Admission Requirements Questions

[BMEJake]

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I have two questions about my academic pre-rec preparations.
My school doesn't offer two semesters of organic chemistry lab. The lab class is one semester and separate from the two organic chemistry lecture classes. There's 3 credit and 1 credit versions of the lab and the two courses are more or less the same, the 3 credit lab just has more experiments and twice the time commitment. I took the 1 credit version which is offered to engineering students like myself.

Will this still satisfy the "Organic Chemistry + Lab" or "8 Credits of Organic Chemistry" pre-recs? My sense is that the 8 credit standard assumes a lab/lecture combo for 4 credits each semester but like I said my school doesn't offer that.

My other question is I have 8 credits of AP physics credit but did not take physics as an undergrad. I am an engineering major though and have taken 3000 level courses that AMCAS has verified as in the physics category although they are from engineering departments. Will schools that don't take AP for pre-recs accept these courses as adequate proof of content mastery?

Thanks for your advice
Jake

 

[Swartzlehman]

X

 

[SarahBellum1]

As far as I am aware, most schools require 2 semester hours of organic lab. Maybe there are exceptions? But I would check with your pre-med advisor/the schools you are interested in to be absolutely sure. Though I was in a somewhat similar situation: My school puts Gen Chem 1 and 2 into one semester, so I would only have 3 hours of lecture and 1 hour of lab. So, I still had to take one more "inorganic" lecture + lab...which ended up being an upper level Inorganic lecture (which is wayyyyyy past the scope of what is needed for med school/MCAT and was not fun in any way haha) which also had an accompanying lab that I opted not to take. So, now I must take a Gen Chem 2 lab (1 hr) in summer school that my advisor said would suffice in order to meet all requirements.

Moral of the story: you'll probably need to take another lab.

 

[BMEJake]

I did do engineering physics but that was as AP (and is reflected as transfer credit for the class on my transcript). My question is will my coursework for engineering, much of it dealing with upper level physics content, satisfy non-AP accepting schools or do I really need to take a summer class of physics, the content of which I've shown I know through my work in other, more advanced classes. It's kind of the same thing as taking upper level bio if you have intro bio as an AP so that schools will recognize your credit hours. The difference being my classes aren't in the physics department but are quite obviously concerned with physics.

I've heard back from a school about the orgo lab, they said if I can give some proof my school doesn't offer two semesters of organic chemistry lab then it should be ok.

 

[BMEJake]

I guess the real question is will schools insta-throw out my app because I'm one credit of organic chemistry lab short or will they deal with the application like normal and look at pre-recs more closely after they make a decision, giving me the chance to make up the credit for them if need be?

 

[mauberley]

I guess the real question is will schools insta-throw out my app because I'm one credit of organic chemistry lab short or will they deal with the application like normal and look at pre-recs more closely after they make a decision, giving me the chance to make up the credit for them if need be?

It's generally not necessary for you to have completed all of the prerequisites for a school prior to applying, so don't worry about that. So long as you have most of them, you're fine. However, I'd start asking the schools you're applying to already (which I see you have started for your orgo lab) whether you meet their requirements or not, so that you can plan ahead for the upcoming school year. You don't want it to be spring of 2012 with an acceptance in hand but a boatload of required courses to complete.

 

[BMEJake]

So in general this won't really matter for schools until it's time to matriculate at which time I need to be sure I've met their requirements? Will schools not pay much attention to what I say I'm taking my senior year on AMCAS in favor of putting the responsibility on me to get myself squared away properly before matriculation?

Thanks for the replies, mini-crisis averted 👍

 

[mauberley]

So in general this won't really matter for schools until it's time to matriculate at which time I need to be sure I've met their requirements? Will schools not pay much attention to what I say I'm taking my senior year on AMCAS in favor of putting the responsibility on me to get myself squared away properly before matriculation?

I would say it still is helpful to indicate your current/future courses in your AMCAS application, but in order to do that you would need to know whether you're deficient for any of the schools you're interested in. But generally, yes, my understanding is that completion of prerequisites is a criteria for matriculation and not for making offers of admission.

 

[JaneAustenFan]

I have two questions about my academic pre-rec preparations.
My school doesn't offer two semesters of organic chemistry lab. The lab class is one semester and separate from the two organic chemistry lecture classes. There's 3 credit and 1 credit versions of the lab and the two courses are more or less the same, the 3 credit lab just has more experiments and twice the time commitment. I took the 1 credit version which is offered to engineering students like myself.

Will this still satisfy the "Organic Chemistry + Lab" or "8 Credits of Organic Chemistry" pre-recs? My sense is that the 8 credit standard assumes a lab/lecture combo for 4 credits each semester but like I said my school doesn't offer that.

My other question is I have 8 credits of AP physics credit but did not take physics as an undergrad. I am an engineering major though and have taken 3000 level courses that AMCAS has verified as in the physics category although they are from engineering departments. Will schools that don't take AP for pre-recs accept these courses as adequate proof of content mastery?

Thanks for your advice
Jake

Hello Jake,
Regarding your organic chem question, I am not sure if my school has exactly the same setup as yours but it sounds similar. I take orgo chem I lecture and then the following semester I take orgo chem II lec and a lab. The lectures are 3 semester units each and the lab is 2 semester units. The lab meets twice a week and covers material from orgo I and orgo II making it a total of 8 semester units of orgo at the end of the sequence. I checked with my pre-med adviser and a couple of schools (mainly in California) and they said that it was fine and met the pre-reqs since the 2 labs are combined into one semester and the same material is covered. So you are getting your two semesters worth of lab, it is just happening all in the same semester.