The nontrad forum will probably have better general planning info and good support from other parents for you.
I'm a non-traditional student who stupidly got an AA and transferred into my state school. At my CC my GPA was 3.64
There's nothing stupid about
starting college at a CC. It's prudent. And clearly you did well there. The mistake with med school and community colleges is when you do your science prereqs or GPA redemption at a CC. Do the hard work at a university.
but since it doesn't transfer to my state school,
Med schools don't pay any attention to transfer credit. Med schools don't pay any attention to GPAs on transcripts.
The med school apps get all your transcripts. The apps make you enter all your college coursework, line by line. Your coursework list gets checked against official transcripts. Then, cumulative, science and non-science GPAs are calculated.
I fear my end GPA there will be around 3.0 and probably 3.0 for science too.
Tough love, in case it's not clear where you're at: this level of performance isn't good enough to prepare you for med school. It doesn't matter if you find a med school to let you in. You are not prepared to succeed in med school at this point. Med school is difficult, overwhelming, miserable and mostly academic work for 4 years and then another 3+ years during residency. The studying never stops. The exams never stop. That's why great grades are how you get into med school.
Do I need a post-bacc to get into medical school? My GPA is fairly low
You need to produce a multiple-year, full time, very strong, mostly-science
undergrad performance. That's still in your future, at this point. Consider a 2nd bachelors, but only if and when you can get A's. Any grade you get from here on out that isn't an A is a step
away from med school. There are no guarantees that you'll get accepted, regardless of how well things go, just so that's clear.
because I'm also a non-trad (3 kids) and I had a couple of weak semesters when my husband started his grad degree. He'll be done by the time I enter any grad school so I'll be able to focus.
Having reasons why your GPA is/was low doesn't get you off the hook from the requirement of producing a med school worthy academic performance. You're expected to get very consistent, strong grades, mostly A's, in mostly science, regardless of what's going on at home. So be very sure that when you take on more coursework, you have enough backup that you can make school your #1 priority. You might realistically need to wait until the kids are grown.
I haven't taken the MCAT yet, though I'm thinking of taking it early next year and taking it twice if I have to.
No no no no no no no no. Take the MCAT
once after months of rigorous prep. Med schools want students who don't need multiple tries to do well on exams.
Don't take the MCAT until
after you've mastered the content on the exam and are scoring in your target range on practice tests. If you got B's and C's in the prereqs, you most likely need to do more school before you'll do well on the MCAT.
It's probably worthwhile to pick up a "how to med school" book of some sort, such as the MSAR from aamc.org, or SDNs book for premeds. Get a good understanding of the process.
Best of luck to you.
I haven't taken the MCAT yet, though I'm thinking of taking it early next year and taking it twice if I have to.
