Neurobiology123 Posted October 28, 2014 Share Posted October 28, 2014 Hi guy, I going to graduate from UC Davis as a neurobiology,physiology, and behavior major this fall. I am looking into going to PA school as the next step in my career. Im going to graduate from UC Davis with a 3.1 cumulative and 3.08 science GPA. Im planning on taking 1-2 years off to work as a emt/paramedic to gain experience and also to improve my GPA. I have done almost all the pre requisites except Microbiology. Do you guys recommend me going into a post bacc program to improve my GPA or should i just take science courses in a community college. Thanks for the help guys! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LESH Posted October 28, 2014 Share Posted October 28, 2014 Doesn't UCD take pre reqs from a CC? Why do a postbacc when you could ace a CC Micro course, save some money and get more HCE? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neurobiology123 Posted October 28, 2014 Author Share Posted October 28, 2014 I also want to raise my science gpa to around 3.4. So community college is a better route? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrator rev ronin Posted October 28, 2014 Administrator Share Posted October 28, 2014 I did almost all of my science classes at my local community college. None of the programs to which I applied ever had any problem with it. Community colleges are better at offering night/weekend classes, at affordable cost. Oh, I was also able to rack up several quarters of President's List, Phi Theta Kappa, a merit scholarship, and another associates degree with highest honors doing it that way--may not have helped my application much, but it certainly didn't hurt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UGoLong Posted October 28, 2014 Share Posted October 28, 2014 I took all of my prereqs in community college and none of the schools I applied to batted an eyelash. It's really the best way to take classes while you hold a full-time job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbird Posted October 28, 2014 Share Posted October 28, 2014 My undergrad GPAs were much lower than yours and chose to take most of my prereqs at CC. Sprinkled in a couple at the local university and ended up having one of the uni professors write me a LOR. I've had three interviews (2 acceptances and one still waiting to hear) so far this cycle and not one person has asked about where I took classes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neurobiology123 Posted October 29, 2014 Author Share Posted October 29, 2014 Thanks for the information guys. Appreciate it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blake Thomas Valenta Posted November 10, 2014 Share Posted November 10, 2014 Although most PA programs accept CC credit, in a scenario with a low GPA it may be better to do a post bacc. A few courses anywhere won't raise your GPA substantially and the idea with a post bacc is that you're doing graduate level work and if you're able to succeed and get a higher GPA in that year it will have more weight than getting a few As tacked on to your transcript. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RealWayPA Posted November 12, 2014 Share Posted November 12, 2014 Finally, a topic I can comment on from first-hand experience! I enrolled in a post-baccalaureate program at a fairly prestigious local university 4 years ago when I decided that I wanted to be a PA. Along the way I ended up taking a number of courses online through community colleges and distance programs. Here's my experience of one versus the other: Post-Bacc Program Strengths: IT WAS HARD! The professors generally expected a lot from the post-bacc students. We were expected to be leaders in the classes, both academically and socially. Additionally, I felt I was held to a higher standard academically. As a result, I didn't get a perfect 4.0 in the program. I didn't even come close to a perfect 4.0 When all was said and done after two years, I had a 3.7ish GPA of predominantly science classes. In the long run, I believe the post-bacc was worth doing because I learned a LOT about science. By that I mean I actually learned it, inside and out, front and backwards. Doing the post-bacc program also opened up other opportunities for me: independent research in microbiology, being given the opportunity to take graduate level classes based on my performance, developing good rapport with professors when it came time to ask for LORs, etc. Overall, the post-bacc program was invaluable FOR ME. Weaknesses: Cost. Doing the program was a HUGE investment of time, MONEY and mental effort. I didn't work at all during the program because it was extremely difficult and required above-average effort at all times. One of the biggest gambles with doing a rigorous post-bacc is that, depending on your current GPA, you may end up hurting yourself if you can't get a perfect 4.0. To offer you perspective on how difficult a task that was, my post-bacc cohort was 10-12 very, very bright, motivated individuals. Two years after we started, only one student got a 4.0 (he was a 40-year old Harvard undergrad-Harvard MBA who got a perfect score on the GRE and ended up getting over a 40 on the MCAT). If you're looking solely to boost your GPA without caring about the competitiveness of what school the grades come from, a post-bacc might not be the route for you. Based on what I've read in these forums, I'm inclined to think that PA schools are more lenient than medical schools in this regard. However, that being said, I still believe that doing that post-bacc gave me an excellent foundation in the basic sciences, and this foundation will help me greatly during PA school. Community College Strengths: EASY GPA BOOST. The classes I took online through community colleges and distance learning are the easiest grades I've ever earned. They typically don't require as much "hard" studying and work as brick-and-mortar classes do, and are less rigorous than ones taken at a research university. Also, they cater more to work schedules and are generally 1/4 - 1/2 the price of university classes. I also found some classes through CC's and distance programs that weren't offered at my particular local university, like Hematology, Stem Cell Biology, etc. These classes weren't required by the PA schools I am applying to, but they were science classes (generally easy ones at that) and let me earn an easy 3 credits of "A" while learning about things that were related to medicine and the human body. Also, many of these classes were self-paced. I found that since I was highly motivated I could bang out these classes in less than a month each with minimal effort. Often times I took two and three at a time and earned a full semester's worth of A's in 4 weeks. Weaknesses: Competitiveness? I haven't gotten into PA school yet, so I can't comment factually about how competitive these classes are looked at. A few (but not many) schools I looked at (particularly New England schools with very competitive reputations) outright stated that they wouldn't accept community college classes for prerequisites. However, (somebody correct me if I'm wrong) no school that I looked at said that community college classes weren't acceptable for adding to your overall GPA. I'm sure Rev Ronin and others can comment on this subject more than I can. Bottom Line I felt that, given the types of PA schools I am applying to, a rigorous brick-and-mortar post-bacc program was entirely worth doing. If you have the time and are willing to spend a significant amount of money, post-bacc programs seem to offer lots of ancillary opportunities that can't be found elsewhere as easily. I also felt that attending a competitive post-bacc was worth the tradeoff of not being guaranteed 60 credits of 4.0 GPA. That being said, I supplemented my post-bacc with 30+ credits of community college and online classes. Everybody else...feel free to disagree, agree, or comment as you see fit! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Posted November 12, 2014 Share Posted November 12, 2014 Good post realwayPA, although I would argue that your experience with "easy A's" at the CC isn't necessarily typical when actually in a classroom. It all depends on the CC and the particular teacher of course. Online courses are often a joke, riddled with cheating and not accurately showing a students potential, which is why many programs are reluctant to accept them. I have to say that I feel good about my CC postbac work thus far. I'm being challenged, studying hard, learning a ton, and owning the material by going above and beyond what's expected. 90% of my science classes are taught by Phd's, so no treadeoff there, except that I'm not going to be in debt over my head when all is said and done. I'm doing a mix between the university and CC for the sole reason of appeasing possible naysayers, otherwise I would simply take everything at the CC, throw in a couple upper level university courses, and then call it a day. Those few PA schools you're talking about sound quite stuffy TBH. Most med schools accept CC FFS. The cost of an education is out of control nowadays and the CC value is unmatched for those people venturing back to school and who are not eligible for aid. The way I see it, you're going to be in debt over your head after PA school anyway, so why tack onto that future load with super expensive postbac programs that offer no guarantees? All these costs add up and PA's aren't exactly rich... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
db_pavnp Posted November 12, 2014 Share Posted November 12, 2014 RealWay: Curious what courses you took in the post-bacc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RealWayPA Posted November 12, 2014 Share Posted November 12, 2014 db_pavnp: Here's what I took as part of my in-person post-bacc: Bio I and II with labs, Chem I and II with labs, A and P I and II with labs, Microbiology with lab, Biochemistry II with lab, Bacterial Pathogenesis (grad class I was offered to take - favorite part of my post-bacc by far!), Statistics, General Psychology, Developmental Psychology, and a bunch of other non-science classes that weren't strictly part of the post-bacc but I took anyway. Here's what I took either online or through a community college: Organic Chemistry I with Lab (I want to take this in person but it couldn't fit with my current work schedule - online ended up being MUCH harder than if I took it in person), Hematology, Immunology, Medical Terminology, a bunch of non-science classes to boost GPA. Why do you ask? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
db_pavnp Posted November 12, 2014 Share Posted November 12, 2014 I was curious if your post-bacc was bacc stuff or grad level stuff. I looked at a post bacc local to me and the material was the same as yours. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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