MCAT and mdapp timeline

[eric0880]

I was trying to coordinate post-bac and med school websites and I'm confused about how one would do a post-bac (of either form) and make application to med schools for the next Fall. I thought you didn't have to have a glide year if you fit everything into a one-year post-bac. Specifically, some of the med school sites were saying the latest one could take the MCAT was August of the year prior to admission. I'm going to do a post-bac this Summer through next Spring, but how can I take the MCAT this August when I won't have taken all the courses covering the material? I was thinking about taking a Kaplan course; do I just have to take it and try my best on the MCAT this August if I want to apply for Fall of 08'? Thanks for any insights.

 

[DoctorPhud]

You're getting a bit confused, I'm afraid...

You still need a glide year, even if you do everything in a year. You need to apply and be interviewed.

Typically (chronologically):
Summer + Autumn + Spring of post-bac
Early summer MCAT
Apply during summer
Autumn/Winter Interviews
August (of year 2) - Start Medical School

You really can't take the MCAT without covering the material in some form. It's not going to work very well... You need to do the post-bac courses first.

Similarly, you can't really apply while you are completing the bulk of the pre-requisites; the schools don't know what your grades are, and they have no MCAT. In addition, you can't get any letters of recommendation from your post-bac tutors, since they haven't met you yet 🙂

The thing which might be confusing you, is that some post-bac programmes offer 'linkage'. This is an accelerated track for post-bac students that bypasses the glide year. Pass your pre-reqs with enough skill, and a good MCAT and you get to join the class entering medical school that August. But the post-bac programme only offers the link with certain schools. For example, Tufts' 2 year post-bac has a link with Tufts' medical programme and a couple of DO schools. Bryn Mawr links with Brown, Dartmouth, Drexel, George Washington, Jefferson and a few more. It's a limited list which varies depending on the post-bac programme. Some don't have any linkage, so you just apply through AMCAS and have the glide year as normal. At a school with linkage, you can still do AMCAS and the glide as well, to apply to schools outside their linkage.

If you want Harvard, BU, Cornell, Columbia, Penn, Duke, UC* or any other of the big name schools, however, you are unlikely to find them linked to any post-bac except one that they themselves run, and that is rare (e.g. Tufts post bac is the only one that links to Tufts, while Harvard post-bac doesn't have linkage at all).

The USNEWS & World Report Guide to Medical Schools has a proper list in the back of it; it might be a good idea to read that section of the book and decide what your options are.

I hope that helps a little...

 

[SunnySideUp]

I know little about this topic, so please forgive my interjection.

I do know, however, that Bryn Mawr does have a linkage with Penn.

http://www.brynmawr.edu/postbac/linkages.shtml

 

[DoctorPhud]

That's good 🙂

Bryn Mawr really seem to make an effort to have a good linkage list.

My USNews &WR book is a few years old now, so I guess some of the details have changed slightly.