Getting a second Bachelor's

[Cesar Augustus]

---

Members don't see this ad.

I already posted here a while ago about my disastrous freshman year and how it equated to basically hitting my GPA in the knee with a lead pipe.

Since then I've turned it all around, been consistently performing as an A-student and can look to graduate from a top-tier Liberal Arts college with a 3.2-3.35/maybe 3.4 (yes, it was that bad) GPA and a BA in biology with honors. I've been around here long enough to know that this is in the "Dicey/you might want to just look at DO schools/maybe if you REALLY beast the MCAT..." category of grades. However, given that my college only allows me a total of 9 semesters, it's pretty much the end of the road for me with that school- that's as good as it's gonna get.

I was considering several options- taking extra classes, doing a post-bac (no-go, since I've already done all the requirements), etc. Looking at the time/prices involved, I got to thinking about maybe doing a second bachelor's in something like Chem or perhaps Psych. I'd be able to transfer 1/2-most of my existing courses and I'd be able to do it within 1-2 years, depending on the school. I'm graduating pretty young to begin with, my student loan debt's remained remarkably low for someone at my school (really, what's another year and $30K when I've got a whole life of toil ahead of me and an estimated $250K in debt to look forward to?).

My question is, how exactly would applying to an MD program after doing something like this work? I'm not just doing the second degree at another school because of my grades (it was something I was toying with regardless) and I wouldn't want it to seem like it was just a last-ditch effort to save face. I've already shown a strong upward trend with my current grades and I plan on doing more bio work while I still do the second degree. Would all the grades just be jumbled together, or would everything be gauged separately? Would I need information/letters from my first school when applying to med school 2-3 years after graduating? If so, should I get them now or ask for them in the possibly far future? Is this even worthwhile & will it help me at all?

 

[Mobius1985]

If you graduate with a 3.4, by my rough figures, another two years of 4.0 could get you up to a 3.6. Yes, the GPA from the second bachelors would be figured into a single application GPA by AMCAS. Above this number is listed your GPA year by year (FR, SO, JR, SR), then a fifth line with all the post-bac work calculated together. Even getting your overall GPA over a 3.5 would improve your chances. The second part of the equation is how you do on the MCAT. With a 3.4, ideally you'd want a 33+ to have a reasonable chance of an acceptance somewhere.

The only thing you must have from the first school is a transcript submitted to the application service. If you can collect some very-solid letters from there, do so. If you can get better letters at the second institution with a more recent date, you can replace the first set. If the second school has a premed committee, you'll get your letter from them and they'll have their own rules about what types of letters you submit to them for them to generate their composite letter (and some of the first set of letters may qualify).