MBA for DO??

[wannabeapharm]

hello, I am currently working on my MBA which should be fnished by next summer. Ok heres the thing, I am interested in DO School..BUT my undergrad was in Business Admin with a 2.71 gpa.

I've got to take my pre reqs. Do you think the MBA degree is worth me taking now? My employer is paying for it but if I take pre reqs they wont pay for it b/c it is not related to my job.

Any advice? I am thinking about take 1 pre req with my MBA classes and after I finish my MBA, I plan to focus on the pre reqs but my gpa is low and Im afraid I have no chance.

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[TRAUMEDDR]

I read some of your other posts...SO...what do u really wanna be? PT, pharmacist, or physician? I think it's more important to figure out exactly what u wanna do before wasting more time, since although alot of classes may be the same...the ECs and letters of recs are totally different.
Now about ur question....in all honesty....ur GPA is low for MD or DO. In fact, DO and MD avg. GPA is rather similar, both around 3.5-3.6 I believe. That's not to say ppl with lower GPAs dont get in... they do all the time. But if ur gonna be below 3.0 its very risky. Unless u can get in my opinion 32+ on MCAT and most likely even higher if u want to try MD programs.
And no, I don't think MBA is waste of time (if u started it already), since u can always use that degree in getting other jobs as a backup plan.

Something else u may be interested in looking at is Carribean MD programs. But they aren't easy to get into either....maybe a little easier....

 

[espbeliever]

i know a lot of schools offer a combined mba program if you are really interested in that. why are you doing an mba if you want to jump ship to medicine? the mba stuff should be only secondary to getting into and finishing medical school. anything that would slow that goal down will not be productive for you. if you could do stuff concurrently then fine, but if you are worried about gpa problems, i would avoid the mba all together and focus very hard on getting top marks on ur prereqs because those will be closely looked at by adcoms

 

[mshheaddoc]

I am in the same boat s the OP. I was a econ major, horrible gpa. Got my MBA, and starting prereqs via a second degree in Bio/Biochem this summer. MBA shows that I came around, (it was 47 credits) and now I'm hoping my prereqs and strong LOR's as well as lots of clinical experience in the next year can show that I really am committed. I'm planning on acing about 30-35 credits by next august so I will submit then send my summer grades in as well in August. Trying to find a mentor as well to help me through this, have a few prospects

It might take you awhile and i'm sure you are going to need to see upper level sciences. I had an allo school said to ace prereqs and ace MCAT with a 35 (yeah right), but I need to see hard sciences otherwise. I had DO school say ace prereqs, do SMP, and do decent on MCATS (that would be like 2 years or so). So I'm doing it my own way.

I agree with above poster, you need to figure out what you want

 

[treasurefull2]

hello, I am currently working on my MBA which should be fnished by next summer. Ok heres the thing, I am interested in DO School..BUT my undergrad was in Business Admin with a 2.71 gpa.

I've got to take my pre reqs. Do you think the MBA degree is worth me taking now? My employer is paying for it but if I take pre reqs they wont pay for it b/c it is not related to my job.

Any advice? I am thinking about take 1 pre req with my MBA classes and after I finish my MBA, I plan to focus on the pre reqs but my gpa is low and Im afraid I have no chance.

Wait, I'm sorry, did you say your boss is paying for it??? Yeah, I think this is an easy one. The MBA degree is extremely valuable, for anyone, especially for a physician or anyone going into medicine. It is only a one year program and the information will be very useful in the future in many ways, such as opening your own practice, investing your finances, buying a home, etc. I am actually considering doing a DO/MBA and the fact that this is going to be free for you, I would highly recommended it. It will put you back a year or so, but it is a good long-term investment for you and your future family. And, this, I believe, will also make you more appealing to medical schools.

Also, you should consider doing a postbac program. Drexel University has a couple of post bach programs that may suit you http://www.drexel.edu/med/ims/. Rosalind Franklin has a stellar postbac program that you should see if you are eligible for, I don't think you are, but check. http://www.rosalindfranklin.edu/sgpds/physiology/msapplied.cfm

***ALSO: AAMC has a list of all postbach programs in the nation:
http://services.aamc.org/postbac/

PS. Isn't your boss gonna be pissed if you leave after he just paid for a full MBA tuition???

 

[mshheaddoc]

***ALSO: AAMC has a list of all postbach programs in the nation:
http://services.aamc.org/postbac/

PS. Isn't your boss gonna be pissed if you leave after he just paid for a full MBA tuition???

For the list - that isn't a complete list, there are new ones that have popped up, make sure you check the post bacc forum.

As for the boss - its company policy and if he doesn't owe anything, they can't do anything. Its a "benefit" just the same as health, vision, dental, 401K. I only got reimbursed $6K a year while at my preior job I would have had to give the company 2 years after my last class otherwise I owe them a percentage of the tuition. My classes were ALOT more than $6K a year (i was full time)

 

[espbeliever]

Wait, I'm sorry, did you say your boss is paying for it??? Yeah, I think this is an easy one. The MBA degree is extremely valuable, for anyone, especially for a physician or anyone going into medicine. It is only a one year program and the information will be very useful in the future in many ways, such as opening your own practice, investing your finances, buying a home, etc. I am actually considering doing a DO/MBA and the fact that this is going to be free for you, I would highly recommended it. It will put you back a year or so, but it is a good long-term investment for you and your future family. And, this, I believe, will also make you more appealing to medical schools.

bad advice.

consider, if you waste a year now for the mba instead of pursueing medicine, what have you lost? well you gained maybe 20grand for the mba and you have the mba degree. but you lost the last year of medicine you would have had. what is that worth? well if you are a full time doc, perhaps 200k, but if you are running your own business, perhaps 5 times that? that is what you would give up to spend a year upfront for the mba.

additionally, many of the schools that offer a dual mba/do-or-md offer the mba WHILE you are doing your medical degree, so you still only take a total of 4 yrs to do BOTH degrees instead of 5 or 6 or soemthing.

it may not seem like much of a difference now, but if you DO go into medicine, then you are giving up a lot of money later on to get a little money now.

 

[DrBowtie]

bad advice.

consider, if you waste a year now for the mba instead of pursueing medicine, what have you lost? well you gained maybe 20grand for the mba and you have the mba degree. but you lost the last year of medicine you would have had. what is that worth? well if you are a full time doc, perhaps 200k, but if you are running your own business, perhaps 5 times that? that is what you would give up to spend a year upfront for the mba.

additionally, many of the schools that offer a dual mba/do-or-md offer the mba WHILE you are doing your medical degree, so you still only take a total of 4 yrs to do BOTH degrees instead of 5 or 6 or soemthing.

it may not seem like much of a difference now, but if you DO go into medicine, then you are giving up a lot of money later on to get a little money now.

Most of the MD/MBA Programs are 5 years. I dunno about the D.O ones
Also, if you do a combined, you give up some clinical electives in medicine.
I would say definitely finish the degree then go straight into med school.

Also check out the MD/MBA DO/MBA forum.

 

[espbeliever]

there is a DO/MBA program with kcumb i plan to do. it does not interupt school at all and you still finish everything in 4 yrs. you basically do it during summer in afternoon. they work with you on scheduling clinicals and classes or whatever to allow time for this. i think normally this is a 1 yr mba, and its supposed to be a good program. you do some work on it for like 3 yrs before its done though...