Post Bac Pre-med in 8 months?

Nontraditional Premed Discussion
1

Hi! Everyone:


Recently, I came across a post bac. pre-med program located in Whittier, California.


www.integratedscienceprogram.com


According to its website, the school offers pre-med courses that can be completed in 8 months. Each course is 4 weeks in length.


I am reaching out to the OldPreMed.org community attempting to gather some feedback from anyone that has taken a course and/or completed the program.


Any feedback will be appreciated!


Thanks.

2

Looks good. I imagine extremely intense but definitely doable.

3

Brant -


I did gen chem 1 and 2 in total of 9 weeks, with the test in the interim, so I’m sure the content can be done in 4 weeks each.


It was extremely intensive and I’d be VERY hard-pressed to do Organic Chem or Physics that quickly because the only thing that made it possible to get the concepts that quickly was that the professor had 2-3 hour problem sessions every evening and would work thru the problems with us or give us help on them. Couldn’t have gotten the concepts without his investment in the course.


The rest of my postbac was Orgo, Bio and PHysics with labs in standard semesters, so you couldn’t just concentrate on one, but it was still a bit easier than the condensed courses were. My program took 12 months (summer, fall, spring semester).


I’d think there would be some danger of burnout as well as of not grasping the concepts quickly enough and being left behind if doing all the ocurses that quickly.


Kate

4

As a comparison, I did organic lecture in the summer (no lab). 5 weeks of classes, 4 afternoons a week, 3.5 hours per lecture, 3 exams and a comprehensive final. It was brutal just in the amount of work and the number of hours in a day (and night and weekend).


I tend to advise students away from 1 year post-baccs or less for several reasons.

  1. Is your goal to get into medical school or to get into medical school quickly

  2. unless you are a great student completely on top of study and exam skills, it is difficult. Most OPM have been out of school for sometime so I suggest they should start with a class or two to improve those skills

  3. A program of a year or less is more than typical full time college. For many of us job, family, etc, make that a difficult prospect

  4. Medical schools care how well you did, not how hard you tried, so one of my rules is not to risk bad grades by doing too much.

  5. For year programs, your either start in June in summer courses of biology and general chem (for rusty students more than a full load), or you end in the summer with organic while trying to do your MCAT and applications.


    For most students I believe these programs present more risks than benefits
5

My worry would be whether the credits would be acceptable at the majority of medical schools. I see they list pre-medicine/osteopathic but can’t find any testimonials of success.

6

edit…they are accredited through WASC.