Can you do postbacc part time?

[Bancrofti]

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I recently graduated, and just took my MCAT yesterday. Going to let my brain cool off for a ltitle but I'm going to have to finally start thinking about how I'm going to go about this process. My issue is my undergraduate GPA, though I completed all the pre-reqs. So I need to do a postbacc to have a chance at any US school. I never applied to a graduate school for this fall because I was too busy over the last school year. I'm going to look into it but I'm pretty sure starting anywhere this fall would be out of the question (unless maybe I could somehow get in at my undergrad school due to being a past student).

Anyways, my main question is this: I currently work part-time at a hospital, and have been asked if I want to put in more hours to fill any schedule openings they have. I also just interviewed for a full-time research position, which they say the person they accept, will need to be on board for at least a year. Either way, I'm not in a financial position to not begin working more since I have so much debt already from undergrad and other bills to pay along with family contributions. I know I would like to do a postbacc but the reason I even have to consider it is that I had to work so much during undergrad that my grades suffered due to lack of free time. Though in retrospect I can see what changes I could have made to allow for me to do better, but I can't imagine increasing to a 35-40 hour work week while simultaneously taking a course load that's heavier.

So are you allowed to work on the courses part-time? If so, could you still apply to medical schools after a year of taking courses even though you may not have finished the degree yet? I searched to see if anyone posted about working while doing this, which I'm sure many non-trads do, but I only saw a thread about someone asking how tough it would be to work full time and attend Harvard postbacc, which didn't have many responses.

 

[mm855752]

i believe there are a lot of post-bacc opportunities that you can do part time. Even my NYU Post-Bacc which they set me up with a part time schedule first, until I told them I want to be full time.

But since you finished pre-reqs then your talking about an SMP, or other masters program. That im not too positive about but i believe there is.

 

[DrMidlife]

See what you get on that MCAT. If your score is above average (28ish for DO, 32ish for MD), then you might want to think about scheduling your coursework around defense of that score. Med schools won't take a score more than 2-4 years old, varies by school.

As for what you should do to improve your undergrad GPA story, again, depends on your number. If you don't have at least a 3.0, then you have to spend some time figuring out how to get A's, after which you have to go get a LOT of them. If you're over 3.0, then definitely go for an SMP. Of the SMPs that offer really good results in getting their grads into med school after a year, none offer part time study. If you're over maybe 3.4, then more school is probably overkill.

You're most likely looking at years of working & taking classes if you try to do a GPA comeback part time. Sounds pretty life-sucking to me, compared with doing an SMP where your student loans are in deferral and you're getting a masters degree after a year. Another $50k of federal student loan debt vs. nickel and diming yourself for years might be a fair tradeoff.

If you can't make enough money at your job to cover student loan payments as well as living expenses as well as paying off non-student-loan debt, then it's not worth holding onto that job in lieu of studying full time towards a higher paying gig. GPA comebacks are expensive and take years. You can either start working toward financial security, or you can try to get into med school, not both.

Best of luck to you.