Best Graduate School concentration that will get me the requirements for Med School?

[CountryGirl92]

Hi Everyone!

I am obviously a nontraditional student, I am currently earning my bachelors degree in psychology online, from Post University (I am 22 years old, and have about one year left until I earn my bachelors). I am going to have to go to graduate school to obtain the pre-reqs I need for medical school, since I have minimal science background at a university level. I am wondering what the best graduate school concentration would be - to get me the proper science classes I need to be considered for medical school?

Thanks!

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[DrMidlife]

Med school prereqs are undergraduate courses. You might find a grad program that allows you to take prereqs during your program, but that's a full time year of courses with labs that does nothing for the legitimacy of your grad work.

Sometimes when you take the prereqs during grad work, the prereqs get listed as grad work, which is a problem, because undergrad science GPA is very important but grad GPA is never anywhere near as important.

Online coursework is controversial. It's considered by some to be a new unpredictable inconsistent way to study. You can't get good reputable letters of recommendation from faculty you haven't met. Point being, expect that there will be med schools who won't take your online coursework seriously.

tl;dr: taking prereqs during a grad program after doing an online bachelors is way off the reservation and you won't find an "it'll be okay if..." list for this situation.

Best of luck to you.

 

[wholeheartedly]

agree with the above.

 

[CountryGirl92]

I guess I phrased my question incorrectly because when I said I had minimal science credits - I meant that I have the minimum criteria to get into medical school (which were taken at a university) but I am hoping to take a science based concentration in graduate school as to raise my science GPA and explore higher level science classes - which I was told by several advisors can make me 'look better' to medical schools...Basically, I was wondering what graduate program will get me more appropriate science experience for medical school - and look good.

Also, I don't see why earning a degree in psychology online would reflect poorly to medical school if all of my pre-requisite courses that are required for medical school were taken at a university?

 

[alpinism]

I guess I phrased my question incorrectly because when I said I had minimal science credits - I meant that I have the minimum criteria to get into medical school (which were taken at a university) but I am hoping to take a science based concentration in graduate school as to raise my science GPA and explore higher level science classes - which I was told by several advisors can make me 'look better' to medical schools...Basically, I was wondering what graduate program will get me more appropriate science experience for medical school - and look good.

Also, I don't see why earning a degree in psychology online would reflect poorly to medical school if all of my pre-requisite courses that are required for medical school were taken at a university?

Unfortunately, graduate courses are not counted towards your science GPA (sGPA).

Your sGPA only includes undergraduate science courses.

If you want to increase your chances at med school with graduate courses, you have 2 options:

1. special masters programs (SMP) - includes medical school classes

2. hard science masters (MS) - in molecular biology/genetics/neuroscience/physiology/pharmacology/etc

For med school admissions an SMP looks better than an MS, however both can help.

 

[wholeheartedly]

Graduate school grades are largely regarded as "inflated" and given far less weight for GPA consideration by med schools. Schools need to compare applicants across something they have in common so undergraduate grades are weighted much more heavily for that reason as well.

When you complete the AMCAS application it separates out grades by undergrad, post bac., and graduate. You generally want the undergrad section of that to be where you boost your science GPA.

So you could enroll as a non degree seeking student and take some upper level science classes.

The SMP mentioned above is another good option. The difference between a Special Masters Program and a regular masters is that the SMP is geared towards getting students into medical schools with relevant and rigorous coursework, sometimes actually medical school classes, to allow you to demonstrate you have what it takes.

While you might have completed the pre reqs at a university, I think the online degree might still be a concern. The focus is science, but they want you to perform well all around in a rigorous environment. So that will probably come into question.

Can you transfer to a 4 year for the rest of your degree? You could finish your classes and add in the upper level sciences too.

 

[wholeheartedly]

Also, academic advisors can be a mixed bag when it comes to advising on medical school admissions, so just be aware of that.

Some of them don't know much about medical school admissions and just seem to advise on how they think it "should" be. That can be very different from how it actually is.

We do have several people on this site who have actually sat on medical school admissions committees.


How are you on clinical experience?


Have you done any shadowing?

 

[DrMidlife]

You can take upper div undergrad science without doing any kind of grad school. Look at programs like Harvard Extension etc.

Either you misunderstood the adviser or the adviser's no good. Maybe both.