Adcoms view of online courses?

[DNARNAPROTEIN]

Advertisement - Members don't see this ad

Because I will not be attending school in the spring due to surgery, I am considering taking an online class or two(if I can find them). Do adcoms view grades from an online class with different weight than a traditional class? Also, if you've taken an online class, what school did you take it through and how was your experience?

 

[notdeadyet]

Because I will not be attending school in the spring due to surgery, I am considering taking an online class or two(if I can find them). Do adcoms view grades from an online class with different weight than a traditional class? Also, if you've taken an online class, what school did you take it through and how was your experience?

Adcoms view them very differently. You can do it for an elective or two for giggles and most schools will accept them, but I ran into trouble with a biochemistry course I took online. The three medical schools that I was looking at that had a biochem requirement would not accept it to fulfill the prerequisite.

So you're probably fine for credit, but I wouldn't do it for prereqs and I wouldn't expect them to view them with the same weight.

(disclosure: I used to work a lot in online learning, so I'm a proponent of it. But they do not get the same respect as classroom learning)

 

[DNARNAPROTEIN]

Thanks. Since you worked in online learning, who offers the more reputable courses??

 

[Phoenix.]

I'd call the prospective medical school/s you're most interested and see what they think about it. When I spoke to UIC about their psychology requirement, they said that it could be fulfilled with an online course. But I'm guessing that many med schools wouldn't accept online pre-reqs.

 

[crazydiamond]

I took a bunch of courses at my school that were online (though not science/math types, more like humanities and things where you just wrote essays anyway), and as far as I can tell, they all showed up on the transcript the same way.

That's been my experience at my university too. There's no way to determine from the transcript whether the class was in-class or online. So in my case, I assume they'd be treated the way because there's no way for them to know.

 

[notdeadyet]

Thanks. Since you worked in online learning, who offers the more reputable courses??

In general, avoiding online courses from institutions with no classroom counterpart is a good idea. Universities that classroom teach a particular subject tend to have the best online counterpart.

Beyond that, it can be all over the place. Everyone wants to test the water, so lots of colleges have offerings. Most of the stuff I've seen from reputable universities has ranged from pretty good to great.

 

[notdeadyet]

That's been my experience at my university too. There's no way to determine from the transcript whether the class was in-class or online. So in my case, I assume they'd be treated the way because there's no way for them to know.

Ugh. This issue always comes up.

Statement: "Many/most med schools do not allow prereqs to be taken online."
Reply: "My transcript doesn't denote my coursework as being online."

It's like not reporting all your college coursework to AMCAS. If you had a disasterous semester at a random junior college, you can probably not report it and get away with it. But is it worth the risk and integrity comprimise?

Not for me. Davis doesn't allow online, so even though my transcript had one that wasn't marked online, I retook it. Lying so early is a bad precedence.

 

[notdeadyet]

I took a bunch of courses at my school that were online (though not science/math types, more like humanities and things where you just wrote essays anyway), and as far as I can tell, they all showed up on the transcript the same way.

So if you're in an interview situation or filling out paperwork and they ask, "Is any of your coursework online learning?" are you prepared to lie? This essentially happened to me on an April interview and I had to scramble to retake a class by July.

Med schools have been behind the curve a bit on this. The conventional wisdom at most schools has been that one or two online classes is fine, but not whole degrees and not prereqs.

It's been a nonissue prior to the last year or two. Now that more and more schools are offering online learning and more students are taking advantage, more med schools have explicit policies. Some they communicate on their webpages, others don't.

Unless you want to either lie, try to sneak one by, or reduce the amount of medical schools you can get in to, I'd avoid taking prereqs via online learning.

 

[crazydiamond]

Ugh. This issue always comes up.

Statement: "Many/most med schools do not allow prereqs to be taken online."
Reply: "My transcript doesn't denote my coursework as being online."

It's like not reporting all your college coursework to AMCAS. If you had a disasterous semester at a random junior college, you can probably not report it and get away with it. But is it worth the risk and integrity comprimise?

Not for me. Davis doesn't allow online, so even though my transcript had one that wasn't marked online, I retook it. Lying so early is a bad precedence.

Who said I woud lie????? No need to jump to conclusions.

If I got asked which ones were online, I'd tell the truth. But I guess I should also preface all this by saying that my university does not offer online classes that really benefit the in-class experience. No advanced chemistry, biology, biochemistry, etc. You definitely could not take more than a class or two online in these subjects. And I don't think doing so would be a big deal.

FWIW, I've only taken 2 classes online and they have nothing whatsoever to do with pre-med classes. Both are business classes that I took to get my MBA. I really don't think they'd care that I took Operations Management or Information Security online. 🙄

I was simply pointing out that if I was not asked, there is no way they'd know because my transcript does not differentiate between the two.

 

[lord_jeebus]

I don't think it would be an issue for one semester since you have a good reason. If it's obvious in your transcript that they're online courses, you might want to explain somewhere why you had to take them. (eg. I was too ill to go to class but I couldn't afford another year of college)

 

[notdeadyet]

I don't think I'll need to lie. None of my pre-reqs are online.

Who said I woud lie????? No need to jump to conclusions.

Not saying either you would/will/should lie. I'm using "you" in the royal sense here. Apologies for the confusion.

I should really say, "if one is asked about whether one has taken any online courses..." but it's hard for me to do it without feeling as pretentious as hell.