Good Evening,
I am sending out this message to seek out advice about my next steps towards applying to medical school. I am currently a 25 year old female with a 3.2cgpa/2.28 BCPM gpa. I am a senior at Rutgers and an active duty medical technician in the Air Force (since 2010). I also currently shadow a civilian provider twice a month for 2-4 hours at a time. Before joining, I completed an A.S. in Business Administration with a 3.44 in 2010. Then I joined the military later that year and once I got settled in, I applied to Rutgers under a new major, then changed majors again (I wasn’t informed that the first major had mandatory day classes). From 2012 to now, I have been attending classes in person, part-time, most of the year while on active duty. My sgpa is low because I had a “blip” in 2013 where I proceeded to earn four C’s in Pre-calc through Calc 2 and Chemistry 2, a D in Statistics and an F in Physics (also calc. based) within a year; there was no other time where I had a series of bad grades like that, a few other non-science C’s are spread out in my transcript but no trends. I was struggling through a long distance relationship and its breakup over the course of several months and getting sued (at fault for a vehicle accident). I was down/generally unmotivated at that time, but too stubborn to take a break from school.
Fast forward a few years, I bounced back and am an A/B student, but my current major (public health) doesn’t require me to complete the rest of my pre-medical science courses that I would need for medical school. Therefore, I will graduate in May with a little over half of my pre-med course requirements complete and a low sgpa. I feel confident I am now able to excel in sciences, and I know my next priority is to excel in completing my science pre-requisites and focus on improving my sgpa. I am trying to weigh the pros and cons of applying to and attending a formal post-bac program versus completing science courses on my own. I feel a bit paranoid about not completing any courses from the time of graduation until starting a post-bac. Would it be most time-efficient for me to complete a formal post-bac? If so, should I take science courses on my own during the year between graduating and starting a post-bac while I’m waiting? Additionally, should I retake any BCPM courses that I received a C in or press forward to more difficult courses and do well on those? The D and F definitely need to be redone, but I am unsure about the C’s. Please note that if I attended a formal post-bac, I would not be on active duty and instead completely devoting myself to studying and optimizing ECs during the length of the program. Any advice/suggestions are appreciated!
Verity