Latest / Admissions Straight Talk / The Bryn Mawr Postbac Premed Program [Episode 614]

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The Bryn Mawr Postbac Premed Program [Episode 614] · Admissions Straight Talk

• 0:00
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: I'm so excited to welcome my guest today.
• 0:02
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: Dr.
• 0:02
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: Glenn Cummings, Director of the Bryn Mahr Post BAC Pre-medical Program, joins me.
• 0:08
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: If you are a career changer looking for a post back program that has excellent advising, a close-knit student cohort, alumni mentoring, and MCAT prep, this is the program for you.
• 0:20
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: And welcome to the podcast.
• 0:34
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: So to start today, I was wondering if you could provide the listeners with a brief background of the history of the Bryn Mawr Post Back Pre-medical Program.
• 0:46
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Thank you.
• 0:46
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Well, our program is one of the first in the country, if not the first.
• 0:51
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: We're not exactly sure what the first program was, but we were founded in 1972.
• 0:55
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: So we're in our 54th year right now, a 54th cohort of pre-medical students.
• 1:00
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: We were founded at an historically women's college, Brynmark College, as an opportunity for women to go back after their college degree experience was over and um get the courses that they needed to go to medical school.
• 1:15
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: We've been co-ed for many, many years since then, but that was the origin of the program.
• 1:20
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: And we have students in our program from so many areas of the world and so many places.
• 1:26
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: We have teachers, former teachers, lawyers, military people, finance, artists, professional athletes.
• 1:33
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: You know, we we really uh draw students from all sorts of disciplines.
• 1:37
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: And they've all the one thing they have in common is they they want to uh go to medical school.
• 1:41
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: Okay.
• 1:42
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: So you have a long-standing history, which is a great place to start.
• 1:47
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: So my next question is your postback program is specifically designed for career changers.
• 1:54
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: And I was wondering if you could start by first defining that term.
• 1:59
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: What is a career changer?
• 2:00
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: And then the second part of my question is: can you talk about how your postback program differs from a program that is targeted towards someone known as an academic enhancer?
• 2:13
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Sure.
• 2:13
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: Yeah.
• 2:14
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Um I appreciate that question very much.
• 2:16
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: As I'm sure you know, there's a there's a good bit of confusion out there about what a post back program is, let alone a career changer post back program.
• 2:23
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: We always chuckle every application cycle because at least one phone call we get asks about the post-bachelorette program.
• 2:30
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: They don't even get the name of the program quite right.
• 2:32
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: But we are a program for individuals who have not taken the core required courses for medical school and they're starting from scratch.
• 2:40
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: We are sometimes also referred to as a start from scratch program as well as a career changer program.
• 2:46
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: They may have taken uh one or two of the courses in the past, but outside of five years ago.
• 2:51
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: So if if if it you know, if they've taken the courses within the last five years, especially if they've taken more than just one or two, if they've taken almost all of them, then they're not really eligible for our program because we are trying to um teach them the science classes from square one.
• 3:06
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: That is the difference, really, right there, between us and an academic enhancement program, just in the sense that we're not designed to help people who've already had the courses enhance their academic credentials.
• 3:17
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: We're designed for people that are very high achieving and quite successful in college to then go take the science courses and transition.
• 3:25
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Honestly, we have two types of career changer students, and one of them is a true career changer, and that's someone who's actually been, like I mentioned before, in another area for a number of years and is now transitioning toward medicine for a variety of different reasons.
• 3:40
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: We do have another younger group of students that are much closer to having graduated from college, and you can't really call them a career changer necessarily, but they they have come to medicine at toward the end of college and then realized that there just wasn't enough time left to get the requirements done.
• 3:55
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: And also they've been in an institution that had so many opportunities and so many wonderful things that they could do that they just decided not to do the pre-med curriculum in addition to double majoring and studying abroad and being an athlete or you know, whatever it is.
• 4:10
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: So we have kind of have two types, but we call them all career changers.
• 4:14
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: So that second point's really interesting because I was director of a post-back program at a university in Connecticut.
• 4:20
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: And so my traditional view of a career changer is the accountant who has decided they want to become a physician, right?
• 4:28
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: Or the social worker who has decided they want to become a physician.
• 4:32
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: But this this view of maybe a psychology major, undergraduate student who is graduating but simply didn't have time because they did all these wonderful extracurriculars can be viewed as a career changer.
• 4:46
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: That's really what you're saying.
• 4:48
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: They're certainly eligible for our program, and we and we have a group of them in our program every year.
• 4:52
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: It's, you know, I stop a little bit short of calling them career changer because, like I said, they haven't really had a career, but they're starting from scratch, and um our program is certainly open to them.
• 5:01
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: Yeah.
• 5:01
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: Okay, that's a great that's a very helpful definition.
• 5:04
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: I want to take a little bit of a deep dive into your curriculum.
• 5:08
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: So in prepping for this, I read that your curriculum is a 12-month program with noted full-time study.
• 5:15
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: So, what does a sample semester class schedule look like?
• 5:19
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Sure.
• 5:19
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Um, yeah, we run from late May every year to the following May.
• 5:24
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: So there are really three sections of the curriculum.
• 5:27
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: The first section is over the summer.
• 5:28
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: So it's not a semester, but it's it's a year's worth of general chemistry that they take in 10 weeks over the summer.
• 5:34
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Um, that's all the the students are doing.
• 5:36
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: It's it's accelerated, but it's very focused, and they get general chemistry out of the way.
• 5:40
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: And then in the fall and spring of the traditional academic year, they take the rest of the courses.
• 5:46
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: So they're taking organic chemistry, biology, and introductory physics in the fall.
• 5:50
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: And then in the spring, they're taking the second half of physics, the second half of biology, and then our organic chemistry class in the spring also has biochemistry in it.
• 5:59
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: So it's an integrated course that includes both of those classes.
• 6:02
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: So in 12 months, in a full-time program, they they can complete all the requirements that most medical and dental schools actually require.
• 6:09
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: We do have a few pre-dental students in the program sometimes as well.
• 6:13
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Great.
• 6:14
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: So I do have to ask, is it fair to say that the students in your program typically are not working in addition to taking these classes?
• 6:23
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: It sounds like a very heavy workload.
• 6:26
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: It is, and we we actually don't advise them to try to work because our the focus is on academic success and it's a full-time job just taking these classes.
• 6:34
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: That doesn't mean that some of them don't manage to do a um a limited part-time job.
• 6:39
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Also, our program has some part-time jobs built into it that you can apply to do.
• 6:45
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: And we pay some of the students to do different things, like to be a peer tutor, for example, in the program.
• 6:50
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: So there's a way to generate a little bit of income when you're in the program, but we are just out of necessity working very much outside of the courses just isn't possible.
• 7:00
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Sure, sure.
• 7:01
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: Now I know in working with students, when students are trying to find a postback program, they are considering the unique features of a postback program.
• 7:11
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: And sometimes it's a very difficult decision to decide which program is the right program for them.
• 7:18
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: So having said that, can you talk about some unique features of the Bryn Mawr Postback Pre-Med program?
• 7:25
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: Sure.
• 7:26
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Oh gosh, several things come to mind.
• 7:27
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: I'll try to be as brief as I can, but the there are several features that maybe are shared by other postback programs, but I think they're unique at Brynmar because we we devote a lot of time and attention and resources to them.
• 7:40
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: The first one would be would be our linkages.
• 7:43
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: We have um 13 medical school partners and one dental school partner that we currently have a linkage agreement with, which means that if you're in the program, halfway through the program, if you're eligible and if you're a pretty strong prospect, you can apply to one of our partners, just one.
• 8:01
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Um and if you're accepted, then you can potentially, well, not potentially, I mean you can start school then immediately following the completion of our of our program.
• 8:11
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Um, if you don't do a linkage, then you would be taking a glide year after you finish the program because you'd be in the application process.
• 8:17
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: So I think it's unique because we have so many of them.
• 8:19
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: I mean, 13 medical schools is a lot.
• 8:22
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Um, and um, I think that distinguishes us a little bit.
• 8:25
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Another thing that comes to mind would be what we call WISE advising, and WISE is an acronym, the the Brynmar mythical figure that the students all refer to as Athena, the goddess of wisdom.
• 8:36
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: So several years ago I came up with a kind of a philosophy of advising that that tapped into that idea of wisdom.
• 8:42
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: So WISE stands for welcoming, individualized, strategic, and experienced.
• 8:48
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: And, you know, I certainly talk to candidates when they apply to the program a lot more about our philosophy of advising, but I do think that two full-time advisors devoted to a cohort of around 70 students is is a great opportunity for people in our program to really get guidance that's based on on experience and really have some um individualized help in succeeding academically, but then also obviously getting coached through the process of leaving us and going on to the next step.
• 9:20
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: So that's that's a big one.
• 9:22
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Um refer to them at Bryn Mawr.
• 9:26
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: We refer to the alums of our program as old backs.
• 9:28
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Um it's just kind of a fun term.
• 9:30
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: I don't know that it's really caught on anywhere else.
• 9:32
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: But uh and in 54 years of alumni of this program, we have a lot of old backs out there in the community.
• 9:40
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: And there are a lot of there are a lot of opportunities for us to to um to have them speak to students and have them mentor and guide students.
• 9:47
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Oldback mentoring specifically is a one one year out relationship.
• 9:51
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: So that the the people who finished the program just last year can volunteer to be a mentor to current students in the program.
• 9:58
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: And so current students of the program can have their own personal pullback mentor who were in their shoes just a few months ago.
• 10:05
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: And I that's been a great source of moral support and and kind of guidance for our current students.
• 10:10
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: So I mean, those are three things that I can think of that I feel like are a little bit unique to Brynmaur.
• 10:15
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: Yeah, yeah.
• 10:16
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: Okay, I have a couple of follow-up questions.
• 10:18
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: Sure.
• 10:19
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: For the linkage programs, for the students that qualify, does that mean the medical students do not have to take the MCAT and the dental students do not have to take the DAT?
• 10:31
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Depends on the depends on the school.
• 10:32
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Okay.
• 10:33
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: So um uh about about half of them, I'd have to do the math, but about half of them do require you to take the MCAT.
• 10:40
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: And your acceptance mid-year is conditional upon you then taking the MCAT in the spring and scoring the score that they want to see.
• 10:48
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: The other half, there's some of our older partners, and they they have had such a long history of Brynmark post packs going to their medical schools and doing well, and they know how rigorous the one year can be.
• 10:57
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: So they're very kind and they wave, they wave the MCAT.
• 11:01
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: So it really just depends on the on the program.
• 11:03
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: And with your one on one, with your advising structure, which is fantastic because I hear of other students sort of being handed a document and saying, take these classes, and you know, it's sort of self self-advising.
• 11:19
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: Does that advising structure um offer guidance through the AMCAS application and the adSAS application?
• 11:28
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Yes.
• 11:29
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Oh, yes, very much so.
• 11:30
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: Yeah.
• 11:31
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: We're not done working with our postbacks until they're done with us.
• 11:35
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: And that's what I always say.
• 11:36
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: So, you know, I'm I'm advising them um sometimes even before they arrive in May, and then certainly throughout the year that they're with us.
• 11:43
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: But then when they're in the application process, through the app through the centralized application services, writing a committee letter, um, how to gather your letters together, um, help with the personal statement, preparing for interviews, all the things that you do when you're actually in the process, we also help them with.
• 12:00
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: And at some point uh when they're in medical school uh and I'm in touch with them and they they email me very kindly and they say, you know, we have advisors here in medical school that can help us.
• 12:08
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Thank you very much, Glenn, but but you don't need to keep helping me.
• 12:11
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Uh I moved on.
• 12:12
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: Your job here is done.
• 12:14
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Exactly.
• 12:16
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: Well, that's great.
• 12:17
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: Let's talk about getting your students really ready and competitive for medical school or dental school.
• 12:23
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: Do you offer opportunities for students to enhance their pre-med or pre-health portfolio with such things as clinical experience, research, and volunteer work?
• 12:35
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: And I'll I'll add a little addendum.
• 12:37
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: It sounds like the students are really busy with their classwork.
• 12:39
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: So if you do, when does all of this happen?
• 12:42
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Sure.
• 12:42
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Um, it is built into the to the program in a way that it is possible to do volunteer work and or research while you're in the program.
• 12:51
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: It doesn't leave much time for working, like we were talking about before, but there is time to do to do those types of things because they're just essential to you being a strong applicant.
• 13:00
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: And I think, especially with the clinical volunteering, they're essential to reminding you why you're doing what you're doing.
• 13:06
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: I mean, why am I in these classes, right?
• 13:08
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: I want to be a physician.
• 13:09
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: So getting out there in the clinical setting is is really important.
• 13:12
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: I mentioned two of us that are devoted to advising full-time.
• 13:16
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: My colleague has some specialty areas that she focuses on, and one of them is helping the students secure volunteer work in the greater Philadelphia medical community during the year that they're with us.
• 13:28
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: And most postbacks will volunteer three to ten hours a week, usually three to five hours a week, but some of our sites require a few more hours.
• 13:36
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Um and she's the liaison between the program and all those different sites around Philly.
• 13:42
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Um the and some of them do involve research as well.
• 13:45
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: It's it's it's hard sometimes, honestly, to have in-depth, meaningful research when you're in school full-time and also doing your volunteering.
• 13:54
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: But some of like at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, at our cancer center here in Philly, there are some opportunities where you can have a clinical experience that also involves research.
• 14:03
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: You know, it's clinical research.
• 14:04
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: So it's it's both.
• 14:05
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Um and that's been nice.
• 14:07
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: And then and then the service component, I mean, I'm always telling students, you know, do your clinical volunteering.
• 14:11
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: But if you care about a population of individuals or um a cause, some social cause or something, don't stop doing it while you're in our program.
• 14:21
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Um, but it's it's the lowest priority, honestly, because they do have so many other commitments.
• 14:26
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: Sure, sure.
• 14:28
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: Um it really sounds like a holistic opportunity for post back students.
• 14:33
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: I mean, there are some postback students that really, really focus on academics, but to be able to offer volunteer opportunities if if students meet with their advisor and their advisor says, this is what your portfolio looks like, and it looks like there's a weak area or an opportunity of growth during this postback program, and volunteering could really kind of fulfill that weaker area in your portfolio, and your postback program can offer that.
• 15:00
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: It really sounds like it's beneficial for the student and their upcoming application.
• 15:06
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Right.
• 15:06
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: I mean, as I said before, individualized is one of our is one of our models around here.
• 15:12
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: And we have some nurses that come into the program.
• 15:15
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Do they need more clinical experience when they've been a nurse for three years?
• 15:18
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: You know, not not always.
• 15:19
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: So I might direct them more to getting research, or I might direct them more to doing other types of service.
• 15:24
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: But then we have some individuals who are coming out of a completely unrelated, not even adjacent field.
• 15:30
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: I mean, a complete career changer.
• 15:31
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: And then we would direct them certainly into more traditional clinical volunteering in a hospital or a community health clinic or something like that.
• 15:38
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: So it really just depends on the individual.
• 15:40
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Sure.
• 15:41
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: Okay.
• 15:41
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: Well, with the exception of the students who might be linking to programs that don't require an MCAT, for the rest of your cohort, and I believe you said that cohort number is about 70.
• 15:50
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: You can correct me if I'm wrong.
• 15:52
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: Um for the rest of your cohort, do you offer MCAT test prep?
• 15:57
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: We do.
• 15:57
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: It's certainly a very important part of the application process to medical school.
• 16:01
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: We hire an individual called the MCAT Fellow every year, and they start working for us in August.
• 16:08
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: So over the summer, the students are focused on taking chemistry, and that's all they're doing.
• 16:13
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Um, but starting toward the end of the summer in the early fall, the MCAT Fellow starts holding sessions.
• 16:18
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: We we call them review sessions, but they're not just review of the material, they're also strategy sessions.
• 16:23
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: They talk about test taking strategy.
• 16:25
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: So and it starts not weekly, but they're they're kind of monthly in the fall, um, so not very overwhelming.
• 16:31
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Um and the students are told, they're given a lot of advice on how to fold MCAT review into their weekly routine.
• 16:38
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: And then over winter break, and as we move into January, the MCAT fellow moves to more weekly sessions as you get as we move toward actually taking the MCAT, and then the students are encouraged to fold their MCAT prep into a daily routine, not just a weekly routine.
• 16:54
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Um and they're you know reviewing some some flashcards or they're doing something every day to prepare them.
• 17:00
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: So it's about what would that be, six to nine month period leading up to the MCAT, depending on when they take the MCAT, where they're working with the MCAT fellow here in the program.
• 17:11
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: Wow.
• 17:12
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: Excellent structure.
• 17:13
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: Very, very good.
• 17:14
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: Yeah.
• 17:14
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: Well, my final question that I ask all program directors on this podcast is what are you looking for in a competitive applicant that might be interested in your program?
• 17:28
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Again, thank you for that question because very helpful.
• 17:30
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Anyone listening to this, if they're interested in the program, you know, I'm sure that's on their mind, right?
• 17:34
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Because we're not an academic enhancement program, honestly, we are looking very closely at the applicant's academic background and we want to see a sign of strength.
• 17:43
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Going back to high school, we actually ask for high school transcripts as well, because sometimes the quantitative work that they've done or their performance in STEM courses, you have to go back that far to see it.
• 17:54
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: I mean, if they were a humanities or social science major in college, they may not have any of that work to review.
• 18:00
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: So we look at that and we do look for students, no matter what they studied, that are intellectually curious and have really succeeded in the courses that they've taken in college.
• 18:09
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Our um the average GPA of the students in our program is usually between a 3-6 and 3-7 undergrad GPA that they bring in with them.
• 18:17
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: So just to give you a sense of things.
• 18:19
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Um but beyond the metrics, um, I mean, probably the most important thing is a demonstrated motivation for doing this.
• 18:26
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Um, is, you know, especially when they're a true career changer that's been in another field for a number of years.
• 18:31
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: What's driving them to make such a transformational change in their life and what's it based on?
• 18:38
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: So some sort of demonstrated experience, maybe some actual clinical experience, or just something, it could even be a personal experience.
• 18:45
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: It doesn't always have to be a professional experience, but something in their life that convinces us that they're gonna thrive in the program and then they've that they've really given us a lot of thought that they're making a decision.
• 18:55
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: There's a certain amount of bravery we look for.
• 18:57
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: I I like the word bravery.
• 18:58
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: I don't know, you could call it grit or courage or whatever you want to call it, but we are a fairly intensive one-year program, and we want people to be all in.
• 19:06
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: I mean, they have to be in and looking for some demonstration of of that in their past, you know, some some depth of commitment to something that they really enjoyed doing kind of would indicate to us that that they're gonna be okay.
• 19:17
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Love of service.
• 19:18
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: I mean, medicine is a service profession, right?
• 19:21
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: And so no matter what their their job was that paid the bills after college, you know, we always like to see maybe on Saturday mornings where they're doing something in the community um and helping other indiv individuals other than themselves.
• 19:35
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: That's always helpful.
• 19:36
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: And then I guess the last thing that comes to mind, and that's a lot, I know.
• 19:40
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: You don't have to have all these things.
• 19:41
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: It's just these are the things we look for.
• 19:43
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: But we are a tight cohort.
• 19:44
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: I mean, we're uh people come to our program, I think, because they want to be going through the pre-med experience with people that will become friends um and sometimes lifelong friends.
• 19:54
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Um and we have some um, you know, co curricular activities, committees, social programs.
• 19:59
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: things like that that are also part of the program.
• 20:02
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: And so we'd love to see in an applicant someone who cares about community.
• 20:05
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: You know, community building being part of a social setting.
• 20:09
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: And they they're not just a lone wolf that's going to go into the library and disappear for a year.
• 20:13
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: You know, they're they're going to be engaged with their fellow students.
• 20:16
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: Sure.
• 20:17
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: So we see we're we're very fortunate to have a cohort every year that really kind of is, you know, um epitomizes all those things and keeps my job very interesting and a lot of fun to work with with these types of students.
• 20:27
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: I learn something from the postbacks every day.
• 20:29
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: I always say this, but especially when they come from other fields and other professions, I come home at the end of the day knowing what some term finally means when I never knew what it meant or you know some area of our society that I just hadn't explored before.
• 20:43
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: So it's really fun to work with those students.
• 20:45
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: Yeah, I I totally agree.
• 20:46
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: I have a follow-up question.
• 20:48
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: Do you require letters of recommendation?
• 20:50
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: If so, how many and how much weight do those letters of recommendation carry?
• 20:54
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: We require two letters of recommendation, no more than three.
• 20:58
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: So they can they can have a third if they want to one of the only stipulation we put on it is that one of them needs to be what we call an academic letter.
• 21:05
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: It needs to be from someone who is familiar with their academic path.
• 21:08
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: So typically someone who taught them but it might also be an advisor.
• 21:12
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: That's the only additional little requirement.
• 21:14
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: They play a significant role.
• 21:15
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: The strong ones play a very strong role.
• 21:18
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: You know if you see if you write read a letter and you can just tell that not only one letter but maybe two different individuals just really loved working with this person.
• 21:26
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: That that really affects what the committee thinks as well I think.
• 21:30
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: You know honestly some letters are are just kind of neutral and we very rarely see a negative letter that hurts anyone's application very rarely.
• 21:38
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: So it's either neutral or or s or uh significant.
• 21:42
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: Right.
• 21:43
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: In terms of how we weight them.
• 21:45
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: Right.
• 21:45
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: Well I'm not sure about you or maybe if any particular stories come to mind but as we as we kind of close this podcast I know in working with post back students particularly career changers, I remember I worked with somebody who uh curated art in an art museum and decided that they wanted to go into medicine who just had such a unique story.
• 22:10
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: I always remember that particular person.
• 22:13
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: I worked with a history major who decided to come back and take all of the pre-med courses who was very successful in his application cycle.
• 22:21
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: So some of those very unique stories I remember because their personal statement flowed very nicely and they also had this very strong desire to pursue medicine.
• 22:35
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: And in my opinion their applications must have stood out to an admissions committee because they weren't the biomajor chemistry major.
• 22:44
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: So do you have any similar stories?
• 22:46
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Oh we do many, many many stories and it's it's I mean we've had I mentioned some of the different types of backgrounds that some of the students have had already but we've had artists we've had this year we have a a professional musician um who worked for a symphony for many years.
• 23:02
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: He's he's one of our older students and then we have people that are in more traditional the business industry or education law or something like that.
• 23:10
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: And the one thing that they all bring in addition to some maturity I mean maturity is big, right?
• 23:15
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: They they just have a sense of themselves I think that's a little different than the younger students.
• 23:20
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: But they bring transferable skills from what they've done.
• 23:23
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: And one of the things I do in my advising is really make sure that they understand what those skills are and not try to slam the door behind them and say, oh well I did that now.
• 23:32
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Medical schools aren't going to care about what I did before.
• 23:35
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Because you're right I mean I've seen too that medical schools do very much care and it does help them stand out in an application.
• 23:41
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: And even if it's pretty far afield from medicine, there's something that they were doing that they're bringing with them that's going to make them a better physician.
• 23:49
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: You know it can be you know working on a team it can be dealing with difficult personalities in your job.
• 23:55
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: It can be dealing with the stress of deadlines it can be all sorts of things that they think oh well you know I was I was I was in a worked it for a bank.
• 24:03
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: I mean what does that have to do with medicine?
• 24:05
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: But when you really dig deeper there are a lot of skills that our doctors should have as well that they've already they have some training in that area and it's really it's really helpful to to it's really fun for me to help them articulate that when they apply to medical school.
• 24:19
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: Yeah absolutely thank you so much for sharing all of the details about the Bryn Mawr postback program.
• 24:25
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: This has been fantastic.
• 24:26
  Dr. Glenn Cummings: Wonderful it was a pleasure thank you.
• 24:28
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: I'd like to thank Dr.
• 24:30
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: Cummings for joining me today on this podcast.
• 24:32
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: To read Dr.
• 24:33
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: Cummings bio and get more information about the Bryn Mawr postback program please check the links in our show notes.
• 24:41
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: Thank you for joining me today.
• 24:43
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: If you enjoyed this episode please be sure to subscribe rate and share the podcast.
• 24:49
  Dr. Valerie Wherley: We'll be back soon with more conversations to help you get accepted.