The Bryn Mawr Postbac Premed Program [Episode 614]

In this episode of Admissions Straight Talk, Dr. Valerie Wherley welcomes Dr. Glenn Cummings, associate dean and director of health professions advising at Bryn Mawr, for an in-depth look at one of the nation’s oldest and most respected career-changer post-bac pathways. Dr. Cummings explains the distinctive mission and history of the Postbaccalaureate Premedical Program – founded in 1972 at Bryn Mawr College – and clarifies what truly defines a “career changer” in the post-bac world. He walks listeners through the program’s rigorous 12-month curriculum – including the accelerated summer chemistry sequence and the full-time fall and spring science load – while also outlining how Bryn Mawr supports students through intensive academic advising, structured MCAT preparation, and opportunities for clinical volunteering, research, and service. 

Dr. Cummings also highlights the program’s unique advantages, such as its extensive network of medical school linkage partnerships, its individualized W.I.S.E. advising model, and its robust alumni mentoring system. In addition, he discusses what the admissions committee looks for in competitive applicants: strong academic performance, demonstrated motivation for medicine, a history of service, and the maturity to thrive in a tight-knit, collaborative cohort. 

Whether you’re a true career changer, a recent graduate ready to pivot toward medicine, or simply exploring structured post-bac options, this episode offers valuable insights into how Bryn Mawr prepares students not only for the application process but also for success in medical school and beyond. 

00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome

00:35 History of the Bryn Mawr Postbac Premed Program

01:47 Defining a Career Changer vs. Academic Enhancer

02:08 Who the Program Is Designed For

05:05 Curriculum Overview and 12-Month Structure

07:19 Unique Features of the Bryn Mawr Postbac

07:25 Medical School Linkage Programs

09:45 W.I.S.E. Advising Model and Alumni Mentorship

12:17 Preparing Students for Med School Applications

14:10 Clinical Volunteering, Research, and Service

17:15 What Makes a Competitive Bryn Mawr Applicant

21:40 Letters of Recommendation and Applicant Evaluation

23:50 Final Advice 

Related Resources

• Dr. Glenn Cummings contact information 
• Bryn Mawr Postbac Program email: postbac@brynmawr.edu
• The Basics of Postbac Programs: What You Need to Know

Related Admissions Straight Talk Episodes

• How to Apply Successfully to Med School from Postbac Programs [Episode 526]
• The Fastest Way to Medical School Is Slowly: Avoiding Early Premed Mistakes [Episode 608] 

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Transcript

Introduction

Dr. Valerie Wherley 0:00

I'm so excited to welcome my guest today. Dr. Glenn Cummings, Director of the Bryn Mahr Post BAC Pre-medical Program, joins me. 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. And welcome to the podcast. 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.

Dr. Glenn Cummings 0:46

Thank you. Well, our program is one of the first in the country, if not the first. We're not exactly sure what the first program was, but we were founded in 1972. So we're in our 54th year right now, a 54th cohort of pre-medical students. 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. We've been co-ed for many, many years since then, but that was the origin of the program. And we have students in our program from so many areas of the world and so many places. We have teachers, former teachers, lawyers, military people, finance, artists, professional athletes. You know, we we really uh draw students from all sorts of disciplines. And they've all the one thing they have in common is they they want to uh go to medical school.

What Is a “Career Changer” vs. Academic Enhancer

Dr. Valerie Wherley 1:41

Okay. So you have a long-standing history, which is a great place to start. So my next question is your postback program is specifically designed for career changers. And I was wondering if you could start by first defining that term. What is a career changer? 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?

Dr. Glenn Cummings 2:13

Sure.

Dr. Valerie Wherley 2:13

Yeah.

Dr. Glenn Cummings 2:14

Um I appreciate that question very much. 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. We always chuckle every application cycle because at least one phone call we get asks about the post-bachelorette program. They don't even get the name of the program quite right. But we are a program for individuals who have not taken the core required courses for medical school and they're starting from scratch. We are sometimes also referred to as a start from scratch program as well as a career changer program. They may have taken uh one or two of the courses in the past, but outside of five years ago. 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. 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. We're designed for people that are very high achieving and quite successful in college to then go take the science courses and transition. 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. 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. 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. So we have kind of have two types, but we call them all career changers.

Dr. Valerie Wherley 4:14

So that second point's really interesting because I was director of a post-back program at a university in Connecticut. And so my traditional view of a career changer is the accountant who has decided they want to become a physician, right? Or the social worker who has decided they want to become a physician. 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. That's really what you're saying.

Dr. Glenn Cummings 4:48

They're certainly eligible for our program, and we and we have a group of them in our program every year. 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.

Curriculum Overview and 12-Month Structure

Dr. Valerie Wherley 5:01

Yeah. Okay, that's a great that's a very helpful definition. I want to take a little bit of a deep dive into your curriculum. So in prepping for this, I read that your curriculum is a 12-month program with noted full-time study. So, what does a sample semester class schedule look like?

Dr. Glenn Cummings 5:19

Sure. Um, yeah, we run from late May every year to the following May. So there are really three sections of the curriculum. The first section is over the summer. 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. Um, that's all the the students are doing. It's it's accelerated, but it's very focused, and they get general chemistry out of the way. And then in the fall and spring of the traditional academic year, they take the rest of the courses. So they're taking organic chemistry, biology, and introductory physics in the fall. 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. So it's an integrated course that includes both of those classes. So in 12 months, in a full-time program, they they can complete all the requirements that most medical and dental schools actually require. We do have a few pre-dental students in the program sometimes as well. Great.

Dr. Valerie Wherley 6:14

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? It sounds like a very heavy workload.

Dr. Glenn Cummings 6:26

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. That doesn't mean that some of them don't manage to do a um a limited part-time job. Also, our program has some part-time jobs built into it that you can apply to do. And we pay some of the students to do different things, like to be a peer tutor, for example, in the program. 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. Sure, sure.

Unique Features of the Bryn Mawr Postbac

Dr. Valerie Wherley 7:01

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. And sometimes it's a very difficult decision to decide which program is the right program for them. So having said that, can you talk about some unique features of the Bryn Mawr Postback Pre-Med program? Sure.

W.I.S.E. Advising Model and Alumni Mentorship

Dr. Glenn Cummings 7:26

Oh gosh, several things come to mind. 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. The first one would be would be our linkages. 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. 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. 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. So I think it's unique because we have so many of them. I mean, 13 medical schools is a lot. Um, and um, I think that distinguishes us a little bit. 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. So several years ago I came up with a kind of a philosophy of advising that that tapped into that idea of wisdom. So WISE stands for welcoming, individualized, strategic, and experienced. 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. So that's that's a big one. Um refer to them at Bryn Mawr. We refer to the alums of our program as old backs. Um it's just kind of a fun term. I don't know that it's really caught on anywhere else. But uh and in 54 years of alumni of this program, we have a lot of old backs out there in the community. 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. Oldback mentoring specifically is a one one year out relationship. So that the the people who finished the program just last year can volunteer to be a mentor to current students in the program. And so current students of the program can have their own personal pullback mentor who were in their shoes just a few months ago. And I that's been a great source of moral support and and kind of guidance for our current students. So I mean, those are three things that I can think of that I feel like are a little bit unique to Brynmaur.

Dr. Valerie Wherley 10:15

Yeah, yeah. Okay, I have a couple of follow-up questions. Sure. 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?

Dr. Glenn Cummings 10:31

Depends on the depends on the school. Okay. 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. 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. 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. So they're very kind and they wave, they wave the MCAT. So it really just depends on the on the program.

Dr. Valerie Wherley 11:03

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. Does that advising structure um offer guidance through the AMCAS application and the adSAS application?

Dr. Glenn Cummings 11:28

Yes. Oh, yes, very much so.

Dr. Valerie Wherley 11:30

Yeah.

Dr. Glenn Cummings 11:31

We're not done working with our postbacks until they're done with us. And that's what I always say. 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. 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. 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. Thank you very much, Glenn, but but you don't need to keep helping me. Uh I moved on.

Dr. Valerie Wherley 12:12

Your job here is done.

Dr. Glenn Cummings 12:14

Exactly.

Preparing Students for Med School Applications

Dr. Valerie Wherley 12:16

Well, that's great. Let's talk about getting your students really ready and competitive for medical school or dental school. 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? And I'll I'll add a little addendum. It sounds like the students are really busy with their classwork. So if you do, when does all of this happen?

Clinical Volunteering, Research, and Service

Dr. Glenn Cummings 12:42

Sure. 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. 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. And I think, especially with the clinical volunteering, they're essential to reminding you why you're doing what you're doing. I mean, why am I in these classes, right? I want to be a physician. So getting out there in the clinical setting is is really important. I mentioned two of us that are devoted to advising full-time. 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. 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. Um and she's the liaison between the program and all those different sites around Philly. Um the and some of them do involve research as well. 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. 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. You know, it's clinical research. So it's it's both. Um and that's been nice. And then and then the service component, I mean, I'm always telling students, you know, do your clinical volunteering. 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. Um, but it's it's the lowest priority, honestly, because they do have so many other commitments.

Dr. Valerie Wherley 14:26

Sure, sure. Um it really sounds like a holistic opportunity for post back students. 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. It really sounds like it's beneficial for the student and their upcoming application.

Dr. Glenn Cummings 15:06

Right. I mean, as I said before, individualized is one of our is one of our models around here. And we have some nurses that come into the program. Do they need more clinical experience when they've been a nurse for three years? You know, not not always. So I might direct them more to getting research, or I might direct them more to doing other types of service. But then we have some individuals who are coming out of a completely unrelated, not even adjacent field. I mean, a complete career changer. And then we would direct them certainly into more traditional clinical volunteering in a hospital or a community health clinic or something like that. So it really just depends on the individual. Sure.

Dr. Valerie Wherley 15:41

Okay. 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. You can correct me if I'm wrong. Um for the rest of your cohort, do you offer MCAT test prep?

Dr. Glenn Cummings 15:57

We do. It's certainly a very important part of the application process to medical school. We hire an individual called the MCAT Fellow every year, and they start working for us in August. So over the summer, the students are focused on taking chemistry, and that's all they're doing. Um, but starting toward the end of the summer in the early fall, the MCAT Fellow starts holding sessions. We we call them review sessions, but they're not just review of the material, they're also strategy sessions. They talk about test taking strategy. So and it starts not weekly, but they're they're kind of monthly in the fall, um, so not very overwhelming. Um and the students are told, they're given a lot of advice on how to fold MCAT review into their weekly routine. 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. Um and they're you know reviewing some some flashcards or they're doing something every day to prepare them. 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.

What Makes a Competitive Bryn Mawr Applicant

Dr. Valerie Wherley 17:11

Wow. Excellent structure. Very, very good. Yeah. 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?

Dr. Glenn Cummings 17:28

Again, thank you for that question because very helpful. Anyone listening to this, if they're interested in the program, you know, I'm sure that's on their mind, right? 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. 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. I mean, if they were a humanities or social science major in college, they may not have any of that work to review. 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. 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. So just to give you a sense of things. Um but beyond the metrics, um, I mean, probably the most important thing is a demonstrated motivation for doing this. Um, is, you know, especially when they're a true career changer that's been in another field for a number of years. What's driving them to make such a transformational change in their life and what's it based on? So some sort of demonstrated experience, maybe some actual clinical experience, or just something, it could even be a personal experience. 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. There's a certain amount of bravery we look for. I I like the word bravery. 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. 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. Love of service. I mean, medicine is a service profession, right? 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. That's always helpful. And then I guess the last thing that comes to mind, and that's a lot, I know. You don't have to have all these things. It's just these are the things we look for. But we are a tight cohort. 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. Um and we have some um, you know, co curricular activities, committees, social programs. things like that that are also part of the program. And so we'd love to see in an applicant someone who cares about community. You know, community building being part of a social setting. And they they're not just a lone wolf that's going to go into the library and disappear for a year. You know, they're they're going to be engaged with their fellow students.

Dr. Valerie Wherley 20:16

Sure.

Dr. Glenn Cummings 20:17

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. I learn something from the postbacks every day. 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. So it's really fun to work with those students.

Dr. Valerie Wherley 20:45

Yeah, I I totally agree. I have a follow-up question. Do you require letters of recommendation? If so, how many and how much weight do those letters of recommendation carry?

Letters of Recommendation and Applicant Evaluation

Dr. Glenn Cummings 20:54

We require two letters of recommendation, no more than three. 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. It needs to be from someone who is familiar with their academic path. So typically someone who taught them but it might also be an advisor. That's the only additional little requirement. They play a significant role. The strong ones play a very strong role. 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. That that really affects what the committee thinks as well I think. 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. So it's either neutral or or s or uh significant.

Dr. Valerie Wherley 21:42

Right.

Dr. Glenn Cummings 21:43

In terms of how we weight them.

Dr. Valerie Wherley 21:45

Right. 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. I always remember that particular person. 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. 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. And in my opinion their applications must have stood out to an admissions committee because they weren't the biomajor chemistry major. So do you have any similar stories?

Final Advice

Dr. Glenn Cummings 22:46

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. 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. And the one thing that they all bring in addition to some maturity I mean maturity is big, right? They they just have a sense of themselves I think that's a little different than the younger students. But they bring transferable skills from what they've done. 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. Medical schools aren't going to care about what I did before. 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. 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. You know it can be you know working on a team it can be dealing with difficult personalities in your job. 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. I mean what does that have to do with medicine? 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.

Dr. Valerie Wherley 24:19

Yeah absolutely thank you so much for sharing all of the details about the Bryn Mawr postback program. This has been fantastic.

Dr. Glenn Cummings 24:26

Wonderful it was a pleasure thank you.

Dr. Valerie Wherley 24:28

I'd like to thank Dr. Cummings for joining me today on this podcast. To read Dr. Cummings bio and get more information about the Bryn Mawr postback program please check the links in our show notes. Thank you for joining me today. If you enjoyed this episode please be sure to subscribe rate and share the podcast. We'll be back soon with more conversations to help you get accepted.