What really matters when it comes to choosing a post-bacc pre-med program?
May 10, 2011 12:02 PM Subscribe
I'm considering applying to medical school as a nontraditional applicant (ie, humanities major, five years out from college, work thus far in entirely unrelated fields). I need some information on post-bacc pre-med programs to help me figure out my game plan.
I've got two related questions regarding post-baccs:
I've got two related questions regarding post-baccs:
- Which is more important:
- getting started on post-bacc studies as soon as possible (i.e. this fall), so as not to further delay med school enrollment? (I'm already looking at earliest possible med school enrollment at age 30.)
- delaying post-bacc enrollment by six months or a year in order to have more selection among post-bacc programs.
- As someone with almost no pre-med science on my undergraduate transcript, is it important for me to enroll in a prestigious post-bacc program? Or are solid grades really all that matters?
Response by poster: Thanks; I've seen both of those. jchaw, the program that article describes is available only to current undergraduates, and so is inapplicable for me. valkyryn, the question you link to seems to deal mainly with timing, and so has information related to the first part of my question, but not the second. If you wouldn't mind, I'd love your opinion on the second part.
posted by ocherdraco at 1:01 PM on May 10, 2011
posted by ocherdraco at 1:01 PM on May 10, 2011
Best answer: Medical school admissions are pretty cutthroat. My dad has served on the admissions committee of the med school at which he is a faculty member, and despite the fact that they're unranked--they refuse to fill out the questionnaire--they get just under a thousand applications for about 115 spots. You're going to need a good MCAT score (28 of 45 puts you around the 50th percentile of all admitted students), a GPA in excess of 3.5 (50th percentile again), and a good score on organic chemistry (the only individual grade they actually look at). If you want any kind of realistic chance of being sure you're going to get in somewhere. Check the table.
Getting all of that from a great program is going to look better than getting it from nowhere special. And because you're competing against people who did go to Harvard, Princeton, Duke, Notre Dame, etc., a non-traditional student with no demonstrated commitment to the discipline is going to need all the help she can get. Remember, you're competing with not only other people in similar programs, but people who graduated from Ivy League programs, spent two years working in orphanages in Africa, caring for developmentally disabled adults in a convent, or doing biomedical research in industry, and are now applying to med school.
More than that, you should investigate the post-bacc's linkage programs. Columbia has a setup where if you commit to a particular med school while in the program, you're guaranteed admission upon successful completion and meeting the other admissions requirements (MCAT, GPA, etc.). That's nothing to sneeze at. But even Columbia doesn't have linkage with its own med school; you need to drop a bit down the rankings. So a post-bacc program from a less influential university isn't going to have the same quality of linkage, if it has such program at all.
But the short answer is, yes, the prestige of your program is going to matter, and linkage isn't something you want to ignore. Also, sticking with an actual program is going to look a lot better than throwing a few courses together and taking the MCAT.
I really do think you should look at Columbia, as it's conveniently located for you, and you're already dealing with the cost of living in New York, so that at least won't be a shocker. You certainly aren't going to do much better, and tuition isn't all that much higher there than it is elsewhere.
If you want more personal info, feel free to MeMail/email me.
posted by valkyryn at 1:25 PM on May 10, 2011 [1 favorite]
Getting all of that from a great program is going to look better than getting it from nowhere special. And because you're competing against people who did go to Harvard, Princeton, Duke, Notre Dame, etc., a non-traditional student with no demonstrated commitment to the discipline is going to need all the help she can get. Remember, you're competing with not only other people in similar programs, but people who graduated from Ivy League programs, spent two years working in orphanages in Africa, caring for developmentally disabled adults in a convent, or doing biomedical research in industry, and are now applying to med school.
More than that, you should investigate the post-bacc's linkage programs. Columbia has a setup where if you commit to a particular med school while in the program, you're guaranteed admission upon successful completion and meeting the other admissions requirements (MCAT, GPA, etc.). That's nothing to sneeze at. But even Columbia doesn't have linkage with its own med school; you need to drop a bit down the rankings. So a post-bacc program from a less influential university isn't going to have the same quality of linkage, if it has such program at all.
But the short answer is, yes, the prestige of your program is going to matter, and linkage isn't something you want to ignore. Also, sticking with an actual program is going to look a lot better than throwing a few courses together and taking the MCAT.
I really do think you should look at Columbia, as it's conveniently located for you, and you're already dealing with the cost of living in New York, so that at least won't be a shocker. You certainly aren't going to do much better, and tuition isn't all that much higher there than it is elsewhere.
If you want more personal info, feel free to MeMail/email me.
posted by valkyryn at 1:25 PM on May 10, 2011 [1 favorite]
I have a friend who did the Columbia post-bacc to get into vet school in her early 30s, and it was great for her. If you like living in NYC, that seems like a natural.
posted by LobsterMitten at 1:30 PM on May 10, 2011
posted by LobsterMitten at 1:30 PM on May 10, 2011
Response by poster: Awesome. Thanks, folks. Columbia is absolutely a program I'm considering; it's just got a bit of sticker shock for me.
posted by ocherdraco at 1:33 PM on May 10, 2011
posted by ocherdraco at 1:33 PM on May 10, 2011
it's just got a bit of sticker shock for me.
There is that. But other similarly-situated programs aren't a whole lot cheaper. BU is actually more expensive. It's important to establish an upward academic trajectory for your CV.
Here's the thing: the only way this doesn't wind up working out is if 1) you bail before finishing, or 2) the health care system implodes. You can't do anything about the latter (and if that happens, you're screwed even if you are a physician), but the former was going to suck any way you slice it. In for a penny, in for a pound.
posted by valkyryn at 6:33 PM on May 10, 2011
There is that. But other similarly-situated programs aren't a whole lot cheaper. BU is actually more expensive. It's important to establish an upward academic trajectory for your CV.
Here's the thing: the only way this doesn't wind up working out is if 1) you bail before finishing, or 2) the health care system implodes. You can't do anything about the latter (and if that happens, you're screwed even if you are a physician), but the former was going to suck any way you slice it. In for a penny, in for a pound.
posted by valkyryn at 6:33 PM on May 10, 2011
A friend of mine did Bryn Mawr's and I can put you in touch with him.
posted by brainwane at 7:09 AM on May 19, 2011
posted by brainwane at 7:09 AM on May 19, 2011
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by jchaw at 12:46 PM on May 10, 2011