how many post-bacc credits to counteract <3.0 gpa?

[Cheeze Whiz]

Hi all !! I read a post some time ago ( but can not find) regarding how many post-bacc credits are needed to best compensate for a low Ugrad gpa. My Ugrad was 2.9 from 7yrs ago. Then I made a muck of things 3 yrs ago when I started a post-bacc at a private school---ending up with 20 credits of ~ 2.7 gpa and 20K of debt.

Soooooo......now here I am at a local public school taking evening classes (I work full-time). I am doing 2 science lectures a semester. ABOUT how many credits or semesters of GOOD post-bacc work( >3.4) should I aim for before applying? I am near done w/ pre-reqs and plan to take every advanced science course under the sun........... Thanks for any advice!!

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[medschoolorbust]

I think you need to take all your core pre-med science courses and get A's, especially if you're taking them at a community college. You need straight A's or close to it. You're not going to bring your GPA up substantially no matter what, since you have 4+ years of coursework with below a 3.0, but medical schools would take into account your improvement as motivation to pursue medicine. In additon to the core pre-med courses, I think you need 3-4 upper level science courses with A grades (eg. genetics, microbio, neurobio, biochem....stuff like that) to prove that you are academically capable of doing well in advanced level sciences. Get tutors...do what you need to do. In my opinion, you need to do better than just get >3.4. You need a 4.0 or darned close to it. Make sure you are building the rest of your application, too. This might make up for not so great grades. Make sure you consider applying to osteopathic schools as well.