Postbac clarification

[duvaldentist]

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Ok so I understand this is such a newbie question to ask but I still don’t quite understand this. My situation is that I have a very uncompetitive GPA thus I would like to do postbac work to try and prove to adcom that I can handle the dental course load. With that being said my question is “what exactly is a postbac”? I understand it’s any coursework after your bachelors degree such as a graduate school, but is it possible to simply enroll and take undergrad courses that weren’t previously taken to help boost my GPA? Or is there only specific postbac programs that involve an application process and a set curricula?

 

[dentalWorks]

Ok so I understand this is such a newbie question to ask but I still don’t quite understand this. My situation is that I have a very uncompetitive GPA thus I would like to do postbac work to try and prove to adcom that I can handle the dental course load. With that being said my question is “what exactly is a postbac”? I understand it’s any coursework after your bachelors degree such as a graduate school, but is it possible to simply enroll and take undergrad courses that weren’t previously taken to help boost my GPA? Or is there only specific postbac programs that involve an application process and a set curricula?

okay your confusing post-bacc with masters. When you hear the term "post-bacc" we are really referring to UNDERGRAD level courses taken after your bachelors degree (NOT graduate/masters level courses)

Yes you can enroll into an undergrad institute and just start taking undergrad level courses (usually the 300 & 400 level biology classes such as Histology, Anatomy, Physiology, Biochemistry, etc etc).

There are 2 kinds of post-bacc:
1) informal ~ just enroll into any college near by, you can specify a major (or not), you are not seeking a degree, you just wanna take more classes ~ by the way, this is what I did for 3+ years.

2) formal post-bacc ~ these are structured programs designed for people (usually non-trads) who haven't taken much of thier pre-reqs. These are very condensed, structured programs where in 1-2 years, they pile all the pre-dents on you along with a few upper level biologies. These you have to apply to, and get accepted.

On the other hand,
When you enter into a masters program, I guess you can call it "post-bacc" as well, but the more commonly used term is just "masters" or "graduate level courses".

Hope this clarifies things

 

[duvaldentist]

Thanks dental works as always 😉 but let member this straight by enrolon and taking extra classes it will go towards my undergrad GPA? And you did it for three years did you only take a few classes a semester or are there really that many extra classes available to take?

 

[dentalWorks]

Thanks dental works as always 😉 but let member this straight by enrolon and taking extra classes it will go towards my undergrad GPA? And you did it for three years did you only take a few classes a semester or are there really that many extra classes available to take?

Yes, here is how my GPA got added up in AADSAS:
-my initial undergrad was 136 credits
-I did 54 credits of post-bacc...
-so total undergrad credits was 190 (initial undergrad years + post-bacc)
-you can also see the middle column ("Graduate") is all zeros, because all that post-bacc work went towards undergrad GPA calculations.

In my 3 years of post-bacc, the first 2 I was working fulltime. Most of those semesters were as low as 5 credits to as high as 13..... After I quit my job, I started loading up more, one of my semesters was 20 credits 😱

 

[duvaldentist]

Yes, here is how my GPA got added up in AADSAS:
-my initial undergrad was 136 credits
-I did 54 credits of post-bacc...
-so total undergrad credits was 190 (initial undergrad years + post-bacc)
-you can also see the middle column ("Graduate") is all zeros, because all that post-bacc work went towards undergrad GPA calculations.

In my 3 years of post-bacc, the first 2 I was working fulltime. Most of those semesters were as low as 5 credits to as high as 13..... After I quit my job, I started loading up more, one of my semesters was 20 credits 😱

Wow first off, congrats... But what does the first row titled "BCP" stand for?

 

[dentalWorks]

Wow first off, congrats... But what does the first row titled "BCP" stand for?

well, you know there are 4 GPAs
1) the overall
2) the science
3) the BCP (Biology / Chemistry / Physics)
4) the non-science