am i doing enough?

[premed875]

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Hi!

I am currently finishing up a post bacc, and the only prereq course I have left to take in the spring semester is orgo 2/lab. I was originally planning to apply to med schools in June 2012 and take the MCAT in May. I just had a meeting with my school's premed adviser the other day and he said that taking one course this last semester will look terrible on my application, and instead I should be taking a full 12 credit course load of science classes before applying. I was planning on spending the extra time doing research, with a scribe job, with volunteer work, shadowing, MCAT studying, etc. The scribe job and the research alone would add up to over 40 hrs/week, but my adviser said this will not be taken into consideration by the premed committee.

My undergrad GPA was 3.58 poli sci major, my post bacc GPA is a 4.0. My course loads have always been very busy, especially since I graduated from undergrad in 3 years, so this is really the only time I will have had a "light" course load. I feel like my academic record is a strength in my application, and the clinical experience is what I need to focus more on, but my advisor basically told me the opposite. I also know I need lots of time for MCAT studying since I'm not the best test-taker.

If it helps, here has been my schedule taking the prereqs I needed for the past year:
Spring:
Chem 1/lab
Physics 1/lab
Bio 1/lab
Statistics

Summer:
Bio 2
Chem 2/lab

Fall:
Orgo 1/lab
Physiology
Physics 2/lab
English

So that really only leaves orgo 2/lab. I am leaning towards tacking on cell bio, but not sure if it really makes a difference. Any advice here?

Thanks!

 

[ChE04]

I strongly disagree with your premed advisor. What terrible advice. You sound like you are on the right track, especially with a solid academic performance behind you.

 

[hawkbit]

Might depend on the schools you are planning on applying to as well. Some are pickier than others. In your place, I would probably go with the light semester.

 

[zebalong]

Agree with above poster - a 4.0 post-bac definitely helps offset a slightly lower but completely decent GPA. If you feel your clinical/research EC's are weak then this is the perfect time to work on them. The sooner you can start the better, you probably want at least 6 months of both research and clinical experience prior to applying.

 

[theseeker4]

Hi!

I am currently finishing up a post bacc, and the only prereq course I have left to take in the spring semester is orgo 2/lab. I was originally planning to apply to med schools in June 2012 and take the MCAT in May. I just had a meeting with my school's premed adviser the other day and he said that taking one course this last semester will look terrible on my application, and instead I should be taking a full 12 credit course load of science classes before applying. I was planning on spending the extra time doing research, with a scribe job, with volunteer work, shadowing, MCAT studying, etc. The scribe job and the research alone would add up to over 40 hrs/week, but my adviser said this will not be taken into consideration by the premed committee.

My undergrad GPA was 3.58 poli sci major, my post bacc GPA is a 4.0. My course loads have always been very busy, especially since I graduated from undergrad in 3 years, so this is really the only time I will have had a "light" course load. I feel like my academic record is a strength in my application, and the clinical experience is what I need to focus more on, but my advisor basically told me the opposite. I also know I need lots of time for MCAT studying since I'm not the best test-taker.

I agree with the other posters, HOWEVER, the bolded part above makes me want to caution you. You need a good committee letter to gain admission, so even if the adcoms take your work and research into account, if the pre-med committee throws you under the bus because you didn't take a full load, you are in trouble.

Maybe the premed committee won't really care, but you need to either investigate whether they will, or not take the chance. It is stupid, it should make no difference to adcoms whether you take a full course load since you are keeping busy, but you are relying on the premed committee for a good recommendation, and if they are going to be picky you have no real choice but to do what they want for a good letter.

As far as what classes, I would recommend cell bio and/or biochemistry, maybe genetics, anatomy, microbiology. These would all be helpful and if you have to take something anyway, take something that is useful. Good luck!

 

[premed875]

i really appreciate all the advice, and i'm glad you all see where i'm coming from...i'm going to try my best to find out for sure what the premed committee will really think about my schedule, and if my adviser is right, i will probably just suck it up and take one more class, cell bio, because i do need a good committee letter. the other potential classes i could take like biochem or genetics i either don't have the prereqs for (i need orgo 2 to enroll in biochem for example) or have a bad reputation for being very very time consuming/difficult (anatomy), so im not willing to take that risk while studying for the MCAT. i'm keeping my fingers crossed that this all really doesn't make much of a difference to the committee though 🙂