Gabby said:
I'm starting my post-bacc and I have a question. Would adcoms look down on me if I only take two classes a semester (for now anyway) even though I'm not working? Since I screwed up my undergrad GPA, I really need a 4.0 in my post-bacc. I can start racking up my volunteer hours and ECs, but I'm just worried that if I commit to more than two classes and become overwhelmed, I'm just shooting myself in the foot. I realize they have to know you can handle a med school courseload, but would it look it better if I only took two classes (with labs) and got A's each semester, plus put in a ton of clinical hours if I'm actually not as overwhelmed as I fear, rather than enrolling in three or four classes with A's and B's?
Getting good grades is more valuable than racking up volunteer hours and EC's. Especially if you have a sub-par undergrad GPA. In my opinion, I say start out with 2 classes, and add more from there. You must get no less than a B, and preferablly get higher than a 3.5 per semester. Being able to get A's in two classes while doing clinical/volunteer work is not as meaningful (academically) if you got A's in 4 classes. Your first 2 years of med school are mainly academic rather than clinical. Depending on the person and their background, a med school course is probably harder than 2 upper division science classes combined in terms of the material you cover. Therefore doing well in 2 classes may only be a good indicator that you can study, and do well for 1 med school course. In reality you take more than 1 class in med school...so yea.
Clinical experience is just there to tell the adcoms you have seen the life of a physician. Volunteer experience shows you care about helping people. Even though grades are just one variable in the whole admission equation, GPA, courseload, along with MCAT scores tell adcoms if you will succeed in the first 2 years of med school. Truth be told, anyone who tried can get an A in one or two upper div science classes a quarter. Anyone can do volunteering or clinical exposure...merely by calling up the institutions. But it is far more challenging to get a 4.0 when taking a full-time courseload. The people that truly stand out are the ones that do well in school, while going full-time, and volunteering. The ones that are above that would be the ones that do all that, but also have to take care of a family.
Take home message is, taking 1-2 classes is better than taking no classes at all. But you will be competing against people who can take more than 2 classes, and do well in them. Everyone and their mom has clinical and volunteer experience. Heck there are people with research experience too. BUT, those are just icing on the cake, and don't add into your ability to study and do well in school while taking lots of classes.....their worth is diminished, especially if they question your undergraduate GPA. When you put some doubt into their minds (sub-par undergrad GPA), then you will need to prove them otherwise by exceeding their expectations.
From my perspective, I had a sub-par GPA. I took 2-3 classes as a post-bacc in bioengineering due to cost reasons and had a post-bacc GPA of 3.4. In my mind, that wasn't going to cut it, so I went to grad school. I average 15-18 per quarter. Classes consisted of med school courses, and upper division science (electives) courses. Usually thats about 2-3 classes worth and holding a GPA of 4.0. The remaining units are research for my PhD. I spoke with the director of admissions, they don't care if I took 2-3 classes per quarter because they know I'm working on my PhD (and see the research units). He specifically said if i was doing a masters by exam, or post-bacc then taking 2-3 classes per quarter might be questionable. So yea take that in what way you like.
