FORMER POST-BAC DENTAL HERE.
Hey guys, so I know scarce amount of information can be found about LECOM's post bac for DENTAL, so here I am to give the down low as I was on the dental track and wished more information was posted from former dental post bacs before I began the program. I’m going to give some statistics on the program as well as my experiences and opinions.
We started off with 12 dental (not 15). By the end of the first semester we lost 8 students or 2/3 of the class. Half way through the second semester, we lost another student and by the end of the program, only 3/12 completed the program, but only 1/12 was able to get the 3.0 GPA (on the dot) and successfully matriculated into the dental school. The other 2 students fell short of the 3.0 by 0.1-0.2 points.
Just a quick background, I had applied for dental school for the 2016-2017 cycle, but was rejected across the board because I had a low GPA. I decided I wanted to do either a Master’s or Post-Bacc program and was accepted to Midwestern AZ (Master’s), Rosalind Franklin University (Master’s), Boston University (Master’s), Rutger’s New Brunswick and the Newark location (Master’s) and LECOM (Post-Bacc). I chose LECOM because out of all the options, LECOM was the cheapest (14K) and it has the strongest linkage out of all the schools. On top of this, the idea of getting 3.0 for the linkage seemed like a cake walk, but I was wrong. As were the other 11 pre-dental students.
As said in other reviews, we were taking M1 level courses and a 3.0 in this program is equivalent to about a 3.7 or 3.8 undergraduate. The class that wiped out 2/3 of our class was Physiology and I think it should be taken into consideration that when dental students do this Post-Bacc, they are doing the program with medical students. Our class was 155 medical, 12 dental. Most of the medical students have had some exposure to Physiology since it is on the MCAT. Physiology is not a pre-req for dental students, nor is it on our DAT. Because this was the first time that many of the students were exposed to Physiology, it caused us to lose so many people. The four dental students that did make it to second semester all had a C in Physiology.
Second semester is when we had our interviews, but only 3 of us interviewed because the other student withdrew from the program. All 3 of us had under a 3.0 when we interviewed. The interview was in a group via Skype in a conference room at the school. During our interview, the dental school knew nothing about this program except that there was a linkage. They didn’t even know what classes we were taking and when we told them, they said we didn’t even need to take half of the classes for dental school.
A big problem with this program is that they do not care about the dental students. I have thought this and my peers have thought this. We were overlooked and virtually no information was available to us in regards to anything pertaining dentistry. When we asked what DAT score we needed for admissions, they did not know. They (director of the program, professors, and Jamie Murphy) couldn’t even tell us the statistics of the pre-dental students that were in the class the previous year and to this day, we still don’t know. One person said 4/10 successfully matriculated while another person said 14/15 matriculated. They literally do not know. I am telling you right now, for 2016-2017, 1/12 matriculated (got the 3.0 GPA) and the DAT score we needed was a 17 AA.
If only 3/12 of the students completed the program and 1/12 got the 3.0, there has to be something wrong. I also want to point out that during the last 3 weeks of school, dental took Head Anatomy while medical took Pelvis Anatomy. Head Anatomy was one of the hardest anatomy exams we had taken and our average was a 67 which brought down all of our grades. Pelvis Anatomy’s average was in the 80s and was one of the easiest anatomy exams medical had taken and boosted a lot of student’s grades.
If you are thinking about this program, please carefully consider it. All 12 of us thought we could get the 3.0, all 12 of us worked hard in this program and only 1 person made it. I want to remind you that a Post-Bacc is a high risk program and doing bad in Post-Bacc looks very bad to dental schools and has ruined the opportunity for many of the dental students. There is no leniency for dental even though 1. There are so few of us to begin with 2. We are taking medical school courses with no dental emphasis 3. We are given an anatomy exam where the dental average was an F while med had a B average. If you do decide to do LECOM, I hope they have made changes to be more accommodating to dental students. This is a genuine, honest review and I hope this helps any dental student considering LECOM. Best of luck and PM me if you need me to elaborate on anything more.
