post-bac with linkage program for career changers

[Cold Penguin]

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A friend of mine and I have had a conversation about people who get into medical schools without ever having to take MCAT. I have heard of this somewhere before, and I had always thought this was only for people who made up their mind to go to med school and were accepted into special early pre-med program upon graduating from high school. Several recent SDN posts also discussed post bac programs with linkage options that did not require MCAT but a requirement of a high post-bac science GPA.

Can anyone provide me with more info on linkage programs provided by career changers' post-bac programs? A friend of mine called some post-bac schools to ask about their linkage options, and his impression was that admins did not seem to want to spill their beans about their linkage options only to say that more details will be discussed upon starting the post-bac program in fall.

I am interested in finding out which post-bac programs provide such options and what is their primary reason to waive the MCAT. I am just too skeptical about why they are doing such a big favor of waiving the MCAT requirement.

 

[drexelmed]

Never heard of this. Interesting.

 

[seethrew]

I was a Goucher College post-bac and the program has one option for no MCAT and that is the their Brown University Link. I believe you have to be 24, 25 or older and be a Goucher Post-Bac student. Last year I think three out of the four linkers got accepted - it may have been the first time the link was up. The two who were in my year (last year) that linked did take the MCAT though, "just in case" but got accepted before they took the test.

Good luck.

The reason the MCAT is waived, I believe, is because it is Brown's policy not to require MCAT's since the majority of their class had been accepted through an undergraduate/medical tracked program through Brown.

 

[Wednesday]

Most linkage programs do require an MCAT score and they admit people as long as they end up getting a preset score (like all 9s or something). The requirements for linkage are specific to the med school but the best people to ask about specific programs would probably be the post-bacc programs you are looking into. As was mentioned above, Brown used to take students from post-bacc programs without MCAT scores. Since they are opening their class up to regular applicants now (not just Brown 8-year track and post-baccs from specific programs) this might change.

Just for the record, some (maybe most?) programs for high school students going straight through to med school also require MCAT scores so pretty much everyone ends up taking the test. It's really not THAT bad. 😛