I know these get asked all the time, but I’d like to request some responses regarding my specific course.
A little about myself, I’m 26 years old. My bachelor’s is in Theatre. I am about to finish a master’s in social work and have been working in a clinical position on an inpatient psychiatric unit for 2 years now.
Undergrad GPA: 3.0 ungapped.
Grad GPA: 3.9
SGPA (from freshman year in 2005-6): 3.36
I’ve read plenty of discussions about gpa’s and whatnot so I am fairly familiar with how this will affect me. If I can do well in the post bac courses I’m looking at ungapped undergrad of about 3.3 and SGPA of anywhere from 3.5 to 3.7. The last 120 hourse of coursework including Grad school comes out to more like 3.7 as of right now.
At the end of the spring semester I’ll have finished chem I and II. All of my courses have been taken at a land grant university.
Summer 14:
Organic I
Physics I
Fall 14:
Organic II
Physics II
Genetics
Stats
Spring 15:
Biochem
Cell bio
Micro?
May 15: MCAT/apply
As far as EC’s go I have some volunteer experience, but my primary strength is that by application time I will have been working hand in hand with physicians for 4 years. I perform emergency psychiatric assessment so i work with both psychiatrists and EM Docs. Should have stellar recs from those. May be able to get a committee letter from my universities pre health program. We have a DO program opening a branch campus in our community. That school’s primary teaching hospital will be the one I work in now. It’s VCOM so they prioritize locals, which I am, and given my connections in the community I believe if I can post a decent MCAT I should be fairly competitive for their program. However, I’d like to have options. That being said, my primary question is would it be worth adding another year of post bacc studies for the sake of increasing my competitiveness at MD programs, namely UAB and University of South Alabama. Basically, I think I will be competitive for our state’s two brand new DO schools, but unless I rock the socks off the MCAT I barely stand a chance at the MD programs. The trade off is a year of my life. It means the difference between being 29 and 30 when I start school. Just interested in opinions on the trade off.
I don’t think you can answer the question of if you need another year of post bacc classes until you: 1) Have an MCAT score and 2) Know what your grades are in the classes you plan to take.
If you’re taking the May 15 MCAT, I think the new test will be in effect. The AAMC website talks a lot about what is being added to the test. You might want to peruse some of the school websites that you’re going to apply to and see if their prereqs are changing in 15. I forget which school it was, but I saw at least one that was adding psych and other courses as prereqs since the new MCAT will be testing them. Another school I looked at said it had no planned changes to prereqs. I don’t know if you’ve already taken a social sciences as part of your UG…
The only suggestion I would make to save you some pain is to move up your cell bio class in place of stats and take the MCAT before the changes go into effect. Scores are typically good for 3 years. Just a thought.