yeah, when i got the text book in the mail i was like 😱! it looks like something from junior high! of course i know what stryer, lehninger, and alberts are 🙄.
i guess my point is that i took this class and it was extremeley easy. if med schools find out how easy some distance learning courses are, they are going to be skeptical about them and unable to interpret your grade. this is not to say that some courses aren't a lot more challenging. i'm sure there is a lot of variation.
also, i don't think it's a good idea to take prereqs online. it's one thing to take a random class, but it's quite another to be getting your med school foundation from distance learning courses. i'm sure some courses are very good, but i don't think it's a good idea to take more than one or two distance learning classes. plus, how are you going to do labs with distance learning? is there any way to take the courses at night through a community/state college and have someone look after your child/children then?
think of it this way... if you were choosing between 2 applicants, one who took their classes at uc berkeley, and one who took their classes through uc berkeley extension online, both of whom had similar gpa's, ec's, mcat's, etc... who woud you choose? i would choose the applicant who went to uc berkeley, simply because there would be no doubt in my mind that that person was a good student. there are soooo many applicants that are competitive in this process. adcoms can throw out 1,000 applications that seem a bit iffy and still have a large pool of qualified applicants from which to choose. i personally would not want to possibly ruin my chances by taking tons of distance learning classes. but hey, that's just me. if you can do it and totally rock the mcat, i suppose it might be ok.
. Some schools that offer distance learning courses do not indicate that such courses were taken in such manner and therefore treated as resident credits--like Eastern Oregon State, University of Minnesota. I do not know how hard they are though.
