Hello,
I am curious if anyone has heard of or knows of anyone who has gone through the Barry University Post bac program?
I am knee deep in the application process, but am getting rejection letters pretty fast. I am thinking about applying for a post bac program /1 year masters. to start in the fall if I can’t get into Med school this round.
The schools I am looking at are:
1)Barry University
2)Wake Forest (although I am not a minority)
3) Drexel
4) Loyola
5) Boston University
6) Georgetown
7) EVMS -EVA
8) UMDNJ
9) VCU
10) University of Miami
11) LECOM
12) PCOM
13) UPENN
I am loking first at the programs that offer a Masters degree in one year. My questions are: Has anyone been through these programs? Would you reccomend the program you went through over another one? Questions I should be asking the program and myself as I narrow these choices down? How valuable is a certificate versus the Masters?
My situation is that I need at least a year of strong academics to overcome my older undergraduate grades. I have taken the MCAT and all pre req’s. So, I saw other programs that were desinged for career chnagers, etc but didn’t fit my situation.
Thanks for any feeedback you can offer!
Marcia
For Barry see if you can visit the campus before taking the plunge. I’ve spoken to a number of students who were there that wished they hadn’t gone. Not an issue with the education but more location. It’s also not a cheap school. It’s “said” to be a pipe line into the local DO school…depending on how well you do. While the school claims something like 78% medical school acceptance they make no differentiation between DO, MD, Carribean, dental, podiatric nor international.
Quite honestly, I would take a tour of the campus and then decide. Not everyone seems to care for its location combined with price.
I don’t think U of Miami has a formal post-bacc program.
Well, there isn’t a meaningful difference between MD and DO, and dental school is just as hard to get into so… I wouldn’t fault Barry for not making those particular distinctions, but I agree that mixing offshore into the mix calls their statistics into question. And I do want to stick up for my podiatrist colleagues, several of whom are doing their intern year alongside me.
But that’s not the point of this thread and I don’t want to hijack it. I want first of all to agree with crooz’s point that any school’s statistics need to be scrutinized carefully because those percentages are always based on a population that they really don’t define well. (for example, at the undergrad where I did my post-bacc, the percentage of acceptances was based on students who qualified for pre-med committee letters, not all pre-meds at the school) So that’s one thing.
Marciah, you also asked about master’s vs. certificate. My sense has been that a masters degree is more attractive than a certificate for several reasons. As I see it, the masters is a recognition that you have “mastered” a body of knowledge that is valuable on its own merits. Now, one could argue that many of these one-year masters programs designed for aspiring medical students don’t really have a goal of helping you become expert in a subject so much as proving your worth as a pre-med, but there’s at least the pretense that you’re mastering something. The certificate strikes me as being the same thing only without the pretense, which is probably cynical of me but then I am a pretty hard-bitten cynical sort.
I would try and seek out the opinions of people who REALLY know what they’re talking about, namely some admissions office types at real medical schools. Unless we’ve got someone on this board who’s actually done one of these programs and successfully made it into med school, you’re just going to be getting a lot of opinions that aren’t particularly well-informed 
Just my .02
Mary
Thanks for the words of wisdom. Since most of the post bac programs take applications through may, I am going to apply to the 6 or so that offer a masters degree in one year, plus Wake Forest and Drexel. The others I am going to hold off on until I hear from the med schools and the masters programs. I am still open to any other feedback on any of the programs,etc.
Thanks!
Marcia
I did a year post bacc at UCSD, however there was no degree or certfificate objective. I did take very challenging classes and got all A’s (and a couple of A++s). The grades and the quality of the classes is what matters. A good academic LOR can state what your approx rank in the class is, how competive it was, and how you did. I also took classes related to public health issues because it was a great place for participating in group discussions; my non science letter came from one of these classes.
I went to a UC because of cost. I don’t think it is necessary to go to an expensive program, I know of people who got in with do-it-yourself post baccs at local colleges and state univs.
If you do go to one these programs, there are some questions you should ask:
1. What is the attrition rate (the year I applied, the other post baccs I looked at had >50% attrition rate).
2. Of the people who did not drop out, how many got into a US medical school.
3. If the program is affiliated with a medical school, how many students from the program does the medical school take every year?
Hang in there. This has been a 9-year road for me thus far (1 year post bacc, 4 years med school, 4 years so far in residency), and I have had the time of my life. It’s worth it.