Need Post Bac Advice!!

Hello everyone~


I am so happy to have found this site! Reading these posts have given me so much inspiration to pursue a dream that I have always had, but was too scared to pursue until now.


I am 31 years old and have been in Real Estate my entire life. My undergraduate degree is Real Estate from Arizona State University, and have a limited Science background. My transcripts are all over the place as I started college with very poor grades and then did very well the last part of my junior and all of senior year, so my overall cumulative GPA is a 3.2 which is not very competitive.


I understand that I need to take the prereqs of the Biology, Chemistry, and Physics. Do you recommend taking a Post Bac program? Is there any known schools that offer this and will make it easier to feed into their medical schools? From your experience is it advised to take more Science classes then what is recommended?


I am single and adventurous…and willing to move from Arizona in a heartbeat if there is a great program out there that will make my chances easier.


Thanks in advance for any help!

Personally, I don’t see that a formal post-bac program is necessary. You can take the pre-reqs on your own, usually at less cost. Some programs do offer things that might make them advantageous - advising, application assistance, MCAT prep, tutoring - but this varies widely. Some programs can also be extremely competitive. There are a wide variety of programs out there. Some do have linkages with medical schools and more or less guarantee you a med school seat if you meet all the requirements. However, these programs are much more competitive to get in to, and some find lots of ways to weed people out so they don’t have to guarantee as many seats as you would think. I think the AAMC has a listing of formal post-bacc programs on their website, but not sure exactly where.


Take all post-baccs with a grain of salt. They will all state that they have great acceptance rates to medical school. What they don’t mention is that they might only be counting the percentage of people who got accepted to medical school counts only those who met very specific requirements and not everyone who started their program.


Your limited science background will actually help you, as you can still have a great science GPA. And, your overall GPA isn’t THAT bad. Med schools will consider a strong upward trend.


And yes, you should take at least a few upper level science courses beyond the pre-reqs.

There are some post bacc programs that guarentee an interview to certain medical schools which is nice, that is what I did. I was accepted before I finished my degree contingent on a certain mcat score. So I had no time off between post bac and medical school, yes.


On the other hand it doesn’t really matter where you take your premed classes and you might find better classes outside of a structured program. It is a little bit more work to put your application together on your own.

The main advantage of official postbacc programs is the committee letter. Some medical schools like and expect a committee letter, as opposed to 3-4 individual LOR’s. But it’s not that big a deal. You should go where you feel comfortable, can afford it, and get a good education–without sacrificing grades.


It helps to go to a school where they know about the MCAT and give you some practice in that testing style.