About 10 years ago I dropped out of college one class shy of a business degree with a pretty horrible gpa (just under 2.5.) I just started back this summer; I changed my major to biology and I’m taking Gen Chem I right now. I hated business classes and I’m not terribly interested in finishing that degree, but I’m wondering if maybe that might be a better route? I could finish the business degree and do the rest of my pre-reqs as a post-bacc. What would you do in my shoes?
Meghan P -
Hmm. You need a bachelor’s degree. Any bachelor’s degree.
option 1: finish the business bachelors, end up with a very poor undergrad GPA, counting on a higher post-bacc and science gpa to help you. Least amount of time investment but undergrad GPA might cause automatic rejections at some schools with a GPA cutoff.
option 2: deliberately fail to finish the business bachelors and complete a biology bachelors degree. Much longer, more courses, but would leave you much better prepared for medical school. Also would increase you undergrad GPA hopefully above 3.0
Down side - no separate post-bacc grade (which could be closer to 4.0) but you will still have a science gpa that will be seen separately and may be much better than overall gpa.
As to which is a better course, I’m really unsure. If you can invest the time, I would think the biology bachelors would be better - not because of the major per se, but because you had very little exposure to biology prior to this.
Kate
Thanks, Kate. I actually prefer option 2, but I was having a hard time deciding whether a low cum gpa/high post bacc gpa or a higher cum gpa and no post bacc would look better to ad coms. I think I’ll stick with the bio bachelors, after all. It’s a marathon, not a sprint, right?
Yes, and you want to arrive at medical school prepared for success rather than struggle due to inadequate background in the sciences.
Kate