Post-Bacc questions

[Medschooldreamer88]

Hello everyone! I have a couple questions. I am a post-bacc student. My first degree is in elementary education from Western Governors University, a non-profit online school. It is a regionally and nationally accredited school. However, the school's grading system is entirely pass/fail. I passed all of the classes for that degree however, I am now returning to school to hopefully become a doctor at another University (regular, four year school in VA). I am in my second to last semester finishing a second degree in Biology. I have a 3.97 GPA in this program currently. I have completed about 200 hours volunteering, been a research assistant in a lab for a year (completed an independent study in this) and completed about 100 shadowing hours. Will be taking the MCAT this spring 2016. I am wondering what your opinion is on how my previous degree will affect my chances of getting into medical school? How will the p/f classes affect my cumulative GPA on the application for AMCAS? Thank you in advance for your input.

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[MSSLP2MD]

I am by no means an expert, but have spent large amounts of time researching medical school requirements for a while.

Everything I have come across from public and private institutions alike say the same thing: medical schools do not look favorably upon online classes, or combined (part online and part on campus) classes.

Which is understandable but frustrating. I was attempting to take classes at a local public university but ran into the problem of few night classes being available. Those that were were in a community college, online, or integrated.

I was strongly advised to stay away. So I am in quite an expensive post-bacc program that does offer night classes at the moment. Which, is honestly a fantastic program, I just worry about the cost of everything- yeeeeesh.


That being said, if you're going for a post bacc and your hard sciences are not online but through this, it would seem they would just focus on the GPA you do have? Just make sure you those types of classes on a campus, and do well.

As for how it accumulates on AMCAS, I honestly don't know.

 

[MSSLP2MD]

I just saw your comment about a second degree, I totally glazed over that part before somehow. So you're doing the hard sciences on campus, that's good. You're doing everything you need to do to have the best shot- I'd only worry if the WGU degree was the only school experience you had.

 

[Goro]

By doing so well (and by acing MCAT) the previous degree will be ignored.

You'll need to articulate why the career switch.

Hello everyone! I have a couple questions. I am a post-bacc student. My first degree is in elementary education from Western Governors University, a non-profit online school. It is a regionally and nationally accredited school. However, the school's grading system is entirely pass/fail. I passed all of the classes for that degree however, I am now returning to school to hopefully become a doctor at another University (regular, four year school in VA). I am in my second to last semester finishing a second degree in Biology. I have a 3.97 GPA in this program currently. I have completed about 200 hours volunteering, been a research assistant in a lab for a year (completed an independent study in this) and completed about 100 shadowing hours. Will be taking the MCAT this spring 2016. I am wondering what your opinion is on how my previous degree will affect my chances of getting into medical school? How will the p/f classes affect my cumulative GPA on the application for AMCAS? Thank you in advance for your input.

 

[Medschooldreamer88]

I just saw your comment about a second degree, I totally glazed over that part before somehow. So you're doing the hard sciences on campus, that's good. You're doing everything you need to do to have the best shot- I'd only worry if the WGU degree was the only school experience you had.

Thank you. I guess all I can do is focus really hard on keeping the grades up and doing well on the mcat

 

[Medschooldreamer88]

By doing so well (and by acing MCAT) the previous degree will be ignored.

You'll need to articulate why the career switch.

Thank you for the advice. Do you know how the AMCAS will do the cumulative gpa if my first degree was all p/f classes? I am curious if this will negatively affect me in the initial app process.

 

[Goro]

You're going to have to ask AMCAS. I'll bet that there's a FAQ on this somewhere on their website.

Thank you for the advice. Do you know how the AMCAS will do the cumulative gpa if my first degree was all p/f classes? I am curious if this will negatively affect me in the initial app process.