Taking online prereqs while working full time

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brownz

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Hey y'all,

My name is Zach and I am a currently an ER nurse at a level one trauma center in Montana. I have decided I want to become a physician and have starting eyeing what it will take to be admitted to medical school. As I am aware my odds of acceptance are low, I am completely open to any offer, from any DO or MD school in the continental United States. However, I am a bit worried I will start down this path with minimal likelihood of ever being admitted due to poor performance at the start of my collegiate journey and minimal time to take quality, in person courses to remedy it.

I have a large amount of prerequisites outstanding, namely bio I&II, o chem I&II, and physics. As I am working full time and will be getting married in approx 2 months, I am incapable of enrolling in in-person courses for this semester. I initially intended to enroll in online courses this fall and reducing my hours to part time in the spring to take the remaining courses in person, however, I have read that online courses are largely frowned upon by medical schools. I already have large obstacles to overcome in my application, such as a 3.42 GPA (<3.00 freshman year, ~3.1 sophomore year, 3.73 last 60 hour GPA), I worry that adding a large amount of online sciences will further reduce my chances of acceptance. However, if I do not begin taking the outstanding prerequisites now, I will have to postpone my application another year.

I am seeking advice regarding this situation. Is it better for me to take online courses to enable me to take the MCAT this spring and subsequently apply or for me to postpone starting prereqs, space them out further, and aim to apply during the 2027 admission cycle. I know very little regarding medical school admissions so any and all advice is appreciated. Thank you!
 
Zach, I am in somewhat of a similar boat. I do work full-time so I was eyeing online courses also. For MD schools, I have been looking at the MSAR and some schools do accept online courses and community college courses. Some schools only accept online courses during COVID time.

For DO schools, I know that I did ask PCOM (i think) about online and they did not care either way. They did suggest UNE but that was about 10 years ago when I first applied (was waitlisted and rejected). I think what you have done AFTER that poor performance is what matters. When I worked at the hospital, I knew multiple nurses that were in a similar situation as yours (poor performance at start of college career) and they received acceptances to MD schools. But that is all anecdotal.

I will follow this thread since I am interesting in this same information.

Hope this helps!!
 
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