Best route to take for student with military conflict?

[GoTerps95]

I have been a full time student and member of the National Guard for the past 4 years. Until this semester, I have been in pursuit of completing my pre-requisites for medical school. Before this semester, I was notified of a deployment that would take place shortly after the semester completed. I knew this meant a drastic increase in training time throughout the semester. For this reason, I decided to drop my pre-med classes and just take what was required for my degree, as I wanted to graduate before deploying. I graduate in a week.

This has left me with four pre-requisites that I still need to take. I'd like to get these done as soon as possible so I can begin focusing on MCAT prep and med school applications. My GPA is decent, but not stellar at a 3.4. For this reason, I have been researching post-bac programs, but a lot of them require either all pre-reqs to have been taken, or very few. This has left be sort of in the middle. I don't have many specific questions, just looking for some insight to an efficient route to take from here. I am not worried about workload at this point. Any advice is appreciated!

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[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

I have been a full time student and member of the National Guard for the past 4 years. Until this semester, I have been in pursuit of completing my pre-requisites for medical school. Before this semester, I was notified of a deployment that would take place shortly after the semester completed. I knew this meant a drastic increase in training time throughout the semester. For this reason, I decided to drop my pre-med classes and just take what was required for my degree, as I wanted to graduate before deploying. I graduate in a week.

This has left me with four pre-requisites that I still need to take. I'd like to get these done as soon as possible so I can begin focusing on MCAT prep and med school applications. My GPA is decent, but not stellar at a 3.4. For this reason, I have been researching post-bac programs, but a lot of them require either all pre-reqs to have been taken, or very few. This has left be sort of in the middle. I don't have many specific questions, just looking for some insight to an efficient route to take from here. I am not worried about workload at this point. Any advice is appreciated!

BLUF: Do a DIY postbacc when you get back from deployment.

There's no reason why a formal postbacc would not let you attend just because you already took some of the classes, particularly if you're just planning on taking them again. But you don't need to do a formal postbacc. A DIY where you just sign up and take the courses you need is much cheaper and more efficient. But don't take them online while you're on deployment. Many, many schools will not take online prereqs, and as someone who did some courses while on deployment, you won't be able to have the focus needed to put in the work to get out of them what you should (both for grades and the MCAT).

 

[GoTerps95]

BLUF: Do a DIY postbacc when you get back from deployment.

There's no reason why a formal postbacc would not let you attend just because you already took some of the classes, particularly if you're just planning on taking them again. But you don't need to do a formal postbacc. A DIY where you just sign up and take the courses you need is much cheaper and more efficient. But don't take them online while you're on deployment. Many, many schools will not take online prereqs, and as someone who did some courses while on deployment, you won't be able to have the focus needed to put in the work to get out of them what you should (both for grades and the MCAT).

Excellent reply. I will look into DIY postbacc programs, I haven't heard much about them.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Excellent reply. I will look into DIY postbacc programs, I haven't heard much about them.

You literally just pick a school and register for the courses you need. It's often cheaper and more flexible since you can space out courses if necessary or take time off if something comes up without having to worry about getting booted from a program and losing money.

 

[OneTwoThreeFour]

I have been a full time student and member of the National Guard for the past 4 years. Until this semester, I have been in pursuit of completing my pre-requisites for medical school. Before this semester, I was notified of a deployment that would take place shortly after the semester completed. I knew this meant a drastic increase in training time throughout the semester. For this reason, I decided to drop my pre-med classes and just take what was required for my degree, as I wanted to graduate before deploying. I graduate in a week.

This has left me with four pre-requisites that I still need to take. I'd like to get these done as soon as possible so I can begin focusing on MCAT prep and med school applications. My GPA is decent, but not stellar at a 3.4. For this reason, I have been researching post-bac programs, but a lot of them require either all pre-reqs to have been taken, or very few. This has left be sort of in the middle. I don't have many specific questions, just looking for some insight to an efficient route to take from here. I am not worried about workload at this point. Any advice is appreciated!

Just going to go a little further with post-bacc info- the reason it seems that way is because they are either for career-changers or application-fixers. The career changers are those who weren't pre-med and decided too late to complete them. Application-fixers are those who have already taken the courses, need GPA repair, etc.
But in general @Matthew9Thirtyfive is totally right: you find a school that lets you take classes piecemeal (a lot of state universities allow this but many privates also-Harvard Extension being a big one, same with Hunter College in NYC). Now, they often won't write you a committee letter so it is important for you to gather them when you can (ie if there's a teacher you had recently that you connected with).

 

[GoTerps95]

Just going to go a little further with post-bacc info- the reason it seems that way is because they are either for career-changers or application-fixers. The career changers are those who weren't pre-med and decided too late to complete them. Application-fixers are those who have already taken the courses, need GPA repair, etc.
But in general @Matthew9Thirtyfive is totally right: you find a school that lets you take classes piecemeal (a lot of state universities allow this but many privates also-Harvard Extension being a big one, same with Hunter College in NYC). Now, they often won't write you a committee letter so it is important for you to gather them when you can (ie if there's a teacher you had recently that you connected with).

So a committee letter is something that must come from my pre-health adviser at my university correct? Or are you referring to a letter of recommendation from a professor?

 

[907914]

If you don’t mind my asking, what is your MOS? Because, dependent on that, your perfect time to do MCAT studying might just be during that deployment. In theater is a whole lot of go-go-go, but predominantly hurry up and wait. Most soldiers play XBOX if there is WiFi or get ripped on the FOB...but that would be perfect time to study because 99% of the time you won’t have anything else going on. Then come back, take your MCAT ASAP and take the Pre-MED pre-reqs during your gap year.

 

[907914]

If you don’t mind my asking, what is your MOS? Because, dependent on that, your perfect time to do MCAT studying might just be during that deployment. In theater is a whole lot of go-go-go, but predominantly hurry up and wait. Most soldiers play XBOX if there is WiFi or get ripped on the FOB...but that would be perfect time to study because 99% of the time you won’t have anything else going on. Then come back, take your MCAT ASAP and take the Pre-MED pre-reqs during your gap year.

In that DIY post-back fashion as mentioned above.

 

[daw05]

So a committee letter is something that must come from my pre-health adviser at my university correct? Or are you referring to a letter of recommendation from a professor?

Many schools who run premed programs write a committee letter for their students. Most medical schools require this committee letter, or in its place a number of letters from professors (3-5). Each school has its own requirement, but usually at least 2 letters from science professors. Ensure that you keep in touch with the professors that you had the best relationship with for your degree, and when you do your prereqs, develop a good relationship so you can ask them for your science letters.

DIY means do-it-yourself.

 

[hopefullydoc117]

Just going to go a little further with post-bacc info- the reason it seems that way is because they are either for career-changers or application-fixers. The career changers are those who weren't pre-med and decided too late to complete them. Application-fixers are those who have already taken the courses, need GPA repair, etc.
But in general @Matthew9Thirtyfive is totally right: you find a school that lets you take classes piecemeal (a lot of state universities allow this but many privates also-Harvard Extension being a big one, same with Hunter College in NYC). Now, they often won't write you a committee letter so it is important for you to gather them when you can (ie if there's a teacher you had recently that you connected with).

Just wanted to add that Northwestern University also has a pretty good DIY program. Options for lots of upper level and basic science options and flexibility to take 1-4 classes per quarter. They also cost $1800 each course, so I was able to spend less than $20k for the year of classes. They won't let you take the 2nd or 3rd quarter of the pre-req if you also didn't take the first quarter there...so that might not work out for you.