When I say "volunteer" I'm including unpaid research. Yes, anyone and everyone can go volunteer in their local ED. However, having a faculty member at Columbia P&S or Cornell Weil take you under their wing, let you shadow and scrub in to observe procedures, encourge and help you to get published--these are opportunities I've had at Columbia that I know none of the premeds at my undergrad had--and I've only been here for a couple of months.
JBing says that Columbia is tough and its hard to get A's. Although I believe that postbaccs do better than the undergrads in a given class (simply because they have fewer classes to take), not every post-bacc gets an A. That said, many still do. I mean, its hard but its not impossible. Don't come here if you're not very confident in your abilities and equally motivated. Columbia is hard; it's not a good place for people who can't hack hard classes and hard work, but for those who can, they will do fine. Those who like to whine and make excuses, on the other hand, will probably drop out.
As for the program taking a hit--this is news to me! I know of several grads that I volunteer with who have an avalanche of interviews and acceptances, so if the program has fallen on hard times, I guess the adcoms haven't gotten wind of it yet! Also, a large portion of the program are Columbia College graduates; I find it hard to believe that undergrads here would matriculate into the program if it had a bad reputation. I mean, they must know their own university, so their presence in and of itself is an encouraging endorsement.
Anyway, someone also mentioned the debt.
While I'll have nowhere near 70,000, it is expensive. My advice: just take the minimum classes necessary to get the certificate and the premed committee recommendation. Then, during the lag year, do an SMP--that way biochem, physiology, etc. will at least count towards a masters.
Research and volunteer experience may not be THE key for getting into medschool--clearly MCATS and GPA are far more important. Nevertheless, there are no disadvantages to getting published or presenting a paper at a conference. If you can handle the hard work of class and studying for the mcats at the same time you're engaged in interesting research and volunteering, by all means do it; I believe the Columbia program is good for this type of person.
jbing said:
Crake -
I speak of Columbia program from my own first hand experience.
As far as not getting the same volunteer opportunites, that is bogus. It's funny to even suggest that *volunteer* opportunites are reserved exclusively for one group or another. You don't need to be a Columbia postbacc to find excellent volunteer opportunities. Hospitals take volunteers from any school, any age, any walk of life. Sometimes you don't even have to be a student.
I agree that Columbia probably has a slight advantage in obtaining research opportunities, but a person who chooses a postbacc program based on research opportunities simply doesn't understand what is important in preparing for medical school.
And you are right that an A from Columbia holds more weight than an A from some run of the mill state school. But here you are assuming that everyone gets A's in the program.
Fact is, only a handful of postbaccs will get an A in any given class, and in every class except biology, there are by definition only so many A's given out. What happens to the rest of the people that don't get those A's (~80% of the class)? Think about that.
Just a thought. Anyone else have an idea?
). Since then, however, I did health policy for various members on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, (Dingell, Moynihan, Sanders) and now represent professional and academic medical associations to CMS/HHS/NIH on regulatory and legislative matters as a Leg Dir at a law firm. I took the GRE and got 500V/690Q/5.5A. 
