UVA v. Georgetown Post Bacc

[eagles27]

I need help! Here are my stats:

Graduated from Davidson College, B.S. in Biology with 3.23 GPA. 3.29 science GPA. Took all bio courses and just one semester of general chemistry in major. still need another semester of gen chem, all my orgo, physics and an english class or two.

Wanting to move back home to Charlottesville. I applied to UVA's Post Bacc but did not get in, but I did get into Georgetown's Post Bacc. I love Charlottesville...

What do I do?

(1) live in charlottesville and take all the classes I need through their Community Scholars program? which is just their fancy way of saying non-degree classes. this would be cheap (er). and I could do some more volunteering, EMT, etc. do an MCAT course on my own...

OR

(2) move to DC and be involved in Gtowns program? this would be more expensive but I would have an advisor, committee letter (hopefully), mcat, etc

let's assume i would make good grades at either place...which one better helps my chances of being admitted into med school?

thoughts? advice?

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[jslo85]

I need help! Here are my stats:

Graduated from Davidson College, B.S. in Biology with 3.23 GPA. 3.29 science GPA. Took all bio courses and just one semester of general chemistry in major. still need another semester of gen chem, all my orgo, physics and an english class or two.

Wanting to move back home to Charlottesville. I applied to UVA's Post Bacc but did not get in, but I did get into Georgetown's Post Bacc. I love Charlottesville...

What do I do?

(1) live in charlottesville and take all the classes I need through their Community Scholars program? which is just their fancy way of saying non-degree classes. this would be cheap (er). and I could do some more volunteering, EMT, etc. do an MCAT course on my own...

OR

(2) move to DC and be involved in Gtowns program? this would be more expensive but I would have an advisor, committee letter (hopefully), mcat, etc

let's assume i would make good grades at either place...which one better helps my chances of being admitted into med school?

thoughts? advice?

Hi welcome to SDN

Not to be offensive, but after reading your post you should have really named the title of this thread something else since it seems that UVA isn't an option for you anymore. I'm also surprised that as a biology major you were not required to complete organic chemistry and physics prior to being granted your major.

Anyway.

This is my personal opinion but you should stay where you feel most comfortable (Charlottesville) and take the rest of your pre-reqs. The reason is mostly what you yourself listed above. You would be involved in a range of clinical activities (volunteering, EMT re certification etc) and most of all it would be substantially cheaper. I'm not talking about just tuition but having to relocate etc.

"Courses with the prefix PBPM – $1119 per credit hour
Courses with other prefixes (e.g., BIOL, MATH) – $1609 per credit hour"

That is something I just copy and pasted off of Gtown's post-bacc website and as a rough reference, I compared that to the cost of taking informal post-bacc classes at the local university near me which is substantially cheaper.

Gtown's a great school but to be honest, their most reputable program is their SMP not their post-bacc so all in all I don't think that relocating/paying higher tuition is worth it in your case. Your GPA is below competitive range for allopathic schools but I think you can raise it by a decent amount if you take those other pre-req science courses as well as some upper division courses seeing that you have an entire year to do so before applying next cycle (June 2011).

I think with the money you save from tuition/relocating you can probably cover a Kaplan course, personal tutor and the whole ExamKracker series by a huge margin. If you just get quality study material and apply yourself vigorously, you should do fine. The biggest factor in scoring well on the MCAT is yourself anyway (my opinion, others may disagree). As for LOR, yes you won't get a committee letter but you can request them from your science faculty anyway, it's not worth it to move and to pay that much more.

Just my two cents.

 

[Looking Glass]

I need help! Here are my stats:

Graduated from Davidson College, B.S. in Biology with 3.23 GPA. 3.29 science GPA. Took all bio courses and just one semester of general chemistry in major. still need another semester of gen chem, all my orgo, physics and an english class or two.

Wanting to move back home to Charlottesville. I applied to UVA's Post Bacc but did not get in, but I did get into Georgetown's Post Bacc. I love Charlottesville...

What do I do?

(1) live in charlottesville and take all the classes I need through their Community Scholars program? which is just their fancy way of saying non-degree classes. this would be cheap (er). and I could do some more volunteering, EMT, etc. do an MCAT course on my own...

OR

(2) move to DC and be involved in Gtowns program? this would be more expensive but I would have an advisor, committee letter (hopefully), mcat, etc

let's assume i would make good grades at either place...which one better helps my chances of being admitted into med school?

thoughts? advice?

Stay in Charlottesville and do your own informal post-bac (i.e. figure out which classes you need to take in order to complete your pre-requisites and then sign up for them as a non-degree student). I do not think it is logical at all to spend an extra $20,000-$40,000 on a formal post-bac at Georgetown and living in DC is expensive. Besides that, from what I've heard, UVA seems to have a stronger premedical curriculum and their students have gotten into higher ranked (top 20ish) medical schools than Georgetown post-bac graduates.

 

[bluepassage]

Hi Eagles,

You might want to keep in mind that the UVA Community Scholars program only allows you to take 2 classes per semester during the academic year (i.e. not the summer) and you have to get the instructor's permission to enroll. You might want to contact the School of Continuing and Professional Studies and make sure you won't have any trouble getting into the classes you need.

Good luck!