In essence, post-bac, in the medical community, means any program or classes that you take after graduating from undergrad for the purpose of getting into medical schools.
The reason there is confusion over the term is because there are many different types of post-bac programs.
According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, there are four types of post-bac programs within the medical community.
- Career-Changers: These types of program are for those who did not initially want to become a doctor in undergrad. Oftentimes, the people who apply to these programs are working professionals who now desire to become physicians. To apply to these programs, you usually cannot have taken a lot of the required science courses for medical school.
- Academic Record-Enhancers: These types of program are for those who wish to strengthen their medical school resume. They are for students who have completed or almost completed all of their prerequisites for medical school, but their statistics is not as strong as they desire. They can take classes in these types of post-bac programs to attempt to raise their GPA, gain more clinical experience, etc.
- Groups Under-represented in Medicine: These types of program exist to help under-represented groups gain admissions into medical school.
- Economically or Educationally Disadvantaged Students: These types of program exist to help disadvantaged students gain admissions into medical school.
To learn about the exact programs that are may be available for you, visit AAMC’s page regarding post-bac programs.
