Retaking Core Science Classes?

[Jeff3614]

---

Members don't see this ad.

I've seen varying schools of thought on this question, but I haven't seen anything definitive, so here goes.

About six to seven years ago when I was in school I took most, if not all, of the general science classes required for med school/dental school/Vet school, etc. I was only in school for two years before I left and got a job in the IT industry, which I'm still doing now. During this time, my GPA wasn't spectactular, 2.5 BCMP - mostly Cs and Bs, and my cumulative GPA wasn't too good either, a 2.6. In the past few years I've gotten myself back into school, part-time, and am completing a degree in english. (Not to many part-time degree granting science programs in Chicago so I went with something I enjoy.) I'll graduate with a 3.7 GPA in a few months, which would probably bring my cumulative, with all schools I've attended, up to a 3.0 when it's all said and done.

My dilema is wheather or not I should just enter into a respectable post bac program, Northwestern, UofC or Loyola, or try to get into a masters program and take classes there. I've pretty much forgotten most of my science stuff and would need to hit these topics pretty hard before taking the MCAT anyway, which makes me think it would be better to simply retake these classes, if not for the better grades, than to relearn all the information I've forgotten. I mean, by the time I start into the post bac it'll have been about 7/8 years since taking those science classes. Would a medical school look poorly on this or would they be looking more at the trends in grades? The only thing I wouldn't be able to control is the AMACS averaging all my grades together, which could only bring my BCMP average to a maximum of a 3.3. I'm not sure how competitive my app would be in the whole scheme of things, but I figure it's worth pursuing nevertheless.

I don't have access to a pre-med councilor yet, so I figured I'd try here to see if others have gone down this road too. Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks!

-J

 

[chopper]

I re-took Physics and Chemistry. Some med schools don't accept pre-reqs that are 5,7,10 whatever years old (depends on school). It had been 13 for me, and I had forgot a ton of it, so I sucked it up and re-took.

With C's, you might want to retake - esp after 7 or so years. That will give you: 1) recent course work to help prepare for MCAT. 2) Proof to adcoms that you CAN do well, just that maybe you didn't do so well way back when. 3) Helps boost GPA.

Some post-bac programs only let you in if you 'need the sciences'. At Loyola, I think it is a minimum of 16 hours. I ended up with 32 (all the pre-reqs). You would need to talk to the individual schools about the specifics.

I don't know too much about the special masters programs, so I'll defer on that one . . .

-chop