a second bachelors or masters for my pre-reqs?

[noreally_imfine]

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I'm a 26 year old female who graduated in 2010 with a Bachelor of Arts in psychology.I've never been good at math chemistry or physics so instead of trying to learn it, I always avoided it.however I'm pretty good with biology.anyway, I have finally found out that animals are my biggest passion in life and would like to pursue a career in the veterinary field.I am not worried about the math or science classes as I am confident that if I study hard I can do fine on them.but, my undergrad cumulative GPA was a 2.73 which I'm worried about. also I need to take a ton of science prerequisites so my question to all of you is should I get a second bachelor's degree or a master's degree? thanks in advance.

 

[Gwenevre]

I'd go for the second bachelor's. Sadly, Math Chemistry and Physics are big pre-reqs for vet school, so if you're going to struggle with them it's better in my opinion to be completely focused on your pre-reqs than working on a masters project as well.

 

[Fly Racing]

I would keep doing undergrad work to raise your GPA. Many master's programs require a 3.0 to apply.

 

[Jess Monster]

To add to what others have said, most of the pre-reqs required for vet school are freshman/sophomore level courses (100/200, maybe 300). Those likely won't count toward a Master's program in any area if you were to get into graduate school. You could take them, but you would be doing so knowing that they would interfere with your program courses and that your graduate school GPA would not reflect your grades for those lower level courses. It's possible that too many of those non-GPA credits could affect your SAP report and interfere with any federal loans you might have. That would be a worst case scenario.

I would suggest getting a second bachelors in an animal related science degree (where those pre-reqs are actual parts of the program) or just taking the pre-req's as a non-degree student. The latter is probably the faster route and probably the cheaper route vs. starting a formal bachelor's program. There are one year post-bachelor programs out there but I am completely unfamiliar with them and don't know if there are specifically veterinary ones or if they're more geared toward people looking at other professional medical programs. I think if you search the forum you might find some past discussions about those post-bac's that could also be helpful in making your decision.

 

[Cyndia]

Completing your prereqs as a non degree seeking student will probably be your cheapest and quickest option for completing prereqs. If you're determined to do a full time degree though, like others have said, the lower gpa may make it difficult to get into a masters program. I actually think one of the post-bac one year programs jess monster mentioned might be a better fit for you in that case, especially if you don't want to spend the time and money completing a second bachelors (as you will probably have to complete additional requirements for it that won't be needed for vet school).

I don't have a ton of knowledge of the post-bac pre-health programs, but from what I do know, they're usually 1 year to 2 years (depending on if you're completing it full time or part time), and are focused on completing just the pre-health profession requirements. Some of them also have a 3.0 minimum GPA, but you could probably find some that don't. There are quite a few post bacs out there for people wanting to change careers and do medicine, and since vet med has pretty similar requirements to med school, you could easily find a program that would suit your needs, and if you work hard it can help make your gpa competitive (since vet schools often weigh your last 45credits/science gpa/prereq gpa as more).

The AAMC website has a handy compilation of some post-bac programs here: https://services.aamc.org/postbac/

Take a look through it and see if there's any programs that seem suitable for you, and then do your research and you might be able to find some people with more knowledge of the specific programs in this forum, or perhaps over in the pre-med forums. I'm sure there are also some pre-vet specific programs out there as well.

 

[ADM1220]

Heads up: many schools have non-degree seeking students register dead last, so getting the classes you want/need can be very difficult. For this reason, I enrolled as a degree seeking Pre-professional Bio student. My prior degree credits transferred over and I am a super senior for registration purposes so I don't ever get closed out of classes or waitlisted. If I don't get accepted this cycle I will get my second bachelor's degree.