Class Schedule Help

[I'mJustCurious]

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I pretty much finished all my electives and was wondering if it is frown upon to take only 3 science courses. I usually take 4 courses a semester but I want to stay focus on my hard science courses. Thanks.

 

[moonwake]

I pretty much finished all my electives and was wondering if it is frown upon to take only 3 science courses. I usually take 4 courses a semester but I want to stay focus on my hard science courses. Thanks.

Medical schools look at the whole scenario. 3 sciences classes would most likely be less than 12 credits I assume. If you are taking under 12-14 credits you better have other ECs or responsibilities accounting for your time. If all you are doing is school and your reasoning is so you can succeed in your classes (obviously you would never admit that)- it kind of says that you would not be able to handle medical school curriculum. From what I've heard medical school curriculum content isn't the "hard" part, it's the amount. Assume taking 24+ credits a semester for 2 years or something to that equivalent. Just want to make sure you know what you're getting yourself into if you get into medical school.

 

[I'mJustCurious]

Medical schools look at the whole scenario. 3 sciences classes would most likely be less than 12 credits I assume. If you are taking under 12-14 credits you better have other ECs or responsibilities accounting for your time. If all you are doing is school and your reasoning is so you can succeed in your classes (obviously you would never admit that)- it kind of says that you would not be able to handle medical school curriculum. From what I've heard medical school curriculum content isn't the "hard" part, it's the amount. Assume taking 24+ credits a semester for 2 years or something to that equivalent. Just want to make sure you know what you're getting yourself into if you get into medical school.

Yes thank you for replying. I am taking 12 credits and I have 2 leadership roles but if that does not look to good then I wouldn't mind taking an extra course.

 

[moonwake]

Yes thank you for replying. I am taking 12 credits and I have 2 leadership roles but if that does not look to good then I wouldn't mind taking an extra course.

12 credits is full time - if you have ECs going on then it shouldn't draw suspicion but anything under 12 credits better have good reasoning because they'll just see it as taking the easy way towards obtaining your bacc

 

[Awesome Sauceome]

Seriously... they wont care. I mean it depends on your grades and such, but honestly, a semester like that is not going to matter at all. If you were to have taken only 2 classes a semester for 8 years and THAT is why you have a 4.0, then they would obviously not take you seriously. But if you end up taking a couple less classes a semester, they arent going to care one bit. Heck, I took ONE class in my final semester in college so that I could work part time and study for the MCAT. I received multiple acceptances and didnt get even one ounce of flak for it. Maybe if you were applying to Harvard or something, where you are competing against 15,000 applicants with absolutely perfect applications, then you would be out of luck; but for 90% of the other medical schools in this country, a little thing like that is for real no big deal.

The bigger issue will be that if you take less than 12 credits then you will lose financial aid since you will no longer be a full time student.

 

[moonwake]

Seriously... they wont care. I mean it depends on your grades and such, but honestly, a semester like that is not going to matter at all. If you were to have taken only 2 classes a semester for 8 years and THAT is why you have a 4.0, then they would obviously not take you seriously. But if you end up taking a couple less classes a semester, they arent going to care one bit. Heck, I took ONE class in my final semester in college so that I could work part time and study for the MCAT. I received multiple acceptances and didnt get even one ounce of flak for it. Maybe if you were applying to Harvard or something, where you are competing against 15,000 applicants with absolutely perfect applications, then you would be out of luck; but for 90% of the other medical schools in this country, a little thing like that is for real no big deal.

The bigger issue will be that if you take less than 12 credits then you will lose financial aid since you will no longer be a full time student.

It's true it won't be a problem if it's just one semester. I'm just saying if you keep trying to take the easy way through the process, you won't be able to do that in medical school which is why medical schools want to see that you know how to handle a heavy course/work load.

 

[Awesome Sauceome]

It's true it won't be a problem if it's just one semester. I'm just saying if you keep trying to take the easy way through the process, you won't be able to do that in medical school which is why medical schools want to see that you know how to handle a heavy course/work load.

Absolutely, for sure.