Advice on Post-Bac ac versus SMP

[Dsexto01]

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Hello all,

I'm a recent grad from Villanova class of 2012. I majored in biology but really didn't start doing well until junior year at which point my GPA was already sinking through drying cement; I managed to pull it up to a 2.99 by graduation. The main reason for my GPA being so low was that i simply breezed through high school so when I got to college it took me two years to figure out how to properly study. So I'm looking for a program to make me more appealing to medical schools via boosting my GPA... but now as I read more and more posts on SDN, I'm actually getting more and more lost haha. So I was wondering what your guys advice would be for which course of action I should take, a post-bac or SMP? Also, keep in mind that since I was a biology major, I fulfilled all the pre-reqs for medical school along with an excess of extra science courses (mainly in biology).

I'm trying to figure out whether or not I should take an Academic Enhancing post-bac program to boost my GPA or to take an SMP to prove to med schools that I can hack it.

Thank you for any advice/thoughts!

 

[chayo234]

Hello all,

I'm a recent grad from Villanova class of 2012. I majored in biology but really didn't start doing well until junior year at which point my GPA was already sinking through drying cement; I managed to pull it up to a 2.99 by graduation. The main reason for my GPA being so low was that i simply breezed through high school so when I got to college it took me two years to figure out how to properly study. So I'm looking for a program to make me more appealing to medical schools via boosting my GPA... but now as I read more and more posts on SDN, I'm actually getting more and more lost haha. So I was wondering what your guys advice would be for which course of action I should take, a post-bac or SMP? Also, keep in mind that since I was a biology major, I fulfilled all the pre-reqs for medical school along with an excess of extra science courses (mainly in biology).

I'm trying to figure out whether or not I should take an Academic Enhancing post-bac program to boost my GPA or to take an SMP to prove to med schools that I can hack it.

Thank you for any advice/thoughts!

Choosing between post-bacc and SMP is a tough decision. For most people, they go to the post-bacc route because it is cheaper and easier to get into. Getting into a competitive SMP with linkage to medical school is the quickest route for someone who is borderline like yourself imo. It really depends on what kind of background besides GPA you have. If you have already finished your MCAT with a good score, done quite a bit of extra-curriculars, then I recommend SMP programs. If you need to do either of the aforementioned items, then post-bacc might be a better fit for you.

Good luck!

 

[JSReed]

Have you taken the MCAT, or do you feel like you would be ready to in January (assuming you wanted to start something by next fall)? Most SMP's require a decent to good MCAT score, so that might be a deciding factor. If you don't feel ready, then maybe taking more upper division sciences, retaking pre-reqs you did poorly in, and using some of that time to study for the MCAT would be a better idea.

If you go smp, make sure that you take at least one more undergraduate course before then to get yourself over 3.0. Its a pretty important cut off i'm told.