AP Bio question

[ugapharm]

Allright, I'm trying to set my schedule up for the spring semester of my sophomore year. I'm trying to decide if it is necessary for me to take general biology 1 and 2(I'd potentially take 1 in the spring and 2 in the summer.) I received a 5 on the AP exam back in high school and my university gives credit for the full year(8 hours).

When starting to create my spring schedule, I decided to sign up for bio 1. I thought it wouldn't be too difficult(since I've already taken the class), would help the material be a little fresher on my mind for the DAT, and would make sure it doesn't shut any doors as far as dental school is concerned.

I met with my advisor today after registering to take o-chem 2 and bio 1 and he thought I was crazy since I already had credit and strongly recommended me to not take it. According to him, the tests are very quirky and A's are few and far between. He said he's never seen students have problems with AP bio credit as long as they major in biology and get upper level courses on their transcript. Also, he said I should take physics 1 instead and make junior year more pleasant.

Should I take it and be safe or do you think I'd be fine skipping it? Any opinions would be awesome. Sorry for rambling. Thanks.

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[LittleTomato]

I took the DAT with just AP bio. I got a 4 on my test and had a really good teacher, and from what it sounds like, you probably did too. From what I experienced, the information for the DAT was a bit more in depth, but with AP you have a good foundation to understand all the details you didn't have to learn the first time around, and there isn't anything new conceptually. If you have the textbook you used for AP, that's good to have if you need to review concepts (I found it particularly useful when reviewing protein synthesis). I studied for two and a half months for the DAT during the summer and did pretty well on the biology section. I used a combination of Kaplan, destroyer, and an AP bio test prep book for this section, and the combination of these covered everything.

If you don't need to take general biology because you already have the credits from AP, don't. It would be a waste of money, and at least for me, a lot of the grading for this course isn't how much you know, but how well you could write proposals for research, which isn't relevant to most general dentistry anyway. I'm not sure if this is specific to my university or not. I only got credits for the first semester, and so far I haven't learned anything groundbreakingly new in the second one which I am still required to take. There are some topics that are on the DAT that they have skipped over completely, and others that they go into way too in-depth, particularly the professor's area of research.

At my university, this class is a time-sucking black hole of GPA death. I scored in the 97.4th percentile for the bio section of the DAT, yet I am only getting a B in the class so far. Lectures are boring because I know 90% of the information, and assignments are tedious and vague.

That said, some dental schools don't take AP credits for prerequisites. I know that Tufts is among them. You ought to call them specifically, most will say that they prefer if you take them at a university, but my guess is that if you score well on the DAT bio section, they won't be a big deal.

best wishes!

 

[vaanhalen]

the irony is once you get ready for the DAT (and ostensibly dental school), the AP Bio cliff notes will be study manual of choice.

you nailed it on the head with the bio major thing. as long as your major is bio-ish, you're most likely fine skipping it. in the rare case they care, and want you to retake them anyway, don't worry you'll still get the interview and they'll tell you during the interview "do you mind retaking XYZ easy bio class" and you say sure. it happens, don't stress about it. Two schools told me take that entry level bio class, others said don't bother.


So: I say skip it for now, accellerate your process of getting to the fun classes (like cell bio, physiology, etc) so you're ready for the dat as soon as possible. don't retake those lower classes until a school tells you you have to.

 

[ugapharm]

Thanks for the replies, I took bio off my schedule and decided to start with physics.