Hello Guys,
Its nice to know that older pre-meds like us have a community. I have to ask for advice. i have always wanted to be a doctor , I am an immigrant who will be a citizen soon 
I acquired a master’s degree in human relations from the University of Oklahoma with a 4.0, my undergard was from overseas 3.1 GPA. I felt that the best way forward was formal post-bacc with linkages. I found a better one , one with assured admission ! the University of Louisville has a post-bacc program that will guarantee you a seat in their medical school provided : you are admitted to their post-bacc program
when you have taken 30 credit hours in the post-bacc your GPA is 3.6
you score a 9 on the MCAT with no section below 8.5 and an N in writing
you pass the interview.
the program is very very competitive it only accepts 24 people per year ! and it requires an interview. I knew that i was presentable with 4.0 GPA and an immigrant success story, passion for medicine , and student government…etc so I applied last Nov was invited for an interview in Feb and was admitted last March for this fall but had to request a deferral till the spring of 2012 because of my citizenship application and other affairs. Any ways the only drawback is that i have to spend $ 1000/ credit hour !!! I am hearing about many people taking the pre-req classes on their own but a doctor told me not to waste this assured admission chance because it is undoubtedly invaluable and doing it on my own is not a good idea when i have this chance and i will be in debt any ways so go for it. However, i can save about $ 30000 if i take the classes in my home state of OK I don’t know If i am competitive enough on my own i did the shadowing but i don’t know if i will stand out on my own and from what i heard student who were in the program and did not get in through assured admission got in in other schools i guess its a pretty good program so any thoughts 
Moe83,
$1000/credit hour is pretty expensive. When weighing that, bear in mind that with an undergraduate degree from abroad, most medical schools will require that you have 90 credit hours taken in the US to apply. Don’t know if the graduate credit hours apply. So you are looking at taking, not 30 credit hours somewhere cheaper, but at taking 30 expensive hours versus possibly 90 cheaper hours.
Kate
well I know that the university of Louisville will accept my graduate degree as enough to apply with because their post-bacc is established by their med school and i interviewed with their vice dean for academic affairs whose admission is part of his job duties as i read on his web-page. That is another reason I am thinking i should go to U of L
JMO, but it would seem that these parameters:
> 3.6+ GPA
> MCAT 30+ with no section less than 9
> Doing well in the interview, etc
…would make a person competitive anywhere. The advantage of a linkage program would be the guaranteed interview if you meet the GPA/MCAT requirements, and the support/advising you would get in a structured program.
exactly that is my dilemma is that all of these requirement make you competitive any where the only difference with that post - bacc program is that if you meet these requirement you are in you take the hope work out of it you meet them and you matriculate into the med school
I am regular sufferer from FUD, and the main cause of my FUD is the U(ncertainty). Personally, I think eliminating (or nearly–you know your study habits and capabilities best) would be worth it.
I’m almost finished with a post-bacc cert program at a public school, and the tuition cost will be about $12,000. That is with no guarantee of anything. Then compare with a top post-bacc program–say Columbia–which is $50,000 but still without guarantee despite its many linkages. Your program falls in the middle, and the linkage requirements are not onerous. If you like the medical school, then it sounds straightforward to me to go.
You may also wish to consider the cost of the medical school itself–how does it compare with a school that you find ideal and that you also think you could get into? The post-bacc cost may be more or less a wash.
And don’t forget that you are not saving $30K – you are saving the difference between the cost of DIY and $30K.