Non-trad seeking advice

[Sskamboj]

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Hey everyone,

I just have a couple of questions regarding pursuing a career change but ill give a little back story first. I recently completed my undergrad last year receiving both MIS and Marketing degrees. Now as the first part of my undergrad career and was a pre med student and completed courses like Microbio, Gen Chem 1, Orgo 1 and 2, both physics courses required and the various gen eds. Now I also took intro bio and human physio but would need to retake those in order to fulfill grade requirements.

My question is this. I know I'll have to retake some courses and have decided the Caribbean route (AUA, Ross, AUC, etc.) is the route ill mostly likely have to pursue, but would I need to complete a masters program or would I be able to just take the courses, MCAT, and be okay?

Any help and advice is appreciated. I gave up on my dream once because I thought I wouldn't be able to do it, but have decided to never give up on my dream. Look forward to hearing from everyone. T.I.A. 😳

 

[milkphlegm]

You don't need to complete a master's in order to get the classes you need. You can do post-bacc work, and many are geared towards a pre-health track or whatever. Once you have all of those classes taken care of, you take your MCAT and keep up on extra-curricular activities, then you should be set.

Why have you decided Caribbean? Is your science GPA from before poor? Perhaps you should wait to decide until after you've taken all the pre-reqs and your MCAT. You may end up with a chance at DO or MD!

 

[Sskamboj]

Mods please move to Non-traditional sub-forum. My apologies.

 

[Sskamboj]

Yes my GPA coming out of undergrad wasn't the greatest and I would only have Microbio, Gen Chem 2, and Human Physio to bump it back up. Ideally I'd like to go DO due to my pediatrics interest, but you are right I should see where my grades can take me.

 

[Sskamboj]

Also should I look into post bac programs? I know that would basically be like pursuing a masters but is that something I should look into?

 

[milkphlegm]

If I'm not mistaken, DO does grade replacement, so if you retake any of the classes you did real poorly in before, you can bump up your GPA like that too (however, there's no replacement for AMCAS - the MD application service). This might not be a bad idea anyway if you're rusty/have the time/money/etc. and still need to take your MCAT. Good luck!

 

[LizzyM]

Also should I look into post bac programs? I know that would basically be like pursuing a masters but is that something I should look into?

A post-bac consists of undergraduate level classes, not graduate level classes. It can be formal or informal. Some formal programs take people who have some or even no pre-reqs and provide the needed classes plus advising and networking for research and clinical experiences. Some of these programs (Columbia in particular) also provide a committee letter that does a nice job of packaging you and describing your path to this point (almost like an extra PS with no length limit). Some students just take the classes they need, and repeat classes they feel they did poorly in the first time around, without the advising, etc.

A MS, MA or post-bac classes are going to cost you. The beauty of repeating undergrad classes is that DO schools will do grade replacement and overall, undergrad classes are well respected whereas some opinions are that grad classes tend to have quite a bit of grade inflation.