The College of Science and Health’s (CSH’s) Post-Baccalaureate Pre-Health Program (“post-bac program”) at DePaul is a pre-professional program designed for career changers who aspire to pursue a graduate health professions program’s prerequisite coursework leading to a career in one of the following nine fields: dentistry, medicine, optometry, pharmacy, physical therapy, physician assistant practice, podiatry, speech language pathology, or veterinary medicine. The post-bac program is flexible and allows students who might be working full-time or part-time to complete the courses (offered during the day, Monday through Friday) on a part-time basis at their own pace. The post-bac program does not bear a certificate, nor will it carry any other type of credential.
In order to be eligible for the post-bac program, applicants must:
- Be U.S. citizens or permanent residents
- Have earned at least a bachelor’s degree with a non-natural science major from an accredited college or university; if an applicant already completed one or two graduate health professions prerequisites, depending on when the courses were completed – and the grades achieved – students may be advised to either repeat them or take one or two advanced-level science courses
- Have earned at least a 3.00/4.00 undergraduate cumulative GPA
- Be in good academic standing at previous institution(s) and be able to return
- Be career changers with little to no lab science background
Benefits of the post-bac program:
- Rolling admission (on a quarterly basis)
- Completion of courses at one’s own pace on a part-time basis
- Customized pre-health advising from faculty and staff advisors
- Opportunity to have a committee letter of recommendation written (depending on professional school program of pursuit)
- Guidance on identifying and pursuing volunteering, shadowing, research, and leadership-building experiences
- Free tutoring at the CSH’s Science and Math Learning Center and DePaul’s Learning Commons
- Automatic registration for the CSH’s Pre-Health Program: receive invitations to pre-professional workshops (i.e. personal statement writing, practice interviews, etc.), speaker engagements, student group events, and possible shadowing and volunteering opportunities
- Registration for classes before the general non-degree seeking population