I say this all of the time, but contact the schools you are applying to to ask them. Each school weights things specifically to their school. As an example, I have said my school does not care much about per-requisite GPA...just not a super important metric for us. We recently found an applicant we made an error with selecting highest grade for a couple of pre-req courses (happens sometimes...Webadmit will make you cross eyed). Changing pre-GPA GPA from 3.3 to 3.8 changed this applicant's place 6 spots on the alternate list. Now that could be a difference between getting in an not, but not a lot of bang for the buck. Having a Master's degree would be a much big 'prize' for our admissions vs. a 0.5 GPA bump on pre-req GPA. And although you will live poorly, you should be able to not pay tuition for a Master's degree.
But each school looks at things differently, so contact schools you are going to apply to.
Best advice ever on first bold.
Second bold: How would you view a Master's in Religious Studies?
A person at my university thought it would be a super awesome time and monetary commitment to get that before she got into a recently accredited, sub par med program because it was '
easy.' I'm assuming her master's had nothing to do with her acceptance, but rather being a second time applicant coupled with her health related volunteering which probably upped her on the point scale for the second application time for that committee did. Unless it served as a diversity metric....however, I would think one's E.C.s or other interests would fit that field for committees.
Anatomy and physio are key for pt (and shockingly enough, are NOT prerecs for other health professions sometimes), while biochem, calc, and organics (yeah took these guys too lol) are much more of weedout for things like dental/med.
The psychs are relevant to working directly or understanding people a bit more.
Stats is a solid skillset.
Bio 1 and 2 have some portions that can be useful
Physics 1 gives a good general understanding of force, motion, torque, etc. after you forget all the formulas
Chem 1 and 2, physics 2, and the portions of bio 2 and physics 1 that don't work well are definitely some of the weedout/critical thnking development that serve as a selection factor for applicant volume.
I'd say you've got at least 7/11 relevant prerecs
About 4 questionable, but selective prerecs
I have never understood why people get superfluous master's degrees thinking they can beat the system by upping the cGPA. How does your committee view master's from erroneous fields and what is the rationale for placing the precrec gpa value so low on the point scale....when it seems more relevant?
Main reason for asking this is that I hear people for prehealth programs running around saying they are automatically getting a master's to 'look more competitive' in their gap year. Unfortunately, a lot of master's degrees are marketed
without assistantship possibilities...but their investment will be 'better preparation.' I think this thinking is incredibly flawed as well as the marketing, but I may be wrong. I would think that very specific master's programs would be a decent TIME invenstment, but I don't see people going about this decision in a logical manner.
