After one year, individuals who have completed the Bryn Mawr Postbaccalaureate Premedical Program are well prepared to succeed in medical school.
Bryn Mawr offers a structured and comprehensive curriculum that fulfills all the premedical requirements you will need to apply to medical school. Over a 12-month period, you will carry a full-time load of courses in biology, general chemistry, organic chemistry, and physics. This typically involves a two-semester general chemistry laboratory course during the summer session, and biology, physics and organic chemistry laboratory courses per semester during the following academic year.
Unless you have already taken the full year of general chemistry in the past five years, students will begin the program in the summer and will complete the program the following May, and take the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) in May or early summer.
Typical Course Schedule
Summer Session
General Chemistry
Fall & Spring Semesters
Biology
Organic Chemistry
Physics
Optional new course: The practice of medicine (Fall semester only)
May/June
Take the MCAT
Optional Extra Summer Session
Biochemistry
New Course: The PRactice of Medicine
In this course we provide a peak behind the curtain – to demystify medical training and offer insights about how to navigate the training process. We start with a discussion about the nuts and bolts of what medical school is like and discuss how one chooses not just a specialty, but a career path within that specialty. We discuss hot topics in health and healthcare and view them from the perspective of how the issues impact physicians and physician trainees.
The course includes sessions on end of life planning, balancing career and personal life, and a dialogue about the complex intersection between social problems and health. To offer some perspective on what its really like to train, practice, and live as a physician in the current healthcare environment, students engage in a series of (non-academic) readings, guest lecturers, and professional and personal illustrative stories.
The course is taught by two physicians who are former Bryn Mawr postbacs. Brendan G. Carr, MD, MS is an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine & Epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine with secondary appointments in the Departments of Surgery & Pediatrics. Sarah E. Winters, MD, MS, practices primary care pediatrics in one of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s (CHOP) core residency practices.
Self-Scheduled Exams
Like all of the undergraduate and graduate students at Bryn Mawr, you have the freedom to decide when to schedule your final examinations in many of your classes. This is one of the privileges of the College’s Honor Code, which allows students to govern themselves and take responsibility for integrity in their academic and social behavior.
Elective Courses
The program can be adjusted to meet your individual needs. If you have previously completed one of the core course requirements as an undergraduate, you may take an elective course. Bryn Mawr’s academic departments offer many undergraduate courses that are of interest to postbacs.
Some of the more popular elective courses are:
- Biochemistry
- Biology and Public Policy
- Developmental Biology
- Genetics
- Math - Calculus and Analytic Geometry
- Math - Introduction to Statistics
- Neurobiology and Behavior
- Pediatric Psychology
- To Protect the Public Health
