Advice

[titan5]

I have a four year degree and plan on taking the required pre-med courses begining this fall. Between now and the spring of 05 I will have completed the bio, physics and chem requirements. The only one remaining will be organic chemistry.

My pre-med advisor feels that it would be unwise for me to take the MCAT next spring without having taken organic chemistry. What are everyones thoughts on this?

 

[researchprof]

A class in, at the minumum, organic 1 is necessary before taking the MCAT. On the other head, get a review book and review the organic. Organic is not as bad people make it seem. But I think having the class is good unless you are very good self-learner.

 

[Marvin O'Connor]

I think if you just get an organic textbook and go through you will be fine. The organic on the MCAT is not really all that hard if you know the reactions, and all the reactions are in textbooks. So my take would be: if you are good at teaching yourself go ahead and take the MCAT in the spring.

 

[MeowMix]

You are going to have a very heavy schedule if you want to get all that done and teach yourself organic AND study for the MCAT at the same time. That is the flaw in this plan. Give yourself a break and a little more time, so that you can get nice high grades and a nice high MCAT score.

 

[willthatsall]

I agree with Meowmix for the most part. Although it really depends on what you want to do and what you are capable of. If time is the most important issue and all you want to do is get a decent score and you have confidence that you can do it all in that amount of time, I don't think teaching yourself organic would be the worst idea in the world. But if you really want to have a good understanding of it and be able to answer all of the questions, it would probably be a good idea to take the class. If I had to pick one class to teach to myself, it would be physics, but you may get mixed opinions on that one. Have you thought about which subject would be the easiest to learn on your own?

Edited to say: Nevermind, I realize that you can't take Organic until you complete Gen Chem. Which I don't think really matters, but that's just me.

 

[azcomdiddy]

I was told the same. Advisors are some of the lousiest people you can seek pre-medical advice from. They regurgitate advice that follows the status quo. They are nothing more than glorified administrative assistants that have the term pre-medical counselor attached to their title. That's why a lot of these pre-med advisors tend to be crabby old women with a chip on their shoulder. Some of them may be college professors who aren't much better.

If you want proper medical school advice, ask questions from your fellow applicants who actually have a stake in this admissions process and aren't merely reading off some checklist that was printed Medical School Admissions 101. 90% of these so called advisors have never even taken the MCAT. It's funny how these same people will write books on "How to Get Into Medical School" The irony

To answer your question, you don't need a formal O-chem course to take the MCAT. Every person re-learns O-chem anyway before they take the MCAT. And MCAT O-chem is different than classroom O-chem. O-chem for the MCAT relies on the basic principles. They aren't going to ask you in-depth principles about O-chem.

Obviously, if you had O-chem already and it was one of those classes you really worked hard at and genuinely learned a lot, your preparation for the MCAT will be much easier. But you don't NEED an O-chem class before you take the MCAT.

 

[UCLAstudent]

It wouldn't be impossible to do the MCAT without organic, but I really do think that you would be at a disadvantage, considering that most others taking the test have completed organic, and considering that the MCAT is curved.

 

[titan5]

Thanks for the responses everyone. They have been very helpful.

 

[MrTee]

If you had to skip one of the pre-med classes before the mcat, ochem would be the one. My understanding is that it's not as heavily focused now as it was in the past, but that's just what others have said...and what I saw on my real test. FWIW, ochem was my weakest subject and I did pretty well on the BS section anyway. However, if you're planning on doing ALL of your premed classes next fall and spring AND take the MCAT, you will definitely have your hands full. I wouldn't recommend it. Take your time, you'll learn things better and probably score higher.