Concerned about AP credit (microbiology major)

[alexisrenee987]

I just graduated high school and will be starting college in the fall, majoring in Microbiology and minoring in Anthropology and Chemistry. In high school I took AP Biology and got a 4, which exempted me from the two intro to biology classes at my college.

I am starting with advanced biology courses and most of my college career will be spent taking biology classes (around 50-80 hours total just of biology courses), but a friend of mine just told me that I will have to retake the intro biology classes to be eligible for medical school.

Is this true? Does anyone have any experience with this or have any information on the subject? Everything I have found online so far reveals very little and my adviser never informed me of this during scheduling-when I made it clear that my plans would be to attend medical school.

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[DBC03]

I think it depends on the school, but all of the schools I am currently applying to are taking my advanced placement credit because I took two semesters of upper level biology classes. It's possible that there might be one school out there that will not take it, but I honestly believe it should not be a problem.

Chemistry and English are the classes I'm having issues with right now. It seems that some schools will not accept AP credit for either.

 

[AttemptingScholar]

You don't, but I highly recommend you do anyways. At my school, it's required because so many people skip Into to Bio and immediately fail MolecCell. AP Bio doesn't actually take the place of college level bio, no matter how hard it pretends. I got an easy A in intro to bio and was very happy about it.

The actual answer: You need a year of bio + Lab, a year of chem + Lab, a year of Orgo + lab, a year of physics + lab, statistics (recommend also taking calc to be eligible for more schools), a year of English. The biology can be at any level, but you need some not from AP (I am assuming the classes you take for your microbio degree will include sufficient bio).

Don't get too angry at your advisor for not mentioning it. You have no idea how many people come in saying they will have this major, these minors, on the premed track. Almost none will do all these things. You may very well beat those odds (despite apparently wanting to minimize the number of bio classes needed for a bio degree, weird priorities), but it's not a priority to tell every freshman premed everything. Your only priority is to get good grades. Maybe start on ECs. But for real, you care about your GPA. A perfectly planned out four-year schedule will never survive limited class sizes.

 

[DBC03]

You don't, but I highly recommend you do anyways. At my school, it's required because so many people skip Into to Bio and immediately fail MolecCell. AP Bio doesn't actually take the place of college level bio, no matter how hard it pretends. I got an easy A in intro to bio and was very happy about it.

The actual answer: You need a year of bio + Lab, a year of chem + Lab, a year of Orgo + lab, a year of physics + lab, statistics (recommend also taking calc to be eligible for more schools), a year of English. The biology can be at any level, but you need some not from AP (I am assuming the classes you take for your microbio degree will include sufficient bio).

Don't get too angry at your advisor for not mentioning it. You have no idea how many people come in saying they will have this major, these minors, on the premed track. Almost none will do all these things. You may very well beat those odds (despite apparently wanting to minimize the number of bio classes needed for a bio degree, weird priorities), but it's not a priority to tell every freshman premed everything. Your only priority is to get good grades. Maybe start on ECs. But for real, you care about your GPA. A perfectly planned out four-year schedule will never survive limited class sizes.

This is excellent advice. I had the advantage of a full four-year degree and many years of work experience before I took my upper level biology classes. While I couldn't remember anything from AP bio, I knew how the system worked and was able to study smarter than I did my freshman year. Feel free to enter upper level bio classes, but do consider retaking as well. It can take a full year to adjust to the new system of learning in college.