*Penn Post bacc admission question

[dut99002]

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According to the Penn health programs website, "at least one year of volunteer experience or employment in a health-related field " is generally needed to be admitted to their program. Any Penn post bacc students who can speak to this?

I have zero health care-related experience myself (I'm a career changer), but am wanting to apply to the program. I spent roughly 2 years abroad as a service volunteer, helping and serving people. Obviously, that is not 'health care-related' work, technically, but does anyone know if it could possibly be adequate to cover this prerequisite? I haven't contacted the school yet about this. Thanks for your help!

I'm planning on doing the majority of my health care-related work while attending my post bacc program.

 

[Lshapley]

I am currently enrolled in the Penn postbacc program and when I applied I had just started volunteering in both a clinical and research setting. I certainly didn't have the 1 year that they are talking about. The difference for me was that I have many years experience teaching movement, dance and kinesthetic awareness. That gave me a good connection with the healthcare field and didn't make the career change seem like it was out of the blue.

Obviously, from my example, you don't have to have 2 years of traditional healthcare experience to get into Penn. I would suggest crafting your essays to make your transition look as logical to the adcom, as it feels for you (I am assuming that it feels logical of course!) I would think that your volunteer experience will be just fine! Good luck!

 

[stiffany]

According to the Penn health programs website, "at least one year of volunteer experience or employment in a health-related field " is generally needed to be admitted to their program. Any Penn post bacc students who can speak to this?

I have zero health care-related experience myself (I'm a career changer), but am wanting to apply to the program. I spent roughly 2 years abroad as a service volunteer, helping and serving people. Obviously, that is not 'health care-related' work, technically, but does anyone know if it could possibly be adequate to cover this prerequisite? I haven't contacted the school yet about this. Thanks for your help!

I'm planning on doing the majority of my health care-related work while attending my post bacc program.

When I interviewed, it seemed like people with substantial volunteer opportunities were exactly the type of people the program drooled over (Peace Corp, Americorp, et cetera). While I had a lot of research experience related to health that I pulled on, a solid year worth of volunteer experience related to healthcare or specific employment is say a doctor's office was nowhere on my application. As the poster above me said, I think as long as you can make a coherent argument for why you've now decided medicine is for you and what experiences have led you that way, I think you'll be okay. Also, if you have any shadowing experience to speak of or even if you can just schedule a day or two with a physician to show that you know what's involved in patient care from a physician's side, I think you'll be set.

 

[dut99002]

Thank you to you both! Any other takers?