post-bacc programs

[PZMO]

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Hey everyone,

I'm an officer in my university's pre-med club; tomorrow we are putting on a meeting about options if you don't get into med school or don't feel like you will the first time around.

My topic to present is post-bacc programs. I'm going straight to med school this summer, so I know very little about them. I was wondering if anyone that has done one or is doing one can share a little info? Anything from how exactly they work to how your experiences have been, etc.... anything really.

I'm not asking anyone to do research for me, but experiences usually mean more and give more realistic info than looking stuff up.

Thanks in advance!

 

[jsnuka]

Depending upon why you need to go the postbaccalaureate route, there are a number of options available for you. There is a forum dedicated to Post Baccalureate programs here.

Here is a listing of Premedical post-baccalaureate Programs.

Here is the AAMC listing of Pre medical Postbaccalaureate programs

Barry University offers a program too.

http://www.barry.edu/bms

Another good idea is to look through a copy of the MSAR and the Minority Student Opportunities books from the AAMC. Most, but not all, medical schools have some sort of post baccalureate program.


Good Luck!!!!

 

[PZMO]

Thanks so much! I appreciate it. 🙂

 

[DrBubbles]

I am currently in a post-bacc special master's program, so I can offer insight into what I know about these programs from this perspective. First, there are two kinds of post-bacc programs: there are prerequisite fulfilling ones, during which you take the bios and chems and physicses you never took in college. Then there are GPA boosters, which give you a chance to take graduate-level biology or medicine-related courses and hopefully boost your GPA. Some of the latter programs are one year, and some are two. Some offer a Master's degree, and some don't. Some require a thesis, while others don't, and some allow you to take classes with med students at the university's med school, while others don't. Many offer some sort of reciprocity with the University's med school, some don't.

I decided that in order to be successful applying to med schools the second time around, and to do it quickly, I needed to go back to school full-time for one year and get my GPA up. I also decided if I was going back to school, I wanted a degree out of it. So I decided to attend Loyola's Master of Arts in Medical Sciences program. My GPA is (hopefully) going up 0.2 whole points after one year, I'll have a Master's degree, I am not taking courses with med students, which I believe is an advantage for my GPA, and I am not writing a thesis. At this point, the program's matriculation rate for MAMS students within one year of graduation is, I believe, over 80%. (For reapplicants it's usually closer to about 25%.) So it's totally been worth it for me.
Hope this helps!