Even though I haven’t heard back from the majority of the schools I applied to, I’ve been considering my options for after graduation from my Masters Program, including doing a Post-Bacc through Post-BaccCAS. Even though I’m doing well in my Masters program (3.9 overall with a 3.8 science), I still did pretty poorly in undergrad (3.19 overall with a 2.88 science, 509 MCAT), and know that my stats are severely hampering my application. Part of Post-BaccCAS is the personal statement, whose prompt is pretty similar to the AMCAS personal statement - How have your experiences contributed to your decisions to pursue a career in healthcare. I was wondering if I should just use my AMCAS personal statement, or if I need to write a completely new personal statement. The other wrinkle in this is that I am actually applying to medical school at the same place where they offer this post-bacc - will the adcom for the post-bacc be able to look at my AMCAS application and see I used the same personal statement, and if so, would it look bad?
Hi, I hope all is well. Currently looking to go into an SMP. Seeing this post makes me second guess. Could you discuss a bit about why you are deciding to go into a postbacc after a masters? I thought med schools focused on the last 60 credits and over ride undergrad GPA if you do a masters.
Thank you
I chose to do a Masters program that wasn’t really pre-med focused (mine is in Clinical Exercise Physiology). From what I’ve read, a lot of medical schools look more closely at your undergraduate grades than Masters grades given that some masters programs can inflate the GPAs of their candidates. Now with that being said, I know that there are certainly some SMPs that are pretty hardcore or connected with medical schools, whose programs are rigorous with the explicit intent of showing that you can handle the difficulty of med school classes. Plus, I know that financial aid for Masters and SMPs tends to be better, so it also kind of depends on how ready you are to pay out of pocket. I’m choosing to do a second masters because my program would be through a medical school and I’d be taking classes with first year med students, so if I do well, it would show academic capability.
TL;DR I think there are a lot of things to consider when you’re trying to make the choice between the two. Masters gpa definitely doesn’t override your undergrad gpa since the process is holistic and undergrad tends to be the one I’ve heard that schools look at more closely, but a masters could still be a good option for you depending on your unique set of circumstances.
Note: I’m also just a premed student and this is all info that I’ve kind of got from a couple different sources, so I am by no means a professional counselor or anything! Best of luck in your applications/journey hope I helped!
hope I helped!