Too much bad history?

[sfmedder]

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Long time lurker, first time poster. I'm a little bit out of college (27 currently) and am looking for feedback to see what I can do to ultimately get into med school.

It gets complicated though. In undergrad, I did most of the premed courses in college, and with AP conversions to college credit, I can, in some contexts, say I have completed all the premed reqs. My BCPM GPA is 3.0, overall 3.5. I also have a 28 MCAT.

So on paper, I know what I need to improve, but I'm unsure how to do it. Ideally, I thought a structured program would be most helpful. I looked at SMPs, but initial feedback looks poor as it's been a while since I've taken my science courses. Doing a formal post bacc sounds like the next best approach, but many of those programs (and med schools) don't want you to be repeating a significant amount of coursework. So that leaves taking upper division classes individually, but I don't know if that's the best approach.

I know I need to prove that I'm capable of handling the academic rigor ahead of me, but I'm not sure what the right approach is here. Am I not looking in the right places? What other alternatives are out there?

 

[DrMidlife]

The postbac forum has feedback from current and former students in bunches of programs. But you don't have to do a "program".

There are lots of options. Look at doing a 2nd bachelors. Look at Berkeley Extension or Harvard Extension or similar at your local school.

My personal favorite, in retrospect, is the folks who get a job at a university and use that to get registration priority and a break on tuition. Brilliant.

Definitely search SDN for the "low GPA" threads (some in nontrad, one massive one in postbac). Get some context on time, money and odds.

Best of luck to you.

 

[Bebe12]

So...correct me if I'm wrong here....I'm hearing that you'd like to repeat upper level coursework without doing the lower level credits? It sounds more feasible to take upper credit courses without repeating everything- maybe you could audit the lower level courses and take the upper level ones for credit. Or just review the lower credit level material on your own.
Hope I'm understanding your question 😛

 

[sfmedder]

Under the general umbrella of doing a structured program, it's really, I'd like to repeat formally the lower level coursework but it is either forbidden or strongly discouraged. For formal programs for upper level coursework, I don't believe I'm competitive in those admissions processes. So that leaves an unstructured program such as Berkeley Extension to complete some new coursework. I wasn't sure if there was something else I was missing (didn't know if I am a special little snowflake 🙂), but it sounds like the feedback I'm getting here is pretty clear with next steps.

Thanks and appreciate both your replies.