Medical Should I take additional coursework and auditing?

[PA_dud3]

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i didn't take many upper level bio courses as an undergrad except for human physiology and biochem, so i wanted to take several bio courses and audit them. any good recs? was looking at the harvard extension school, the uc berkley extension school, and at course era? am willing to spend some $$ on the course, only if it is good that is. interested in genetics/genomics, cell bio, immunology, microbe, virology, reproductive health topics.

I would advise against it. Have you already been accepted to medical school?

 

[Goro]

No, I haven’t. Graduated college in May, but wasn’t prepared for the MCAT before graduating and am now taking it in January. Since that means I’ll be taking two gap years, instead of one (that was originally my goal, had I been prepared earlier), I was thinking I would have some time to squeeze in a couple of classes and audit them.

What are your GPAs?

 

[Goro]

They are not stellar, so I am hoping that the clinical research and patient care volunteer work I’m doing during my gap years can “somewhat” make up for my lackluster gpa. I’m also hoping that my unique non-clinical volunteer work experience will set me apart from other applicants. So I’m praying that my research and volunteer experiences, along with a good mcat score, will allow for admittance to at least an osteopathic school. To finally answer - I have a 3.39 bpcm gpa and a 3.58 overall.

The sGPA is NOT good for MD, but fine for DO

 

[Mr.Smile12]

If you are trying to increase your sGPA, then why would you consider auditing those classes?

At any case, I don't know how strong your relationship has been with your advisor, but chances are most advisors are also talking DO as a medical school pathway as much as MD in large group settings to try to be sure pre-med students know their options. It's hard for me to say she gave you "bad advice" but I think your expectations were not clearly made. If you're disappointed that you might not be a strong enough candidate for DO programs, why do you think that? Have you shadowed DO's? What is the difference in your eyes?

I'm not concerned about gap years taken after your bachelor's degree. It's always what you did with the opportunity to not have classwork interfere with a full-time focus. It's more common that you think.

 

[Goro]

Yeah, that’s what I figured. Would you advise taking a science course for credit to boost the sgpa? Didn’t want to take a science course for credit - wanted to take for the sake of learning w/o thinking about a grade - but will seriously look into a course (genetics or cell bio, I think) for credit/grade if that is best. I do want to give my all - even if I don’t get into an allopathic school, I do want to know I tried to the best of my ability in this process.

Oddly enough though, the pre-med advisor at my college advised against me taking additional science courses for credit post grad - she felt my gpa and ecs were good enough (??) if I do well on the mcat. Such advice may have put me into a somewhat false sense of security. Maybe she envisions me in DO school (which I am also leaning toward) and not MD bc I didn’t specify to her at the time. She really emphasized that I must have an excellent performance on the mcat. I am hesitant to agree though bc of the sgpa which you yourself also point to as “not good.” Just want to do my best - do not want regrets of “what if” later on.

The smart thing is not to listen to your advisor. The road to medical school is littered with the festering corpses of students who did and found out that the information they'd been given was lousy. The wise LizzyM

I suggest one more semester of upper level science courses, and then you should be fine. You will need DO schools on your list

@Mr.Smile12 I wanted to take the audit the courses because I just wanted to learn the material...but then later on in this thread, I was asked for my stats so my tune changed. Some DO schools, such as NYCOM, have just a 6% acceptance rate, so I don't want to assume that a lower sgpa is fine for DO schools as well.
I did shadow a DO (although not for long so plan to again, but perhaps with a diff DO). With her, I didn't really see the difference in the way she practiced as opposed to an MD. She didn't incorporate OMT into her practice, so I didn't see much of a difference between shadowing her as opposed to an MD. I felt like she approached cases in the same manner - reviewing pt. history, symptoms, and lab tests before offering treatment.
@Goro Thanks for the wise LizzyM quote and for your helpful input...plan to do both.