FuturePAinthehouse Posted April 26, 2019 Share Posted April 26, 2019 Hi all, I am thinking of a career transition change for myself. I have been working in the corporate healthcare world for 4-years (doing government and consulting work) and I want to do a career transition and be on the field and perhaps go through the PA school. Before I do that, I will like to take a year to prepare and make sure I am able to put myself as competitive as possible. Prior going to a 4-year university, I went to community college because I had some person issues that were going on. I done a lot of the intro classes in the bio. track and GPA was 3.59. My undergraduate major was Biology at Cornell University, but overall GPA was 2.65. My graduate degree major was a MPH in Health Policy at St. Louis University, with an overall GPA of 3.98. My science GPA is on the low side. But since I have already taken the majority of the prerequisites courses, what will the best option for me? I have been out of undergraduate for about 7 years. Should I start a post-bac program for career changers or for academic record enhancers (I can take advance science classes to help boost the science GPA)? Can I do them at a community college? Or should I apply to an university? I would appreciate your input on this as I would love to apply to the program next year. Below are my stats: 1st Community College: CHEM 111 UG General Chemistry I (L) A 4.000 16.00 CIS 102 UG Intro to Info Science (I) B 3.000 9.00 ENG 101 UG English Composition(E)(Honors) A 3.000 12.00 MATH 203 UG Calculus I (M) A 4.000 16.00 GPA: 3.59 Undergrad: Evolutionary Bio&Diversity Cred: 4.00 Grade: C- Org. Chem for Life Science Cred: 3.00 Grade: C+ Intro. to Sociology Cred: 3.00 Grade: B+ Nutrtn Hlth and Society Cred: 3.00 Grade: C+ General Microbiology Lectures Cred: 3.00 Grade: C General Microbiology Lab Cred: 2.00 Grade: C- Intro Exper Organic Chem Cred: 2.00 Grade: C Or Chem for the Life Science II Cred: 3.00 Grade: C Priniciples of Biochemistry Cred: 3.00 Grade: C+ Medical Parasitology Cred: 2.00 Grade: B Intro Microeconomics Cred: 3.00 Grade: C+ Soc. of Health and Ethnic Min Cred: 3.00 Grade: A- Fundamentals of Popul Health Cred: 3.00 Grade: A Intro Statistics Cred: 4.00 Grade: B Princ Of Biochem: Mole Bio Cred: 2.00 Grade: B- Epidemiology in Context Cred: 3.00 Grade: B Fundamentals of Physics Cred: 4.00 Grade: C Genetics and Genomics Cred: 5.00 Grade: C Argumentation and Debate Cred: 3.00 Grade: B+ Intro to policy analysis Cred: 4.00 Grade: A- The US Health Care System Cred: 3.00 Grade: B+ Human Microbes and Health Cred: 3.00 Grade: C Encrionmental Microbiology Cred: 3.00 Grade: B Finance Cred: 3.00 Grade: B Race and Public Policy Cred: 3.00 Grade: B- Religion and Reason Cred: 4.00 Grade: B Cumulative GPA: 2.652 Graduate School: Principles of Biostatistics Cred: 3.00 Grade: A- Health Care Organization Cred: 3.00: Grade: A Fundamentals of Econ and Finance Cred: 3.00 Grade: A Management of Health Care Organization Cred: 3.00 Grade: A- Health Policy Cred: Cred: 3.00 Grade: A Behavioral Science and Public Health Cred: 3.00 Grade: A Principles of Epidemiology Cred: 3.00 Grade: A Health Economics Cred: 3.00 Grade: A Government Financing of Health Care Cred: 3.00 Grade: A Econometrics I: Cred: 3.00 Grade: A Environmental & Occup Health Cred: 3.00 Grade: A Health Policy and Law Cred: 3.00 Grade: A Ethical Issues in Public Health Cred: 3.00 Grade: A Economic Evaluation: Cred: 3.00 Grade: A Captain Sem. In Health Policy Cred: 3.00 Grade: A Health Policy Evaluation and Analysis Cred: 3.00 Grade: A- Policy Implementation Theory Cred: 3.00 Grade: A- Culuative GPA: 3.92 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ejohns20 Posted April 26, 2019 Share Posted April 26, 2019 Hi - congrats on all the work you've put in so far and for exploring a new chapter in your life. Excited for you! Overall GPA and science GPA are very important in CASPA, and generally to adcoms, though some schools weigh it more heavily than others. You can read on the CASPA website about how exactly they calculate each GPA; I'd recommend this, since yours isn't super straightforward (with the three different schools, two degrees, etc). I'd also recommend starting a running list of schools you are interested in applying to and researching exactly what their pre-reqs are and how important GPA is to them. Generally, schools don't really care where/how advanced the pre-req course is as long as you get it done. University courses are not considered superior to community college classes nor is a post-bacc unless that's something you want to do for other reasons. I think it kind of depends on how many pre-reqs you still need to do or redo. If it's just a handful I'd say take em at a CC. If it's a lot, I personally would like to have some sort of additional degree/certificate to show for it, but that's me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FuturePAinthehouse Posted April 27, 2019 Author Share Posted April 27, 2019 On 4/26/2019 at 10:44 AM, Ejohns20 said: Hi - congrats on all the work you've put in so far and for exploring a new chapter in your life. Excited for you! Overall GPA and science GPA are very important in CASPA, and generally to adcoms, though some schools weigh it more heavily than others. You can read on the CASPA website about how exactly they calculate each GPA; I'd recommend this, since yours isn't super straightforward (with the three different schools, two degrees, etc). I'd also recommend starting a running list of schools you are interested in applying to and researching exactly what their pre-reqs are and how important GPA is to them. Generally, schools don't really care where/how advanced the pre-req course is as long as you get it done. University courses are not considered superior to community college classes nor is a post-bacc unless that's something you want to do for other reasons. I think it kind of depends on how many pre-reqs you still need to do or redo. If it's just a handful I'd say take em at a CC. If it's a lot, I personally would like to have some sort of additional degree/certificate to show for it, but that's me Thanks! So my pre-reqs are expiring in some of the schools I am looking at. It looks like I might have to retake them. But do you know if my pre-reqs. expired are they still part of my cGPA? Or will they still be part of it and if I do a retake, they see it as a separate class? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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