Session 77 Today's question taken directly from the OldPreMeds.org forum is from a female nontrad student who is looking to possibly restart her postbac after starting it poorly about 5 years ago. She’s also thinking about applying to just 1 school. [01:35] OldPreMeds Question of the Week: Her Backstory "I obtained my B.A. in Anthropology in the Midwest many moons ago, worked as an on-camera model/actress to pay rent in my undergrad. Upon graduating, my agent sent me to LA where I worked for three years as a model and actress. I 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." [02:02] Similar to Jessica's Story This is similar to Jessica's story back on The Premed Years Podcast Session 168. She was a former actress and did her Bachelor of Arts at NYU, lived in L.A. as an actress, and then she decided she wanted to be a doctor and then got ten acceptances. [02:27] Suffering Grades "It is a large university with a medical campus, undergraduate campus, and 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 labs/hospital caused my postbac grade to suffer. Nothing too horrible but a few C's and mostly B's." [03:06] Too Much on Your Plate Postbac and C's and B's, that is kind of horrible. It is not very good for a postbac. When you're doing a postbac, the assumption is you've got to 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. As I've discussed before, one of the greatest mistakes premeds make is having too much on your plate that your grades suffer. You can hardly fix grades which means you can fix your grades but with more classes. But it's always average so you can't just replace anymore. Research and clinical experience can always be added. [04:18] Poster's Questions "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 in life is nothing short of hectic. These past few years, we have been married, traveled, settled into a home, and are thinking about a family soon. Even with all of this, I still have the itch. I am now 33 and wish to continue my journey. I'm so thankful for this website. Should I do a postbac for my postbac? My grades were average at best, relatively speaking, but since so much had passed and I wish to perform well on the MCAT. Should I simply start over? My AMCAS GPA isn't the greatest, around 3.3 cumulative, 3.2 BCPM. I've not taken Orgo or Biochem. The classes were upwards of five years ago. So part of me wishes to start fresh for the MCAT and so admissions committees can see me ace these classes now. Or should I redo only the classes in which I didn't do well, continue to take o-chem and biochem and attack on some more upper levels?" [05:33] Start Fresh You can't really start fresh because those grades are going to be there. You're going to have to report those. Any classes you're going to retake are going to be averaged in. Yes, you can redo some of the classes you didn't do well in and hopefully you get better grades in those and it's still going to be averaged. The only difference is you're not repeating all of the courses. It depends on whether you're talking about a formal postbac or do-it-yourself. If you're referring to a do-it-yourself, I probably wouldn't go back and repeat everything. Definitely repeat those with C's to try to get those up. Could you repeat eve