Outdated classes, need to retake?

[civ64]

Hello,

I am in my mid-3os. My undergrad degree was in bio. I am now considering medical school after about 2 years of intensive clinical exposure. I live in MA so UMass Medical School is a good school to consider, but their site lists that all science prereqs have to have be taken with the last 6 years. I recently returned to school to take additional post-bacc courses in engineering within the last 6 years (including Calc I, II, Physics I, II, Statistics and lots of psych too). My bio, inorganic chem, and organic chem are all from undergrad, so in the late 90s. I could take these courses again, but I'm not sure I see the point if I have to prove my knowledge on the MCAT. I was hoping at the very least if I have to retake the courses I could take just the lectures online and forgo the lengthy labs. I have worked professionally in research labs at Yale, Princeton, and Johns Hopkins, so I'm very unenthusiastic about doing intro labwork all over again.

I noticed Harvard extension offers courses online, but says many medical schools don't accept online coursework. Any advice? Do other programs look down on old coursework and eliminate applicants solely on this point? Is there an easier way to prove my knowledge than taking my whole first year of science classes all over again?

Thanks!

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[hawkbit]

Plenty of medical schools don't have any time requirements for pre-requisites. Having some recent coursework is also great. If you are able to apply to other schools, then you shouldn't have to worry about it, but if your set on UMass, then you'll most likely have to jump through whatever hoops they have in place. A great resource to get further information about individual medical schools is the MSAR (Medical School Admission Requirements) available from the AAMC. Remember that applicants are not special, and generally don't get any special consideration since the school has plenty of highly qualified applications that fit their criteria to choose from.

 

[civ64]

Thanks so much! I appreciate your insight as I am totally new to the application process.

 

[phltz]

It could be worth your while to call the admissions departments at a few schools you're interested in and ask them directly what exactly they think of your situation. I think there's a good chance you won't have to redo the intro classes and/or intro labs, but you should confirm that with at least a couple of schools. For what it's worth, I was a physics major as an undergrad, and then applied to medical school some 8 or 9 years later, with no interim physics coursework. No school seemed to think it was a problem that my physics work was old.