Importance of Pre Reqs

[metallicspine]

Do medical schools even consider you if you have not finished all your prerequisites? I will have biology, half of chem, stats, English but will lack my o-chem and physics? If I do well on the MCAT, do prerequisites matter? Please let me know if I should just give it a shot or wait a year and finish my prerequisites in a post baccalaureate program?

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[DrMidlife]

The traditional prereqs (one year each, with labs, of bio/genchem/ochem/physics) are tested on the MCAT.

Separately, each med school has its own requirements - such as English, calc, humanities, bio/genchem/ochem/physics, biochem etc.

So you have to do well enough on the MCAT to get accepted, and you have to meet your med school's requirements before you matriculate.

Best of luck to you.

 

[jissho]

Some schools will let you apply to waiver the pre-reqs (scroll to bottom http://pritzker.uchicago.edu/admissions/requirements/). However, unless you have a very compelling reason as to why you don't have the pre-reqs, I wouldn't even bother trying to apply via this route.

 

[Law2Doc]

Do medical schools even consider you if you have not finished all your prerequisites? I will have biology, half of chem, stats, English but will lack my o-chem and physics? If I do well on the MCAT, do prerequisites matter? Please let me know if I should just give it a shot or wait a year and finish my prerequisites in a post baccalaureate program?

Most places don't waive the prereqs in any meaningful way, and you are going to need to finish them before you matriculate. It's advisable not to take the MCAT until you have substantially completed all of the science prereqs, since that test is based on the prereqs. But you can have a perfect MCAT score and if you don't have the prereqs, you won't be attending med school, if that's what you are asking. This game has fixed rules. You cannot pass go. No collecting $200.

So yeah, you have to wait a year. Also NEVER "give it a shot". The reapplicant board is filled with folks who just winged it. This process rewards those who get their ducks lined in a row before pulling the trigger. You never want to rush things. That's how you come up short. And a few false steps can mean a lot of schools will see no reason to consider you over someone who never made such missteps.