UPenn Post Bacc Program

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Emtdan - i posted the stats about one of my classes (a PH class): 1/3 got some form of A, 1/3 got some form of B, and 1/3 got some form of C, and a handful got Ds. I'm sure everyone came into the class hoping to get As but it clearly doesn't happen. There are no certainties in getting an A.
Can i guarantee you a GPA of 3.6? No
Can you get one? Yes
Its upto how good of a student you are and how smart you are. If you get straight Cs then maybe med school isnt for you. I don't really know what you want me to tell you

The avg is below 80 for the entire class - my GPA in the program is quite a bit above 3.0....

2/3 of the one PH-class i took got As or Bs....I would imagine the avg GPA is above a 3.0....

I don't know whether you will achieve a 3.6 GPA at UPenn, no-one does. I came here not knowing where I would fall on the spectrum. There are kids who come here wanting 3.6 that don't get it, and IMO, thats a sign maybe med school might be a long shot.

I really don't know what you want me to tell you emtdan - i can't guarantee you an A nor a 3.6 GPA
 
I think we just have some miscommunication about how curving works. Rob put up a post earlier that said about 1/3 get A's, 1/3 get B's, and so on, so it doesn't sound like it's completely impossible to get an A, but it does make me nervous to hear that. I wonder if going to a less respected program (La Salle in my case) would be better for me, because I'll almost definitely be able to pull higher grades. I have no prereqs, so I'd only be taking intro level courses at Penn.

Curving in a post bac program (mostly just in the intro courses) does not make that much sense to me. People are there to get the requirements for medical school and to get prepared for the MCAT. Curving the courses just makes it a risk for your GPA even if you understand and have succeeded in the classes "objectively." Rob, your answers and presence on this board has been really helpful, so I think we're all just a little confused about the specifics, if you wouldn't mind saying a bit more about what you know about the curve. It feels like the big fear is that you'll do A caliber work that would be good enough for many med schools, but miss out on an A because many others are doing A caliber work as well.

I also come from a school that didn't curve. I think the big concern is that, because everyone is talented and smart at UPenn, a few points on a test will be the difference between a 3.7 and a 3.0. Nobody wants to put the work in, learn and understand the material, do well on the test, but then not get an A because a certain %of people did just so ever slightly better on it.
 
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Didn't see your response post before I typed that. Essentially the worry for me, and I"d imagine for almost all, is not "am I truly capable of performing well in med school" but rather "will Upenn's curving and hard grading make me look like a weaker student than I actually am, compared to other Post Bac programs?" Not sure if that's something you can really answer, as you've pointed out.
 
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No worries rock2doc - im happy to help wherever i can

So i appreciate your concern but its a double-edged sword. You get an A at Penn at thats a big boost to your app for sure. IMO performing at well at Penn will help demonstrate to med schools i can handle the workload. Going to a "lesser" program or one with a diff grading scale might represent taking the easy way out, and thus be less convincing that i can do med school work.

Its like the whole CC debate we have here. If you want to prove to me (imagine im an adcom) that you can do ridic hard science then you better show me good grades in science classes from good universities. CC doesnt do it for me.

Thus getting an A at Penn is a big app plus. Sure 1/3 got Cs but maybe this subject isnt their strong pt and they get straight As elsewhere.

My undergrad didnt curve either but I've come to Penn and kicked ass. I took a gamble, if i did badly it would have sunk my app.

There is an old cliche "Fortune favours the bold".... i think its applicable here.
 
I think you're right, that's a really good way to think about it. I know how hard it is to get into medical school, and I think your school of thought makes a lot more sense than other, "softer" advice I've received. I was not really considering that adcoms will know how tough UPenn is, and will see success there as a good indicator of true ability to succeed. I'm going to shut up now, and wait for my interview-- I still don't think my chances are great. Anyone know how many people get invited to interviews for Pre-Health Core studies and don't get in?

Actually, screw it. I'm making it a hobby to obsess over this with the limited information I have. Time to pull out the trig/calc review books so I can actually pass the classes in whatever post bac I end up in.
 
I heard most people that get offered interviews then get offered admissions. Tho someone was on here and had an int, but got rejected.

Good luck
 
I spoke with my Pre-med adviser today and he said that taking pre-health classes at any 4 year college is fine, but getting a 4.0 at a random school as opposed to getting a 3.5 at Upenn might not equate. He said that he believes med schools would look at Upenn as much more rigorous and as such they would understand grades in the B range. Thus, he said although grades might be lower at Upen with the curve (which he adamantly opposed) any applicant would still have a strong chance owing to Penn's solid recognition.

This clears up the questions I have had. Hope it helps
 
emtdan said:
I spoke with my Pre-med adviser today and he said that taking pre-health classes at any 4 year college is fine, but getting a 4.0 at a random school as opposed to getting a 3.5 at Upenn might not equate. He said that he believes med schools would look at Upenn as much more rigorous and as such they would understand grades in the B range. Thus, he said although grades might be lower at Upen with the curve (which he adamantly opposed) any applicant would still have a strong chance owing to Penn's solid recognition.

This clears up the questions I have had. Hope it helps
Click to expand...


I might be missing something but from what I read of rob's comments, wasn't this the point he was trying to get across all along? X_X That because of UPenn's reputation for a rigorous curriculum that medical schools would look upon a student who GOT IN to UPenn's program AND got a 3.5+ would probably be looked at more favorably than someone who took it from a no name location ..
 
Mass props to Rob for his infinite patience and self restrain =D You have already developed some physician bedside manner with "difficult patients"!
 
jslo85 said:
I might be missing something but from what I read of rob's comments, wasn't this the point he was trying to get across all along? X_X That because of UPenn's reputation for a rigorous curriculum that medical schools would look upon a student who GOT IN to UPenn's program AND got a 3.5+ would probably be looked at more favorably than someone who took it from a no name location ..
Click to expand...

Honestly, that's not really true and it's unfortunate. Unless you're linking, or a non-science major, you're probably better off getting the 4.0 if it's not at a cc. Programs don't take difficulty of coursework into account enough, mostly bc of the effect it has on the stats of their accepted students etc. That said, say, a 3.7 at a random school may be less well regarded than a 3.5 at Penn.
 
Drizzt - there are reports of adcoms commenting on getting a certain grade, and it being from penn. And them mentioning the "rigor" of the program.

Its prob 10 pgs back now but someone mentioned it from their interview exprience
 
yeah, big props to robflanker for answering questions and being present on the board-- it's really helpful to those of us trying to figure out the best course of action. too bad you can't get a really good LOR from a bunch of internet people
 
robflanker said:
Drizzt - there are reports of adcoms commenting on getting a certain grade, and it being from penn. And them mentioning the "rigor" of the program.

Its prob 10 pgs back now but someone mentioned it from their interview exprience
Click to expand...

That's fine but in my experience a 4.0 from any reasonably accredited school in postbac will be better than a ~3.5 in postbac. You can't do better than 4.0, you're doing as well as you can be asked to be. That's certainly the way I'd read the file and how I'd vote, ymmv but ultimately school rigor is undervalued. My undergrad is widely regarded as being one of the two most difficult in the country. I'd still consider a 4.0 from say, Xavier, Widener, University of the Pacific, all sorts of random schools to be superior.
 
Drizzt - i agree the school rigor is probably undervalued as whole but on this we'll have to agree to disagree.
 
robflanker said:
Drizzt - i agree the school rigor is probably undervalued as whole but on this we'll have to agree to disagree.
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Candidates 1 and 2 have ~3.3 cumulative and science GPAs and take 36 units of postbac, candidate 1 is at Penn and gets a 3.5, Candidate 2 is at say, Hunter College and gets a 4.0.

Candidate 1 will have a 3.35 cumulative and 3.38 science GPA
Candidate 2 will have a 3.5 cumulative and 3.6 science GPA

you're saying candidate 1 is a better candidate? In my experience that's not how it works, all else equal.
 
At no point did i say a 3.5 was equal to a 4.0 from elsewhere. You are putting words in my mouth.

Taking the easy way out is never a good thing in a post-bac IMO, and going to a "weaker" school because you are afraid of not getting a 4.0 is a poor excuse to go there.

I'm not going to keep going over this drizzt, we disagree. end of story IMO
 
robflanker said:
At no point did i say a 3.5 was equal to a 4.0 from elsewhere. You are putting words in my mouth.

Taking the easy way out is never a good thing in a post-bac IMO, and going to a "weaker" school because you are afraid of not getting a 4.0 is a poor excuse to go there.

I'm not going to keep going over this drizzt, we disagree. end of story IMO
Click to expand...

Penn has a good program and students are successful there, I think what's important as a prospective postbac student is putting yourself in a position to succeed. In my experience during postbac students need to get As or mostly As in their coursework to be successful. Certainly doing that at Penn would make them a stronger candidate, all else equal. We'll just leave it at that.
 
drizzt3117 said:
Penn has a good program and students are successful there, I think what's important as a prospective postbac student is putting yourself in a position to succeed.
Click to expand...
Couldn't agree with this more.

You'll need to kickass whereever you go, esp if you are in GPA "repair mode"
 
There was some confusion with curving earlier...just wanted to add that for the most part, classes don't actually have a curve. Grades just fall where they fall. Some professors get why kids are here and give almost everyone an "A", others will adjust course grades or the difficulty of the final exam if they see that everyone did/is doing poorly (a possible indication that they didn't communicate something well or made the exam beyond the skill set of the course), others are purely numerical in their grading (one professor last semester gave 25% of the kids Fs in a course, and about another 25-30% Cs and Ds...administration didn't do a thing about it). So in the end, like it's been said, just make sure you stay on top of things and not be in a position where you have to worry about being on the low side of the class though of course luck in what class you get into and who the professor is has something to do with it.
 
How does registration work? Is there a lottery system? How do you 1) know which teachers and classes are good and 2) how do you become one of the lucky ones to get in them?

Thanks for your previous post!
 
Registration:
You select the classes you want, rank them, and then the system randomly selects who gets in them and who doesn't. So they tell you to rank more than you want in case you dont get the classes you want initially.
If anyone gets offered a place in the program, do your class stuff ASAP as for new admissions its rolling class selection so if you wait to do your class selections, the ones you want may be filled.


Professor/Class-selection
Much like undergraduate and any other secondary education anywhere in the world, you find out which classes/professors are good by talking to current students and seeing what they took. Ali asked me earlier in the thread about some upper-levels which ive taken and she is thinking about.

"how do you become one of the lucky ones to get in them"
See first part about registration. Petitioning professors to let you in doesnt typically work here at penn as admin is pretty strict about it and there are limitations to room size etc. For example, ive had 3 classes that were popular and more students came to them than could take the class but the professors can't over enroll due to room limitations or class design so if you didnt make the class in the system, you don't get enrolled.
 
Did I understand this right, there are multiple sections of a certain class, you will get into a section but maybe not the one you prefer?

So you will be able to get all the classes you need but not necessarily at the time / professor you want?


At my school they will flat out tell you tough luck if you don't get into a class and as such can't graduate on time. My school sucks.
 
No, there is only one section and one offering of each class per semester.

There may be multiple sections for labs but not for the lecture.

Its a relatively small program thus no need for two separate physics/bio/etc classes
 
Random, somewhat related question... when the website says the Lab component is 1.5 credits, it really means the Lecture + Lab, right? So, 1.0 for lecture and 0.5 for lab. Just trying to figure out the credits load

I think that's how I remember it from my undergrad days, anyway haha
 
I have had some pretty poor luck this app. cycle despite early applications and what I thought were competitive numbers and experience. I know that for awhile there was a misconception about Harvard acceptance rates and it is now widely known a lot (if not all) people who apply gain admission or warning against such.

How are the UPenn rates for admission? Are we talking just shy of the big 4 (Bryn Mawr, Goucher, Scripps, JHU)? Or are we talking somewhere in the middle?

I suppose anyone's guess is as irrelevant as posting my stats because adcoms will be adcoms and whatnot but I thought that I would ask.

Thanks everyone, congratulations, and good luck.
 
Esafile - yes each core science class is 1.5 CU....they are graded as a whole but basically its 1.0 class and 0.5 lab. Minimum to be considered full time is 4 CUs and max allowable per semester is 5.5 CUs. Based on your other thread, I took 4.5 CUs last semester and it was just over $12k and then this semester was just under $12k.

Mtulli - So firstly i wouldnt consider hopkins a big 4 school. Its barely mentioned around here and no-one seems to recommend it but the other 3 certainly are. UPenn claims that 95% of their prehealth and 85% of their special sciences candidates can acceptance to med school but im skeptical of such numbers.
 
rob--

Fantastically quick response, so thank you for your speed.. sorry for confusion.

I am more concerned about being accepted to Penn's Pre-Health and the numbers there, med school aside.

I do believe the high numbers you gave me for med placement because like all of the programs akin to Columbia I would assume many drop before they have to record them as a failed applicant to M.D. schools.
 
You want the numbers accepted to the UPenn Pre-Health program? Ive no idea about that, they claim something ridiculous, but its not as high as they claim. I'm pretty sure like 60-75% of people who get asked for an interview get offered a place.

If you have over a 3.0 GPA and a respectable SAT/GRE then you should be ok.

i dont believe the numbers because i am here and i see what goes on here. they write letters for people who realistically don't have much shot for medical school, they don't track us and dont ask us for feedback. Nor do they clarify was it DO or Foreign or MD that the student went to. So based on this complete lack of info, i doubt their numbers. And I also wouldn't compare Columbia and UPenn... Columbia has had an awful lot of bad press recently here and whilst i'm not saying Upenn is perfect (im prob more critical than most) its def better overall IMO than columbia
 
Darn good things to hear on the acceptance front, times are desperate. I didn't realize 3.0 was even competitive, while not reassured, maybe I am no longer convinced I am doomed to a year of unknowns before potential admission again next year.

I sort of expected all of that disarray and have grappled with poor structure before with success.

Cheers to your spring semester and thanks a lot.
 
No problem - i'm always happy to help answer UPenn questions.

3.0 is minimum, but there are one or two ppl who were below that but rocked the SAT/GRE. For linkages, you really want to come in with a 3.2 GPA but other than that it doesn't really matter

If you want to start in the fall i don't think UPenn's deadline has passed yet. I think i applied after this point last year and still got accepted relatively early. I think they accept ppl for the fall right up into June or something.

Good luck to you.
 
robflanker, thanks! You've been great with all the info!
 
No prob - feel free to ask anymore questions that you might have. Good luck
 
Just as most other questions tend to be, this one is going to be very subjective. However, I am looking for expanded opinion.

I applied to a number of different programs much earlier in the cycle, October and November. I did not anticipate rejections across the board, but was very wrong. I just finished thesis work and am therefore able to again focus on applications.

I intend to do an intense one year study. I am a competitive applicant. Despite these things, it is getting late for Penn's summer start-- April 1 deadline.

Should I wait and just apply for the fall to avoid being damaged by tardiness? Or should I just be confident in my application and send it in this coming week for review for a summer start?

Thank you, everyone, for your answers and insight.
 
I am wondering the same thing. I was considering submitting an application to Penn in a couple days (waiting on LORs)
 
You'll be fine to apply now.

I applied on 3/27/09, was offered an interview on 4/2/09, interviewed on 4/13/09 and accepted on 4/23/09

You guys will both be fine providing you have decent GPAs, ECs, and SAT/GREs
 
Congrats. Me too! Will you be doing part or full time?

I interviewed last week for the pre-health core program and got accepted by email today. I called and was told that the summer program was "full," and so I could only start in the fall, despite applying for the summer. That's fine with me, as I work for the university and will be attending part-time for the first two semesters.

For those curious, I had what I considered to be less competitive stats for the Pre-Health Core Studies program. I went to a top 10 liberal arts college, but only had a 3.05 GPA. I have good SAT's and LSATs, which might have helped. It also might not be as competitive as I was led to believe when I was applying. I hear UPenn does it's fair share of weeding out students through tough courses and tough grading, which is exactly what I need to improve on my undergraduate record.
 
Congratulations to you too! I'm planning on going full time.

Now I need to start thinking about housing... because as of now, I have ~hour train commute each way - manageable, but not ideal.

I think you might have been in my interview... I was there last week as well!
 
Thanks Rob 🙂

I don't know how to decline my acceptance in the other programs... These letters aren't fun to write.

Do you know if pre-health students can take the upper level sciences once the prereqs are complete? I am planning on a 1.5yr completion now, since I cannot take the gen chem in summer... but during that semester I'd love to take some different courses. I also plan on taking advantage of the linkage to one of the schools... actually, I'm not sure, timing-wise, how the link works.

Any advice on volunteering? I know there are tons of opportunities in Philly
 
Yeah I had to decline a place i'd already sent a deposit into when I came to Penn.

Pre-Health can take upper level provided you do the pre-reqs

Volunteering - soooo many opportunities. HUP has a formalized program where you can volunteer for 2 semesters and they'll give you a letter of rec. Have a look on their website for a description.
 
I was planning to do the summer start as well...

So we have to start in the fall now? How will that work with courses - gen bio, physics and gen chem over the year and then orgo in the summer? Or do I take orgo the following year?


If that's the case would it be possible to take gen chem at my college over the summer and begin orgo in the fall?
 
So you have to becareful about taking classes outside of UPenn and trying to link. They have some strict requirements. Its fine if it was part of your undergrad work but if you take it somewhere else while a student here, it means you are ineligible for links sometimes. I'd check with UPenn and get it in writing before id take any other classes outside of Penn.

A lot of people take either two of Physics/Gen Chem/Bio in the fall, the other respective section in the spring, and then take all of orgo or whichever class they didn't take. Then they take the one remaining class in following year and some upper levels. This is all provided you don't get summer start.
 
Do you need orgo before taking upper levels such as genetics?

Also, do you reckon there is no way to get into classes for this summer? If we can't, will we at least be sure to be able to register for all the classes we need in the future? (Obviously upper levels will be hard, but we HAVE to do the core no matter what..)
 
robflanker said:
A lot of people take either two of Physics/Gen Chem/Bio in the fall, the other respective section in the spring, and then take all of orgo or whichever class they didn't take.
Click to expand...


I apologize for the double post. Orgo is offered in the summer - am I interpreting this correctly. So theoretically I could still do one year, except it would be one academic year followed by orgo in the summer?

This would still mean I could not apply for linkages that year, and I would have to wait until the next year's cycle to apply to med school?
 
Genetics doesnt list orgo as a pre-req. Just intro bio

If they arent accepting applications for summer start (which someone said was full) then you cannot take UPenn summer classes. In regard to other summer classes, i'd call and ask before enrolling if you want a linkage. I'm not linking and if you are ok not linking, then go for it.
But if you heart is set linking then get it cleared by Penn and get it in writing so they cant burn you later.
 
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