Homemade Pre-Med program

[Jonathan Whatley]

Feb 2016*Move back to Los Angeles*
-Attend SCHS to complete all prerequisite science courses (ISP - Accelerated Weekend College Science Courses - Class Schedule & Calendar). This will take about 6-7 months. (At the time of this writing, online science courses, even if they do come with labs are not going to make the application more competitive, unless GPA and MCAT are through the roof. I'd rather not taken the chance, or waste the money. Courses completed from this program however, are accepted at the medical schools I have interest in attending)

Have you checked with those schools directly?

I'm concerned about the accreditation status of the ISP program.

I get that the Integrated Science Program [ISP] is offered by a joint venture of Southern California University of Health Sciences (SCUHS), primarily a chiropractic school, and Lifelong Education Institute, a private company.

A successful ISP student apparently earns undergraduate-level credit on a transcript from SCUHS, which does hold regional accreditation.

However, SCUHS doesn't as of this writing hold accreditation to offer undergraduate programs at all, and appears to report to their accreditor that they have a full-time-equivalent undergraduate student count of zero. (They are currently developing a bachelor's completion program, "Pending WASC Approval.")

Aside from this, how is your background in chemistry, physics, and biology? I think a plan to complete over 30 semester hours in qualifying pre-medical courses, with a competitive GPA, in "about 6-7 months" could only work if you're very well-prepared from previous study in more than one of them, if the courses are very easy, or if the courses are very intense. In the latter case you probably shouldn't expect much time during the week for other commitments like volunteering.