Post-bacc Options Flowchart

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klmnop

klmnop

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So the obvious trend with the post-bacc forum is kids coming to the site, maybe doing a brief overview of the most recently posted on threads (despite not necessarily pertaining to their situation). maybe a half-assed look at the stickies, and then ultimately (finding their situation 'unique') they begin a new thread which largely asks the same specific questions addressed in several other threads.

now i am relatively new to sdn, and i too have had a history of this a while back.
what i am proposing is composing a flowchart, which can guide students in particular situations to a choice of a few routes, ultimately ending in med school.

i understand this is different for everyone, so at each stop there could be a disclaimer such as "the amount of years/credits needed to reach a 3.5uGPA will vary depending on your current number of credits/uGPA", at which point students would be able to inquire more specific and direct questions such as "if i do this route, how many more years of ugrad work shoudl i do?" instead of the same old "these are my stats, what do i do?"

obviously these will have to be flooded with disclaimers but it will allow those of us willing to help, to A) have a reference, and B) focus on more specific questions rather than taking each individual case as a whole which is often complicated.


anyway, these are my thoughts. seeing as i am not in school right now and bored, if some people would want to collaborate on a flowchart i would be more than happy to beautify it. as a jointly-edited work with several experienced members participating in this particular forum (we all know who they are) i think we can produce a comprehensive, and very useful aid for troubled premeds.

let me know what you think. yay or nay.
 
klmnop said:
So the obvious trend with the post-bacc forum is kids coming to the site, maybe doing a brief overview of the most recently posted on threads (despite not necessarily pertaining to their situation). maybe a half-assed look at the stickies, and then ultimately (finding their situation 'unique') they begin a new thread which largely asks the same specific questions addressed in several other threads.

now i am relatively new to sdn, and i too have had a history of this a while back.
what i am proposing is composing a flowchart, which can guide students in particular situations to a choice of a few routes, ultimately ending in med school.

i understand this is different for everyone, so at each stop there could be a disclaimer such as "the amount of years/credits needed to reach a 3.5uGPA will vary depending on your current number of credits/uGPA", at which point students would be able to inquire more specific and direct questions such as "if i do this route, how many more years of ugrad work shoudl i do?" instead of the same old "these are my stats, what do i do?"

obviously these will have to be flooded with disclaimers but it will allow those of us willing to help, to A) have a reference, and B) focus on more specific questions rather than taking each individual case as a whole which is often complicated.


anyway, these are my thoughts. seeing as i am not in school right now and bored, if some people would want to collaborate on a flowchart i would be more than happy to beautify it. as a jointly-edited work with several experienced members participating in this particular forum (we all know who they are) i think we can produce a comprehensive, and very useful aid for troubled premeds.

let me know what you think. yay or nay.
Click to expand...

I like the idea. I really do but realistically I don't think this will work out.

Usually the people who come in here for the first time ignore typical e-forum etiquette to look at stickies (yes i'm a nerd) or are looking for a personal reassurance to their dismal situation.

Typically SDN members are anxious and rather OCDish and will typically only skim the titles of the first three threads in their sphere of vision on their monitor. I think we've all seen enough WAMC threads or "Tufts MBS?!!!!!"

I imagine the typical thought process to be:
"Okay I clicked a few random threads. I spent a whole quality 6 seconds pressing the far right scroll bar from the top to the bottom. I see blah blah blah. Oh okay theres a guy with a situation roughly similar to mind. But %$^@.. his GPA is a whole .02 pts different from mine. Furthermore he has a writing score of a P and I have an O. I'm also the token leader of the intramural lacrosse team dammit." (auto proceeds to click new topic)

I like the idea. I really do. I just don't think it will work because of the pattern of posts for the past several years that I've been on SDN. Theyy just haven't changed, no matter what stickied posts have been made.

The most I think people who are active in helping can do is open up a word document and start pasting links of the useful stickied posts/popular programs to c/p for 90% of the threads that could be answered by reading them if the posters decided to spend a few min doing research to point them in the right direction.

The only way I can see this working is if it's a popup that requires members to click ok before it goes away. Even then I can imagine things might be ignored.

I'm all for it and am willing to help if you do. i think it's a good idea but I'm hesistant to say that it will make any substantial improvements here. I don't mind answering questions, I just am a bit tired of having to explain what SMPs are or why they are required when they've been explained in countless other posts/threads prior to it. Many times in the same damn thread.
 
I like it. Was thinking the same thing today. I'd recommend just continuing this thread, post your first draft, take feedback, hand it off to me for another draft if you want, see if we can get some of the older old timers to comment.

I don't see the conflict in having a flowchart and having people not read it. A link to the flowchart becomes the default answer. The bottom of the flowchart could say "if you want SDN feedback, start your question in post X with the following 5 lines" followed by "cumulative GPA, MCAT, location, MD/DO/either, what you think you should do next based on this flowchart"

Or whatnot.
 
I'm down - if my help is wanted let me know.

Tho the obvious thing is people will not read it or think there situation is overly specific and that they can get into med school with a 1.89 GPA despite what we say.

But yeah, i'll help if needed
 
alright, i like the positive feedback.
after thinking about it a bit, i realized its gonna be a bit of a challenge because there are so many specifics, and doing it improperly doesn't help anybody.

and i agree, people may not look at it, but it can be used as a quick reference to send newbies to first, and then they can return with specific questions later. also, for every kid that asks something in the forum, there is most likely a number of them that just lurk and make decisions on their own... so this would help them too potentially.

its worth a shot though and since i don't know much about a lot of programs/routes, the assistance will most certainly be necessary.
 
I like the spreadsheet that you had, perhaps it can be reorganized in a different fashion in either regions, AE, or some other popular factor that many in here use to judge which applications to apply for.

The flowchart itself will be tough, I'm imagining all the almost countless scenarios and thinking it will be very huge in the "if this go here, if that go here" type of deal. I think a broad distinction can be made between allopathic and osteopathic in my opinion and from then on emphasizing programs with linkages and those without. Probably before all of that will involve evaluating a person's situation and his/her possible choices and "best" options in terms of time/cost/effectiveness.
 
yeah, i'm about to post a quick draft of the 'individual evalutaion factors' that each student should go through first in order to determine what type of program.

ultimately, we could make one that leads them to specific programs, but initially i think it is important to lead them to the various types of programs, and the academic differences between those within the same category (ex: all grad classes vs. med + grad classes.... or pre-req replacements vs. pre-req first-timers)

edit: and yeah, maybe not really a flowchart as much as maybe the answer to each question tells you the options you have left, and then the least common denominator at the end of all the evaluation factors would be the choices you have at the end.... or maybe a flowchart, just a huge ass one that would have to be pdf-ed so it could be zoomed-in on.
 
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alright, heres a very rough draft of just the initial selection factors for the beginning of the chart. this is obviously not a flowchart yet but i didnt wanna bother with graphics before i had a foundation. any suggestions are welcome, such as:

-more GPA categories since programs have varying cutoffs?
-same with MCAT/GRE? (I don't know anything about the GRE so some input on how to distribute scores for programs would help)
-also the years since undergrad thing. not sure which numbers make good categories

**any suggestions on the order would be beneficial. either a 'tree' shape or a 'funnel' shape... im trying to decide which makes more sense and would work. like you said jslo, probably a tree would work best, but the options would be very numerous. not impossible to do but challenging. plus it should be relatively easy to follow because most students will have only 1-3 potential pathways based on their projected stats.

**also, any more categories you can think of... these are just off the top of my head. things like location and cost, etc. i don't think need to be in here (maybe at the end sometime) because students can do that research by themselves (or with one of my eventual spreadsheets)
 

Attachments

and since i seem to be in an uploading kind of mood right now, here's a taste of what i thought of when i was thinking of a flowchart. i made this for myself this past summer for my own personal options.

not necessarily the same routes/categories, but you get the idea.... my inspiration if you will
 

Attachments

Good work.

I think it'll be interesting to look at ways to say "klmnop thinks this but robflanker thinks that" or whatnot. I think these points of argument are really valuable - they help questioners find the planet.

I have something pretty different in mind, but no time to work on it until maybe Friday. I'm thinking real flowchart with connecting lines, ie Visio. Not trying to derail your effort - if people like what I do then your data can feed it. Or mine can feed yours. Or we can do both. It's all good - this forum is way overdue for an FAQ, and I think we'll have an outstandingly useful one.
 
DrMidlife said:
I have something pretty different in mind, but no time to work on it until maybe Friday. I'm thinking real flowchart with connecting lines, ie Visio. Not trying to derail your effort - if people like what I do then your data can feed it. Or mine can feed yours. Or we can do both. It's all good - this forum is way overdue for an FAQ, and I think we'll have an outstandingly useful one.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the original plan was connecting lines, and I still think it will, but it may be too complicated to do.

For instance, you can't draw out a 5-year plan for every single scenario, but you can take their vital statistics (gpa, mcat, gre, etc.) and direct them to a program type (possibly even more narrow than your categories on the sticky). from here, we could create several separate flowcharts.

ex: if after the first chart the determine that a traditional post-bacc is in order, they would be directed to the available programs. then the next flowchart would again, breakdown their specific characteristics to determine a long-term plan if they were to choose a specific program.

does this make sense? while there are obviously so many combinations of factors to take into account, the number of plans is relatively few, so its doable.

anyway, i'll continue to modify my stuff and i look forward to seeing yours so we can get on the same page.
 
Draft #2

-very primitive, see if you can follow along (DO side will be filled in in future)
-while this obviously is way too sloppy for a final product, I don't have Visio or any like-software, but i can clean it up when the time comes

-suggestions are encouraged
 
Not bad. I like the idea, if you guys can come to a consensus on what might a good general overview of it, I can put it up in one of my stickies. Just be wary that everyone has a different life situation, so to speak, so it would be a task to cover everyone, but I guess the flow chart could be made to be geared towards the most common types of postbac students- juniors/seniors in college with low GPAs, and the "traditional" nontrad. I haven't been able to come to the forums to answer questions as much anymore, so this would be very helpful. I've been mostly taking instant messages on AIM and on email since I can answer them easily on my phone, so this might be a good timesaver for people with questions if they have some rough idea of their goals when asking for advice.
 
Ok, I noticed this thread. I followed the flow chart and it led me to "Take PostBac informal or formal."

If I went on to one of those programs and did well + had a good MCAT score would I be competitive for admissions to med schools despite my currently underwhelming uGPA of 3.1? I know this is assuming a lot, but I want to set high goals.
 
Spikebd said:
Ok, I noticed this thread. I followed the flow chart and it led me to "Take PostBac informal or formal."

If I went on to one of those programs and did well + had a good MCAT score would I be competitive for admissions to med schools despite my currently underwhelming uGPA of 3.1? I know this is assuming a lot, but I want to set high goals.
Click to expand...

Its still largely a work in progress so I wouldn't recommend taking advice from the chart right now. If we complete one in the near future with a general consensus as to its efficacy and data we will post it as a sticky, so stay tuned.

In the mean time, I would present your complete situation on the low gpa thread or one of the others, so users like myself can asses it there.
 
i'm curious as to which route you took, though i think i know...
that side of the chart needs some work, i have to put into place some more things

either you A) have not taken the pre-reqs, are more than 2 years out of ugrad, have a grad degree of below 3.7 or cgpa below 3.5

or B) have not taken the pre-reqs, are less than 2 years out

either way, you need to take the pre-reqs first (if you have indeed not yet) then either A) take upper-level biosci ugrad courses to boost your gpa to 3.4/3.5, then take MCAT, then apply... or B) take prereqs, take mcat, get into an SMP, then apply to med
 
I took route B. I need the prereqs. I would like a program like Columbia, the cost is a lot however. With a program like that, would I need a SMP? What does one do during a glide year?
 
Spikebd said:
I took route B. I need the prereqs. I would like a program like Columbia, the cost is a lot however. With a program like that, would I need a SMP? What does one do during a glide year?
Click to expand...

Volunteer/Work/Research... I see you posted elsewhere as I suggested, good. We'll move the discussion over to one of those threads so as to not convolute this one with digression. My general opinion is above, but we'll see what others have to say before I respond again. Be patient, this is a common situation and there's lots of "expertise" here.
 
no love?
i guess all early enthusiasm faded
 
A few of my early suggestions for the flowchart would be to make different colored arrows for the Yes and No options... the Y and N all over the chart gets a little overwhelming. Also, there should be a route for DDS/DMD degree seekers as that's becoming a very popular option these days. I'm in this boat and I'm in the middle of my last set of finals in my SMP so I would be glad to map out a flowchart for that side when I have the time.
 
DrMidlife said:
I haven't had any time but I'm still enthusiastic.
Click to expand...

good to hear, i'll just keep bumping it every once in a while so it gets done eventually

DividedByZero said:
A few of my early suggestions for the flowchart would be to make different colored arrows for the Yes and No options... the Y and N all over the chart gets a little overwhelming. Also, there should be a route for DDS/DMD degree seekers as that's becoming a very popular option these days. I'm in this boat and I'm in the middle of my last set of finals in my SMP so I would be glad to map out a flowchart for that side when I have the time.
Click to expand...

terrific, originally i had dental in there as well, but i didn't want to put stuff in because I really don't know much about the process

as for cleaning it up: i just threw that together, if i have time today/this week I'll make it more aesthetically pleasing and easier to follow... right now i was just looking for factual/quality-of-suggestion kind of feedback
 
I just had no idea in how to contribute.

My knowledge of allopathic SMPs and post-bacc programs are rather general and I feel that I don't have much to offer besides the main points of each popular program, but I do know quite a bit about the osteopathic schools/SMPs mostly from research done whe I was interested in applying and interviews conducted at the medical schools for said programs.

Just let me know specifically what you would need to know in areas that I am more familiar with and I'd be happy to help.
 
jslo85 said:
I just had no idea in how to contribute.

My knowledge of allopathic SMPs and post-bacc programs are rather general and I feel that I don't have much to offer besides the main points of each popular program, but I do know quite a bit about the osteopathic schools/SMPs mostly from research done whe I was interested in applying and interviews conducted at the medical schools for said programs.

Just let me know specifically what you would need to know in areas that I am more familiar with and I'd be happy to help.
Click to expand...

great, ive done nothing for the osteo side. i guess you could follow the routes for the allo side and see if the numbers/suggestions would need any alterations for the osteo side

though look again later tonight, i will almost certainly make a few adjustments and try and clean it up
 
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