I am a 31 year old non trad who did whatever needed to graduate from undergrad. I had a dismal 2.5 GPA. I have had a very successful business career in the time from graduation to the present. I am looking to do whatever is needed to get into medical school. I have called some schools with a post-bac program and have been told that it is a non-starter beacuse of my GPA. I have been hung up on!! I am looking for suggestions. Take individual courses? Second Bachelors? Masters? Thank you in advance.
The GPA issue is the real killer here, therefore graduate school is out of the question. Not to mention most graduate programs require a 3.0 GPA too. A second bachelors may give you enough time to boost your undergrad GPA. Individual courses work too, but may be more expensive. As someone above stated, do the math, see how many classes it will take to get up to a 3.0 GPA.
A 3.0 isn't a magic number per se, but its a good place to start. Pre-med requirements take about 2 years of full-time coursework to complete (mainly due to the GChem and OChem reqs). Its not impossible to get in with your situation but its going to take a lot of work. You'll probably need no less then a 3.5 GPA in post-bacc work. The higher the GPA and the longer you maintain that high GPA in post-bacc the better. Adcoms will see that your post-bacc (e.g., recent work) is FAR higher than your undergrad stuff, therefore would favor your recent scores as an indicator of academic success. BUT, this can't be A's in easy lower division classes. They should be pre-med requirements AND other upper division courses. This will (a) help you boost your GPA faster, and (b) show you can do well in challenging science courses.
Beyond what you should do to take classes and boost GPA, you may want to consider:
(1) Why you had a 2.5 GPA after 4 years of undergrad? The classes and challenge that you will face as a pre-med is just as if not more challenging than what you majored in. If you do not address why you did poorly as an undergrad, you may be doomed to repeat your mistakes.
(2) Are you ready to go back to school? Sounds easy to just jump back in, but as most of us know, spending a summer away from school can blunt your academic abilities. I cannot imagine what it would be like to take a year or two off and then go back to school. Its certainly possible to do, may be challenging.
So yea, I'd go with more undergrad classes from preferably a 4-year university. It sorta looks back that you went from a university to a community college. So good luck to you!
