Hey everyone! I am new to the website and enjoy the wealth of information on here. I’m 23 and I recently made the decision to become a doctor after working as a patient care technician. When I enrolled in college, I messed up for the first two years due to many family issues, my major being in psychology. I’ve since done much better in my coursework with only a few more semesters left until I complete my degree and by the time I graduate my gpa will most likely be a little under 3.0. I only have a few more semesters worth of financial aid available and I’m not sure if I should spend additional time taking the prereq courses before I complete school or if should wait until I graduate then enroll in a formal or informal post bacc. What do you think would be the best decision? TIA
Well, you definitely need to work on bringing up the GPA a little, so you either need to bring it up in pre-med courses or go onto a post-bac program if your find one you like.
One advantage of a post back program (like the one at my school LMU-DCOM) is that if you get an A or B in anatomy you are a shoe-in for acceptance for the physician program the next year. There would be no reason to not accept you if you do well in one of the more difficult courses of 1 year.
One down side is that they may be a little pricey and if you tank in them it could get really hard to find a med school after that.
Personally, I decided to beef up my resume by rocking biochem, ochem, physiology, and anatomy at my undergrad school. It worked well. All 4 interviews noted that I had struggled early on in college, but when it came down to the tough classes I excelled. All 4 accepted me. If I were to do it again I wouldn’t change a thing.