Career Changer- Prerequisites Advice

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RN4L
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First (but probably not last) time poster. Background: Got a 3.6 ugpa in econ from a top state school, virtually no sciences, worked in the financial industry for 3 years and am now finishing up an econ master's that I find wholly uninteresting. Need a little clarification on prerequisite coursework:

I plan on going back to 4-year uni instead of CC per forum advice. How long (1 or 2 years?) does it realistically take to get in all the req's and other than the year of bio/chem/ochem/phys & math+Eng, what else is generally required by most schools? Are there good post-baccalaureate/feeder programs for newbies like there are for med? I read on the forum that someone got in without all of the prereqs- is that possible/common?

How long would I expect volunteer/application/DAT study time to be and can I skip on significant volunteering without a huge ding?

With my background if I can do decently in pre-requisites and get 19 on DAT (I've always been above average on standardized tests), can I reasonably get into simply A school?

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Biochem is highly recommended, sometimes required. Those pre-req classes will take you more than one year because gen chem is usually a prerequisite to ochem. From my understanding, you pretty much need all the pre-reqs completed to apply. Unfortunately, this leaves you with a "glide" year. I know Columbia has a post-bac program that allows you to apply without all the pre-reqs in order to skip the glide year, but I'm not sure what other schools offers this.

As for skipping major volunteering, that's fine as long as you still have a well-rounded application. Schools just want to see that you're more than a student (that you didn't sit around studying all day long with nothing else). Many people do volunteering in their spare time, but that's not the only way to fill you're schedule. I work 30 hrs/wk and attend school full-time (about 100 volunteer hours, but 2000 work hours), and I have interviews at tougher schools.

You'll probably get in somewhere with a 19 DAT.
 
you can apply to and receive an an offer of acceptance from virtually any school without taking all of your pre-reqs, but you do need to have them completed before classes start. generally, it is recommended to have select ones done prior to taking the DAT (bio, gchem, ochem).

what is "significant volunteering"? if you're referring to number of hours, it should be a non-issue: seeing as you're on a two-ish year schedule prior to dschool, if you average even two hours of volunteering a week you'll clock in >200 hours on paper. to make it even easier on yourself, choose something that you know you'll enjoy doing.

assuming you have a little scratch, splurge on a copy of the ADEA guide book. that, in addition to school websites, is a good resource to determine what types of applicants schools tend to interview/accept. read around on the forums to fill in the rest. good luck.
 
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