Tips for DIY Postbacc Premed Student?

[Captainrekt000]

Hey. Just found out about this forum and found a lot of good, helpful information here. I graduated with a BS in Chemistry a few years ago with a 2.3 GPA after not taking school seriously. After some life experience, I decided to go back to school and work my way towards medical school. I did a Prehealth postbacc with 32 RA letter grade credits (all hard science) with a 3.8 GPA and did a 32 credit MS in Biomedical Sciences with a 3.81 GPA. Even though I did well in my last 60+ credits my undergrad GPA is only 2.6 and overall GPA (undergrad + grad as calculated by osteopathic schools)  is 2.8. I still have a couple of years before I apply and online courses are widely accepted now by medical schools. MOST medical schools will screen based off of a 3.0 undergrad OR 3.0 undergrad+grad GPA. A handful of them with overlook my low GPA based on my postbacc/grad but I'm not willing to take that chance. Does any body have an tips for me? My goal is to take AS MANY EASY A RA letter graded courses in any subject as I humanly can (preferably science) with as low cost as possible within th next 24 months (60 credits is my goal). My employer pays me back $7k for college tuition reimbursement. It has to be online, preferably self paced/asynchronous. Although I'm open to community college, some schools look down on students who get a bachelor's and then take courses at the community college level. I have been taking ASU Universal Learner courses (and plan to take all of the science-related courses  but the $425 per course are adding up. I have read the wiki for "sources of credits" and "obscure credits" but I was looking to see if anybody had any tips. Portage, BYU Independent study, Idaho Independent study, ETSU openbucs seem pretty good. Does anybody know if ONU your way would let me take their $50/credit classes although I have a bachelor's? Thanks all

[Jonathan Whatley]

Is there a risk of any of your core science prereqs (e.g., gen chem I & II) being too old for the med schools you'll apply to by the time you apply? If so you might plan have to retake those, or perhaps take fresh courses from the same departments (e.g., if a gen chem is older than a med school's recency threshold but you have orgo or a chem elective that's recent enough by the threshold, that may fulfill the recency requirement).

[bjcheung77]

In addition to what was mentioned, there are a few things of concern as well... Taking courses and getting good marks on them would be an excellent option to raise that GPA. Having said that, if you had any failing grades or even ones close to a C- or D at the local college or university you attended, you may be better off redoing that course.

Depending on the school, it may take the better grade and have that on your transcript OR they would have an average of the two. Furthermore, the greater the details you provide us, the more we can help, please complete the template and last post addendum here: https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...Area-works

[dfrecore]

It's hard to say, since we don't know what you already took, nor do we know how many credits you already had for that 2.6 (which is very easy for you to compute on an Excel spreadsheet or even an online GPA calculator). But the more credits you have with low grades, the more you'll need at very high grades to counteract them. It could get difficult, and expensive, if you think $425/course at ASU UL is too expensive, and you can't do CC's.

I'm also guessing that just ANY science courses aren't going to work. I mean, you can't take Chem I & II more than twice - it's not like you can take those at 3 different colleges to bump up your GPA. Sooner or later, you're going to run out of courses to take.

Also, I'm not certain how any particular med school will look at your credits from many years ago vs. current. I'm thinking that you are probably spending too much time online asking people who don't work as an admissions counselor at a med school. Instead, I'm going to try to actually talk to some people at the schools you are considering. If it turns out that what you've read is correct, you may be better off doing something else entirely. Is PA school out of the question? How about getting a post-bacc BSN and/or MSN? There may be some other options that not many people are thinking about here. How about a Bachelor's in Psychology? Or some other degree that could benefit you? Communications? (thinking bedside manner here) Business? (thinking running your own practice some day).

I think you're not the typical student who is getting a 4.0 in college and then going to med school. So you may want to think outside the box and find some non-trad ways to get where you want to go in a roundabout way.

I have a cousin who went back to college after getting a bachelor's and then spending 4 years in the marines. He got his pre-reqs done, went to the very cheapest med school around (his home state university with in-state tuition) and graduated top of his class. He ended up going to Duke for his residency and being Chief Psychiatric resident his last year there. This is AFTER he was told by literally everyone that he needed to go to the best med school he could get into. He opted for inexpensive, and it paid off big time.