My child has a BS Computer Science degree from George Washington University with an overall GPA of 3.1 .If they want to pursue premed, can they take a postbacc at another university? What is the GPA they should get in postbacc to get into medical school?
Tagging @WayOutWestMom. Thanks in advance.
A year ago you were asking about getting accepted to college. How have you graduated already?
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Closing for review and to clarify with OP - OP is the parent of two children. Initial post edited to clarify.
Yes they can do a post bacc at another college. I believe they can also just take the courses they need at a four year college (creating their own post bacc). They really need to strive for a 4.0 GPA, or close to it.
They could also do a special masters program, I believe, but for those, the student definitely needs a perfect GPA…I’m pretty sure.
ETA…their GPA isn’t the only thing they need to do to hope for a medical school acceptance. GPA and MCAT score are usually the initial screeners at medical schools admission offices. The student also needs to have hands on work related to medicine, significant volunteer work with less fortunate populations, shadowing, great LOR, and if they get to that point, a great interview.
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A student can take their post bacc at any 4 year college or university. Additionally there are specific post-baccs offered for career-changers.
AMCAS offers a searchable database of post-bacc programs here: Postbac
Choose career changer as the type/
Some comments–your child’s undergrad GPA will still be used to compute their GPA and sGPA even if they do a post-bacc so it will very important that your child earn the highest grades possible to help raise their GPAs. The closer to a 4.0 the better. I would say anything lower than 3.5 will put them out of consideration at all but the newest DO schools.
However, there is no one GPA number that will guarantee med school admission. GPA is not considered in isolation, but as part of holistic process. Their MCAT score will also play a large role in his competitiveness for med school admission.
And, of course, without having the expected pre-med ECs (clinical experience, community service with disadvantaged populations/communities, physician shadowing, leadership positions in activities) their application won’t even get considered.
As career changer, there is a lesser expectation for having clinical or lab-based research, but if your child is interesting attending a research focussed med school or entering a competitive specialty like orthopedics, ophthalmology, neurosurgery, ENT, urology, other surgical subspecialties, cardiology, gastroenterology, interventional radiology…then having some research experience is highly beneficial.
BTW, I strongly recommend they do their post bacc in person, not online as not all med school will accept online classes, and very, very few accept online labs. Also your child will need LORs from 2-3 science professors (bio, chem, math or physics only) who have taught them in class.
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Just trying to understand the 3.5 GPA here… Is it -Including undergrad and postbacc GPA, the overall GPA should be above 3.5 to be considered??
Your child needs to get their sGPA into 3.25-3.3 range–that sGPA includes both undergrad AND post bacc grades. (Assuming all post bacc classes are undergrad level since MD schools do not include graduate coursework in GPA calculations.) A sGPA lower than that puts the student at risk of failing out of med school and med schools are going to be skeptical that the student has the academic readiness to be successful in med school. (3.3 to get past the bottom screen out during the first pass review by med schools.)
A BCPM-only post bacc that includes ONLY undergrad level classes needs to be 3.5 or higher if the student wants to be seriously considered for med school. And a 3.7 for MD schools.
There are a few med school that say they only consider the last 30-45 credits a student has earned when computing GPAs. Wayne State, for example, will compute a sGPA using the student’s last 30 science credits taken in a post bacc.
Med schools want to see a strong rising trend in grades over time. Poor freshman year grades can be forgiven. Junior/senior/post-bacc weak grades really can’t be.
sGPA for MD programs–includes ONLY biology, chemistry, physics and math grades
sGPA for DO programs–includes ONLY only biology, chemistry, physics
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