Should I Do a Postbac for My Postbac? Applying to 1 School!

Introduction

Dr. Ryan Gray: This is the Old Premeds Podcast, session number 28.

You’re a nontraditional student entering the medical field on your terms. You may have had some hiccups along the way, but now you’re now ready to change course and go back and serve others as a physician. This podcast is here to help answer your questions and help educate you on your nontraditional journey to becoming a physician.
Now welcome to the Old Premeds Podcast. My name is Dr. Ryan Gray, host here for the Old Premeds Podcast as well as The Premed Years Podcast, The MCAT Podcast, and Specialty Stories. You can find all of our shows over at www.MedEdMedia.com. That’s www.MedEdMedia.com.

Nontrad with Geographic Restrictions

So today’s question, taken directly from the www.OldPremeds.org forums, is from a female nontrad student who’s had an interesting journey, and whose current life situation is kind of putting her in a bind. And so I think this is an interesting one. It’s kind of a unique story, but not unique in the fact that a lot of you out there, a lot of nontraditional students, are going to have spouses, significant others, family members, sons, daughters, whatever it is, they’re going to restrict you geographically. Or that you think are going to restrict you geographically.
So that’s kind of where we’re going to go, so let’s go ahead and get into it.

Now she says, ‘I’ll try to make this short-ish and sweet-ish. Obtained my BA in Anthropology in the Midwest many moons ago, worked as an on-camera model / actress to pay rent during my undergrad. Upon graduating, my agent sent me to L.A. where I worked for three years as a model and actress. Moved back to the Midwest to begin my nontrad premed journey as a single gal when I was about 28 years old at the same school from where I obtained my BA.’
So I’ll stop there. This sounds very familiar to Jessica who was on The Premed Years Podcast. I don’t have the number specifically off my head. But she was a former actress, did her Bachelors of Arts at Columbia I believe, lived in L.A. as an actress, and then decided she wanted to be a doctor, and then go ten acceptances to medical school. So hopefully this student follows the same path. So let me pick up here again.

‘It is a large university with a medical campus, undergraduate campus, and a teaching and research hospital. I was so eager and motivated to be involved in all things medicine that I began working, or shall I say living, in a laboratory for a cardiologist. I literally craved to be there. I would beg my mentor to let me hop on rounds with him. I was eager to be in the lab, to perform science, to think, to shadow, and was ferociously stubborn about my goals. However my tenacity for the hands-on work at the lab / hospital caused my postbac grades to suffer. Nothing too horrible, but a few C’s and mostly B’s.’

So I pause. So a postbac, and C’s and B’s, that is kind of horrible. It’s not very good for a postbac. For a postbac- when you’re doing a postbac, the assumption is 4.0. Like shoot for a 4.0. Obviously you don’t have to be perfect, but your goal is a 4.0. Especially for nontrads who are trying to fix early grades, if you’re doing a postbac, shoot for a 4.0.

For this student, I don’t know what her undergrad grade was, but obviously doing a BA, probably not a lot of science, so her science GPA is going to be C’s and mostly B’s, so not great.

We’ve talked about this before. One of the biggest mistakes that premeds can make, and even though she’s a nontrad premed, she still started the premed path like a lot of premeds do with too much on her plate, and grades suffered. Remember grades, you cannot fix. You can always add- ‘cannot fix’ is a little harsh, but you can fix with more classes, but it’s always averaged, right? You can’t just replace anymore the C’s with A’s, or D’s with A’s. You can always add research in there. You can always add that clinical experience in there.
So I’ll continue here.

‘Fast forward a few years at 30 years old, after publishing much of my research, I met my husband. He plays in the NFL in our home city and has been for nine years now. His job is anything but traditional and the schedule and life is nothing short of hectic. These past few years we have gotten married, travelled, settled into a home, and are thinking about a family soon. Even with all of this, I still have the itch.’ Awesome.

‘I am now 33 and wish to continue my journey. I am so thankful for this website-‘ goes on to thank the Old Premeds website.

‘Alright so questions. First, should I do a postbac for my postbac? My grades were average at best relatively speaking, but since so much time has passed and I wish to perform well on the MCAT, should I simply start over? My AMCAS GPA isn’t the greatest, teetering around 3.3 accumulative, 3.2 BCPM. I’ve not taken orgo or biochem, the classes were upwards of five years ago, and so part of me wishes to start fresh; fresh for the MCAT and so adcoms can see me ace these classes now.

Or should I re-do only the classes in which I didn’t do well, continue to take ochem and biochem, and tack on some more upper levels?’

Postbac Options

So a couple options. She kind of laid them out. Start over, start fresh. You can’t really start fresh because those grades are going to be there, you’re going to have to report those, so any classes that you’re going to retake, they’re going to be averaged in. But that’s kind of the same as she mentioned re-doing some of the classes that she didn’t do well in, and hopefully getting better grades in those, and it’s still going to end up being the same, right? It’s still going to be averaged. The only difference is she’s not repeating all of the courses.

Do you need to repeat all of them? So the question is- when you say do a postbac for the postbac,’ are you talking about a formal postbac? Are you talking about do-it-yourself? If you’re doing it do-it-yourself, I wouldn’t go- I probably wouldn’t go back and repeat everything. I’d go and repeat those C’s, definitely try to get those up. Could you repeat everything and start fresh and hope for a 4.0? Sure. It’s going to take a little bit longer, it’s going to be a little bit more expensive. Obviously financially probably not a problem having a husband who plays in the NFL. I think the minimum salary these days is upwards of $400,000+. That’s public knowledge. So that’s pretty awesome to have that sort of financial stability.

So should you retake classes or not? So a couple things here. And she gets into it in the next question but I’ll mention it here because it’s important. Contact the school that you’re applying to, or want to apply to, and she mentioned only wanting to apply to one medical school. So for you, if you’re listening to this and you’re not this specific student who posted this, if you’re planning on applying to several medical schools, you have old grades, you’re thinking about retaking, not retaking. Call the schools, figure out if they are okay with old grades. I’ve talked to a lot of nontrads who have ten year old grades, twenty year old grades. Some say not a problem, don’t worry about it. Some say, ‘No we want something within five years.’ So contact the school and talk to them. That’s number one.

Number two, definitely would help the MCAT obviously preparing. The best way to prepare or start preparing for the MCAT is to do well in your undergrad, your core science courses. So if you retake those with a better foundation, better study habits, less commitments- time commitments that you have to handle, obviously you’ll do better.
So those are things to think about that. I don’t know if I’d repeat them all. I would look- obviously repeat the C’s, and everything else out. Keep that AMCAS calculator open and see how it’s affecting you. The biggest thing for this student is the second question, and it does tie in with the first question. The second question, ‘I’m terrified my husband’s career could be seen as a silent blessing for my journey as we have the financial security to support a family and allow me time for my studies without worry. However there is one medical school in our city, and it’s my first and foremost choice to attend because our families are here and we wish to continue to settle here. The risk is great for limiting myself to one school is great.’ So she’s limiting herself to one school basically. That risk is there.

‘And to be clear it isn’t just the geographical location of the school that makes it number one on my list, it is my top choice for many reasons, I’ll save those for another post. I’m not opposed to reapplying year after year however, so if there is anyone out there who has advice on perplexing situations as mine, it would be helpful.’

Geographic Restrictions

Alright, so a couple things. Again a very unique situation here with her husband being in the NFL, being in a city that he’s in now. So some of you may have that same situation. I know I’ve talked to spouses whose husbands or wives are in the military, very similar situation. You’re in one city, but in two years are you going to still be in that same city?

So for this student premed nontrad, or soon-to-be again nontrad premed, her husband is in the NFL. They have trades in the NFL, they have cuts and everything else. So I’m not wishing any bad ju-ju on your husband, but keep that in mind. So the limitation to one school, I understand it to some extent, but you’re putting all your eggs in one basket, literally with the off chance that your husband gets traded, or let go, cut, whatever immediately after you apply to that one school. And then what? He moves to another city, you maintain your residence in your current city, how does that work? So think about that as well. I’m sure you have. Obviously it’s something that is on the minds of every professional athlete, always the risk of being traded.

So applying to one school is very, very risky. I helped a student this year, she applied to two schools. Last year she applied to one, she didn’t get into that one, this year she applied to two, she got into the original one that she wanted to go to after working with me. I’m bragging about that, but she was working with me and we made it work.

And so here’s what I had her do, there’s no secrets here. I had her go and talk to people. Alright? So this student in the Old Premeds forum talked about doing research with a cardiologist, and doing tons of stuff. Go and talk to those people. Let them know, “Hey I’m applying, who do you know? Who can I talk to?” Go to the admissions committee, go and talk to them. Say, “Here’s who I am, here’s who my husband is, think of the large endowment-” No I’m just kidding. So go talk to them and say, “Here’s why I want to come to this school, and tell me what I need to do.”

Obviously they’re going to be somewhat restrictive in what they can tell you. They can never guarantee you an acceptance obviously, but they can help guide you. They are there to help you. They want the best students to apply to their schools, and they can help form that best student in you, why not go? There are some limitations once you apply, the type of help that they can give you, but for that go get as much help as possible.

So when you are planning on applying to a limited number of schools for whatever reasons, go and get to know the schools as much, as much, as much as possible.

There was an episode here, let me see if I can bring it up, I think it was episode 74- yeah, of The Premed Years. So www.MedicalSchoolHQ.net/74 was an interview with Keri. She was a nontrad premed, and her husband was a helicopter pilot for the Army, and a contractor, and so he was always being deployed, and she was very limited in taking care of family, and working, very limited with what she could do. She had some geographic restrictions, and she also had issues with taking classes only at a community college. So what she did, was she went and formed great relationships with the admissions committees at the few schools where she was willing to apply to, and she said, “Hey here’s who I am. Here’s what I’m doing, let me know if it’s okay, and if it’s okay I’m going to check in with you after this semester.” And she kept doing that semester after semester after semester, eventually gaining her acceptance into medical school. Go and form those relationships. They’re so, so important.

Final Thoughts

Alright I think those were the answers for this student. So geographic restrictions because of the spouse playing a professional sport, and then questions about the postbac, and whether or not to do more postbac classes or redo all of the other postbac classes. That’s what we answered today here on the podcast. I hope you enjoyed it.
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I hope you have a great week, we’ll see you next time here at the Old Premeds Podcast.