That's a difficult question to answer as it really depends on what other experience you have related to the program to which you are applying - including other courses already taken in the field and what the adcom would deem as enough "experience" to accept you into a program. Could you provide more details? Why do you want to take more courses? What do you hope that taking these courses will do for your application? In other words, what are these courses making up for that you didn't get from your undergrad education and/or work experience?
i can only speak for the MPH program i applied to, but i was advised not to take more than three post bacc classes because the department tends to focus really on the epidemiology course and volunteer/work experience in public health and it wouldnt really help my application significantly.
I don't think there's really a number, to be honest. I had a mediocre undegrad GPA and my field (clinical psych) is very competitive, so I knew I'd need to compensate for it. So I did two graduate classes while volunteering in a lab, and first authored a few posters that I then submitted to large national conferences. Seemed to do the trick
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Thank you all for your comments; this is very helpful information! If I decide to pursue this path, my hope is that if I enroll as a non -matriculating student, then it will make up for any deficiencies I may have in my application, be they qualitative or quantitative
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Unless your undergraduate record is really not good (sub-3.0 GPA) or you're missing direct prerequisites, I would not suggest taking pre-matriculation classes as your first avenue. Instead, focus on improving your academic record as much as possible and nailing your supporting materials.
I had a similar question and just...met with a prof/adviser who happened to be in my hometown, have attended my alma mater and have served on admission boards in the discipline I wanted to go into (crazy luck). He suggested I take classes first, because otherwise EVERYTHING rested on having a writing sample that would make up for no background (I majored in a different field that could only be related if I had different interests/specialization), crappy GPA, etc. Unfortunately, that seems to mean I need rather a lot of classes.
If you have at least a background in the same discipline, and thus the ability to come up with a writing sample and LORs that admissions committees would find relevant, you don't need as many classes. The competitiveness of the discipline matters too (mine is very competitive). I would suggest you talk to somebody who knows your field if you can. You don't want to spend any more money and time than you have to on classes when you aren't in a program (although I'm told you don't want to spend money then,
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If you have at least a background in the same discipline, and thus the ability to come up with a writing sample and LORs that admissions committees would find relevant, you don't need as many classes. The competitiveness of the discipline matters too (mine is very competitive). I would suggest you talk to somebody who knows your field if you can. You don't want to spend any more money and time than you have to on classes when you aren't in a program (although I'm told you don't want to spend money then,
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