postbacc

[PaulKu34]

hey guys

for those that are famililar with the med school app and admissions stuff...does anyone know that if one does postbacc, is it better to get a masters degree or just take some classes (via open university) for grades? i actually graduated with a bio degree but kinda have too low of a gpa to apply. do admissions committee like it better if you get a masters or does it not matter? any insights appreciated guys. thanks

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[Law2Doc]

hey guys

for those that are famililar with the med school app and admissions stuff...does anyone know that if one does postbacc, is it better to get a masters degree or just take some classes (via open university) for grades? i actually graduated with a bio degree but kinda have too low of a gpa to apply. do admissions committee like it better if you get a masters or does it not matter? any insights appreciated guys. thanks

It's not a "better" issue, it's an issue of what you are trying to remedy. It's not a "one size fits all" kind of thing. Different tracks improve the chances of folks with different application issues. For example, if you have a very low undergrad GPA, you might want to take more undergrad courses (via postbac, formal or informal), as these will be averaged in. If you are missing or need to retake some of the prereqs, you need to go this route too. If you have a slightly better GPA (over a 3.0), or have exhausted most of the upper level undergrad courses, then a special masters (SMP) might be another option. Formal postbacs and SMPs both have pretty good track records for getting folks into med school, as they are pretty competitive and selective to get into themselves, and they offer certain advising and market you to med schools pretty effectively, which might make it worth it for some. Someone who has been out of school for a while but just needs to show a current proficiency in sciences, might find a hard science masters to be just the thing.
So no, adcoms won't like one better than the other -- it really needs to be tailored to address your needs. Having grad degrees is good, and in my opinion is looked at as a nice EC, but won't really address low UG GPA issues in the same way that a postbac would. So you need to identify your problem and move forward from there. Hope that helps. Good luck.

 

[relentless11]

I agree with Law2Doc's statement that it depends on what you want to do. Only thing I have to add is open campus programs are usually quite a hassel due to costs, and registering for classes. You are usually the last priority to register since students in degree-earning programs need to be favored for obvious reasons.

However if you are unable to get into an official post-bacc program, or even grad school, then doing some non-official (including open campus) post-bacc may at least be a stepping stone to get you into an official post-bacc or grad program (if not med school) by being an intermediate way to boost your GPA. I don't think any open campus program has a GPA requirement, so that is the good thing.

I did open campus as a stepping stone to grad school. Originally I was going to do that to get into an official post-bacc, but decided not to.

 

[PaulKu34]

thanks guys