application cycle) and exhausting, you want to have the BEST application you can to give you the best chances at admission.</p>

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<p>i took gchem I(A), calc I (HS, A), and stats (C-, once again, from sophomore year)</p>

<p>no idea what my science gpa is, though – it’d be based off that one class haha… so relatively decent, albeit lacking.</p>

<p>yeah, as of now, i have a year to really work on my gpa to get it up to a 3.6 before i graduate (thankfully, its possible). i’ll consider that the first step. i go to a ‘prestigious’ school so hopefully the turnaround in gpa + low-income background would be of help…?</p>

<p>i haven’t shadowed, either, but i understand the reality that i’m far off from applying to medical school–i’m more concerned with what would be the most pragmatic route to go.</p>

<p>like the original post… i can either just fluff my gpa with humanities courses as i’ve been doing the past year, or take those reqs in an integrated sequence and have a less competitive gpa, but less work post-bac (and subsequently, cash to pay). it’s confusing for me.</p>

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<p>sorry, I forgot to add: there is also the option of taking the post-bac, taking humanities courses senior year, and maybe adding in a lab course (e.g. - bio or phys?), right?</p>

<p>e.g. - take intro bio I/II and phys I before i graduated</p>

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<p>A formal post bacc program for career changers usually lasts 12 months-2 years, depending on how much science you need to make up. During that time, you not only get your sciences coursework, you also get guidance to help you get medical volunteering done and in choosing which schools to apply to. Sometime you’ll get a MCAT prep class as part of the program. (MCAT prep courses cost around $2000.) </p>

<p>Most states have post-bacc programs at one of their public colleges or universities. Do NOT under any circumstances take your science or math coursework at community college post graduation.</p>

<p>Here’s a AMCAS post bacc search tool. Select ‘career changer’ for type of program.</p>

<p><a href=“http://services.aamc.org/postbac/[/url]”>http://services.aamc.org/postbac/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>You can also do a informal post bacc, taking one or two courses at a time in the evening/weekends while working to pay for your coursework. The informal post bacc may take longer and you will have arrange your own volunteering. But it’s also less expensive. </p>

<p>Minimizing your debt is important because medical school is hugely expensive with new docs graduating with a mean debt of $120,000-150,000 in loans.</p>

<p>High school coursework won’t count for med school. Even AP credits usually won’t be counted. For medical school, you’ll need a GPA of 3.5+, a sGPA of 3.5+ plus a MCAT of 30 to be competitive for admission. </p>

<p>You’ll need a year’s worth of college math credits in addition to chem, bio, orgo and physics. So factor that in also. (Remember your high school class won’t count. Also that C- in stats will count in your sGPA, but won’t be considered as a math credit by medical schools. You need at least a C for it to be counted as fulfilling a requirement.)</p>

<p>It’s more important to bring up your GPA right now since GPA, sGPA and MCAT are used as screening tools by medical schools to weed out some of the thousands of applications they received each year. If you have sub-par GPA, it can get you auto-eliminated without even a human review of your application. </p>

<p>(BTW, while your low-income background might possibly be a plus in the soft factor column when applying, med schools really don’t care what undergrad you went to. Don’t count on name recognition to give your application a boost. Also med schools won’t generally consider upward trends in your grades—they don’t look at year by year grades. Only your cumulative GPA and sGPA.)</p>

<p>If you think you can take Bio or Phys and do well in the class, by all means do so. But ONLY if it won’t interfere with raising your overall GPA into the 3.5+ range. </p>

<p>Myself, I might lean toward taking general chem rather than Bio or Phys because you’ll need 2 full years of chem (gen plus orgo) and that will be the rate-determining step in your post bacc. (IOW, if you take gen chem in college, you’ll need just bio, physics, orgo and math in your post bacc–and you can potentially complete those in 1 year. If you take bio or physics, you’ll still need a 2 year post bacc because you’ll need 2 full years of chem classes before you can take the MCAT.)</p>

<p>Costs for a post-bacc depend on where you take it. Some charge a flat rate per semester regardless of how many credit hours you take; some charge per credit hour.</p>

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<p>ah i see… that makes sense. thanks so much. i’ll try to finish up gchem by the time i graduate, and perhaps calculus.</p>

<p>i was looking at the career changers though, and noticed that most of these programs have a 15 month minimum… why? given that i would be coming in with some experience, im assuming itd be a shorter duration…?</p>

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<p>15 months --which includes 2 summer sessions–is the minimum amount of time it takes to to complete 4 semesters of chem. </p>

<p>If you come in with some science requirements completed, your program will be shorter. But a caveat–if you’re applying to a formal post-bacc problem (like at a private university), check with the program director to make sure that you will be able to pay for the shorter program. Some programs charge one price whether you stay 9 months or 15 months.</p>

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<p>another thought: does your school even recommend “integrated science” for premeds? The atypical sequence may not suffice to meet the premed requirements of 8 semesters’ worth of science classes.</p>