Master's Degree or SMP? Financial reasons

[coffeerunner]

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Hi everyone,
Just wondering if anyone here has been torn between going to their state school master’s program or SMP to improve their application? I’ve been considering applying to the big-name SMPs but due to to financial reasons, I do not think I can afford it (I already have 30K in undergrad and post-bacc loans). The reason is I don’t want to put the further burden on my parents who have been helping me out since I’ve been doing a post-bacc (I have no job right now, just a full-time student). I also can’t afford to pay another 50K before I even start medical school. I’m wondering which route is best considering my situation.
I’ve been doing a post bacc (not in my home state), for the past year and will complete one more year but my GPA will be around 3.1-3.2 which I brought up from sub 3.0. I know this is still too low for medical school). I will be retaking the MCAT Jan 09. So I have I been looking into perhaps getting a hard science master’s degree in my state school for Fall 2009 then apply to AMCAS the following summer after a year of grades. This way, I only have to pay in-state tuition which I get financial aid and it won’t be much of a burden on my parents since I’ll be closer to home. Can anyone please give me their thoughts on this plan? And has anyone actually done this plan with some success and acceptances? I’m just afraid it won’t look as highly upon as SMP but not everyone can afford it, especially with the economy right now.

 

[Lokhtar]

Masters degree will not significantly help in your med school application. SMP, if you do well, will.

It's really that simple. Don't waste money on a masters in the hope it'll make up for that GPA. It won't. You either need to do more undergrad to improve your GPA even further, or do SMP. Unfortunately, that is the way it is right now.

 

[hung]

There are programs such as UMDNJ (Newark and Stratford) and LECOM that are geared towards working professional. They have classes in the evening, thus allowing people to work during the day. Those programs cost about 20k a year for schooling. The UMDNJ program is an smp because you can take 2 med school classes with the med students and once you finish you have a masters in biomedical science. LECOM is a certificate program and the course load is 60% of first year LECOM curriculum. There is also a guarentee for spring interview if you get 3.0 and up for fall semester in the program. I hope this helps.