Hard to find a school...

[Jupman]

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Hello everyone. I am curious to hear if any of you were in the same situation I am in now. I am having difficulty finding a school that will allow me to enroll as a post-bacc student and allow me to take the evening/weekend classes I need.

I am currently an engineer making pretty good money and I simply can't afford to leave my job right now. If all goes well, I will work until medical school matriculation.

I would like to hear from people who were in the same situation as me and how they dealt with it. Thank you!

 

[mmdp]

Hello everyone. I am curious to hear if any of you were in the same situation I am in now. I am having difficulty finding a school that will allow me to enroll as a post-bacc student and allow me to take the evening/weekend classes I need.

I am currently an engineer making pretty good money and I simply can't afford to leave my job right now. If all goes well, I will work until medical school matriculation.

I would like to hear from people who were in the same situation as me and how they dealt with it. Thank you!

What state do you live in? I had a similar problem working full time and attending a post-bac at Loyola University (even though their website says that they have occasional evening/weekend it's not every semester that this is offered). I should have gone to Northwestern for the post-bac instead because they offer evening (but its too little too late and I dont want to have to re-apply to another post-bac). Try researching other schools in the area to see if they offer this, or simply do an informal post-bac classes at a University close to you that does offer such option. (There is always Community Colleges that seem to offer more evening/weekend but I wouldn't recommend because while some have no trouble getting into med schools from community college since they had a strong undergrad, some do).

 

[Jupman]

I live in northern Kansas. I have contacted KU and Pitt State's satellite campus. Pitt State sounds the best to me because it is very cheap and very close. Unfortunately, I am waiting to hear back from them regarding the ability to take classes as a post-bacc and the flexibility of their course offering times. The local community college would be my last resort..

 

[jphwki82]

Hello everyone. I am curious to hear if any of you were in the same situation I am in now. I am having difficulty finding a school that will allow me to enroll as a post-bacc student and allow me to take the evening/weekend classes I need.

I am currently an engineer making pretty good money and I simply can't afford to leave my job right now. If all goes well, I will work until medical school matriculation.

I would like to hear from people who were in the same situation as me and how they dealt with it. Thank you!

You don't necessarily need to go full time to a 4 year university to get into medical school. The only problem you will run into is finding the classes you need to take, and fitting them around your work schedule. Some of the required courses will only be offered during the day, which is a problem I ran into. So if you have an employer that is flexible in terms of your work schedule, you should be fine. I did some of my pre-reqs at a community college so I could work full time. However, I took a bunch of upper level science courses at a 4 year university. I never had an interviewer question me on taking courses at a community college or why I went part time at school. My application showed that I worked full time, and I did a ton of volunteering and shadowing in my free time too. Feel free to PM me if you have questions.

 

[Jupman]

I have been looking into CC's as well. It seems like a good option only the colleges here only seem to offer bio1 (but all other prereqs). I will contact someone from the local cc admissions office to see what that's all about.

 

[Velocity]

The University of New England offers online courses (including a lab segment, if you need it); you can check out their website here. They claim to offer two pathways, a post-bacc and a Master's type program, both aimed at people on the healthcare professionals pathway.

I took one of their chemistry courses at the request of a school that accepted me. I specifically chose UNE because I needed a flexible option: I had less than three months to complete the course, and needed to start and finish on a schedule that didn't match up with a semester schedule.

Their pacing is all self-driven. They suggest that you complete one module per week, and break their courses down to 16 modules. You can access the material at any time of day, and you're not penalized for taking longer than 16 weeks - I think they say that you can take up to one year to complete a course, if you need to. (They also don't penalize you for moving faster - I was doing one module every 2-3 days.)

If you need credits for a lab, there's a lab portion that you do at home. You'll need to order a "LabPaq" (costs around $300 per course) and complete certain experiments through it.

Compared to a traditional undergrad course, I found the UNE online course to be a bit easier. Things seemed a bit more straight-forward, and the self-pacing was pretty nice. Granted, it was a course that I was repeating and I studied for the MCAT multiple times, so I had the benefit of being familiar with most of the concepts already. For a chemistry course, I also found it very biology-driven. There were many real-world correlations, and a surprising amount of organic chemistry and biochemistry present (which was good for me, and will be good exposure in the long run for others, but which might seem a bit overwhelming to some).

The cost seemed very reasonable to me, and made my undergraduate institution seem like a total rip-off by comparison. My course cost less than $1,500, and that includes the cost of the lab materials. They send you the textbook for the course as part of your course fee. Very nice.

I don't know how other schools view UNE's online courses. As far as I know, they're a fully accredited institution, so there shouldn't be a problem with the credits being accepted. It's worth checking to make sure before you start.

Best of luck!

 

[TrimtheChute]

I took most of the pre-reqs at a CC and a few upper level courses at a 4-year university, and there was no issue during my interviews. I was trying to work around my job too. I was never asked about CC classes at my interviews. The biggest and most common question was why I was changing careers.

If you have a decent undergrad GPA in engineering from a reputable university, then taking pre-reqs at a CC should not be a problem. However, you will need to back up the CC classes with a solid MCAT score, and there are a few schools that might not accept CC classes (at least that is what some others have posted on SDN).

 

[da Vincis World]

I had a very similar experience to TrimtheChute. I took most of my prereqs from a CC and was never asked about it. I also had an engineering background.