Is it better to do 5th year or start post bacc?

[fabolous]

I have a 3.1 and in my senior year and was wondering if it would be better to do a 5th year at my UC school or to go to a cal state school and do an informal post bacc? What classes should I take in either one (i didn't fail any, just c's and b's)?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[SketchLazy]

I have a 3.1 and in my senior year and was wondering if it would be better to do a 5th year at my UC school or to go to a cal state school and do an informal post bacc? What classes should I take in either one (i didn't fail any, just c's and b's)?

If raising your GPA is your goal, than an informal postbac might be the best way to go, because you'd be taking the pre-req classes over. It also would raise both your overall and BCPM GPAs at the same time. It'd be a waste of time to repeat any classes in which you got a b. It won't raise your GPA that much. Try retaking all the c's...

But if I were in your situation, I would stay at the UC and take upper division courses. It's been my experience that the upper div courses were easier because the teachers weren't trying to weed people out. They were also a lot more interesting than the lower division pre-req courses. If your major falls under bio, chem, math, or phys, you'll also be raising both your GPAs at once.

 

[SigurRos]

there's very little use in redoing your prereq classes because AMCAS will just average your two grades. I think you'd be better just taking upper division science classes (and non-science), that way you can show an upward trend in more difficult classes.

 

[fabolous]

Ok, so my plan is to apply this year, my 4th year, with about a 3.2 hopefully. If I stay for a 5th year and get a 4.0 my gpa will only go up to about a 3.36 and I don't know if this will be seen as much improvement (this is also assuming a 4.0 which will be hard at my school). I was thinking about graduating and just going to a cal state for a year taking science classes. Is post bacc only retaking classes or can you do post bacc just to show that you can handle advanced science classes? My concern with staying for a 5th year is the price of a UC and living expenses when I can live at home and go to a state school, but at the same time I don't know if doing a post bacc at a state school looks bad after doing undergrad at a UC.

 

[SketchLazy]

there's very little use in redoing your prereq classes because AMCAS will just average your two grades. I think you'd be better just taking upper division science classes (and non-science), that way you can show an upward trend in more difficult classes.

Retakes are averaged in AMCAS just like any other class would be averaged. Whether you get an A in a retake or an A in an upper division course, if they are the same amount of units, they will affect overall GPA the same way. Retake if you think you would be more likely to get an A. But I do agree that taking the upper divs would be the better way to go. This is not necessarily from a med application standpoint, but for the mere reason that learning new material would be more interesting.

 

[SketchLazy]

Ok, so my plan is to apply this year, my 4th year, with about a 3.2 hopefully. If I stay for a 5th year and get a 4.0 my gpa will only go up to about a 3.36 and I don't know if this will be seen as much improvement (this is also assuming a 4.0 which will be hard at my school). I was thinking about graduating and just going to a cal state for a year taking science classes. Is post bacc only retaking classes or can you do post bacc just to show that you can handle advanced science classes? My concern with staying for a 5th year is the price of a UC and living expenses when I can live at home and go to a state school, but at the same time I don't know if doing a post bacc at a state school looks bad after doing undergrad at a UC.

Wait, if your applying for the 2009 year, then whatever classes your planning to take for the 2008-2009 year won't be on your transcripts by the time you apply anyway...you'd be in a situation where you're updating schools of your grades...each one...