Should old nontrads retake prereqs or do new coursework?

[A224B]

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Let's say someone is a nontrad who graduated 11 years ago with a 3.8 GPA who has previously taken the prereqs.

Should they retake the prerequisite courses because the courses are expired, or should they take new upper-level sciences to prove they are still academically capable? Other health professional schools (notably PA and nursing) often have prerequisite courses explicitly expire, but MD/DO schools often say less in this aspect.

 

[Med Ed]

It depends (which is perhaps why MD/DO schools often aren't very explicit in this department).

If this person hasn't taken a class in 11 years but bangs out a 520 on the MCAT, it's probably not worth investing the time and money to retake the usual prereq sequence. If this kills their chances at a handful of schools then so be it. Conversely, for many people who have been out of the coursework game for awhile, retaking some or all of the prereqs would be useful in and of itself as a refresher and MCAT prep.

I would reach out to my state school(s) and see what they say about this issue. That may be worth knowing as a tiebreaker.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Double endorse reaching out to your local schools. Science and the form of classroom learning has changed in 10 years (especially that 2020+ phase), so you may want to brush up and take new intermediate biomedical science coursework... on the advice of the adcoms you talk to. Reach out to a few postbac program directors in case they can help.

 

[Saberie]

This usually depends on the requirements of the specific medical school, but if the prerequisites were long ago (10+ years), they are often asked to update them or recommend taking newer courses.

The best option is usually not to simply repeat old subjects, but to take several modern, higher-level courses to demonstrate current knowledge and academic readiness.

 

[GradientDescent]

Similar position. Blurry, especially since MSAR doesn't lay out clearly which schools consider this a no-go. I had to reach out to admissions at various schools directly to verify. I didn't get in touch with all of them but of those I did, I only found one (Georgetown) that requires recently completed pre-reqs (<5 years), along with others that encourage (but not require) recent coursework, not necessarily pre-reqs. These can be done during the application process, too.

Even though you've already graduated a while ago, I would start with reaching out to your undergraduate pre-med committee if they have one. They may have details on various schools already. If not, prioritize a list of schools you'd want to apply and just call their offices and don't beat around the bush: "will not having recent pre-requisites disqualify me?"