Course load in third year

[zealotmarine]

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thanks

 

[WhizoMD]

I think you should stick to your normal load. 3.9X gpa > 3.8X gpa, courseload doesn't really matter. And piling on more work when you have to study for the mcat isn't very wise imo.

 

[jvesco22]

Don't do it!!

Think about it man

Let's say you finish both semesters and end up with a 3.6 gpa due to the "rigor." To add on this, you didn't have enough time to sufficiently study for the MCAT and ended up getting only a 28.

Now here comes application time and you only have a 3.6 and a 28 MCAT. However, you are now able to tell schools "Hey I'm a good candidate because I took 2 semesters with 3 science courses each."

Do you get what I'm saying? Stick to what you've been doing. A 3.97 GPA and a stellar MCAT(assuming you have time to study) will negate the fact that you never took 3 science courses in a semester.

This is just me being logical! good luck

 

[veaselhaufen]

Schools just pretend to care about courseload. The way the AMCAS application is set up, it takes too much work for them to actually calculate how many hours you took each semester. Take the easy way out. Theyll never notice

 

[NickNaylor]

I wouldn't intentionally overload your schedule. Structure your schedule so that you take the classes you want/need to and can graduate on time. If you can graduate on time and take less intense semesters, just do that. I don't think anyone will be impressed with one year of more-than-normal hours.

 

[Omni]

I just came off of my third semester with 3 science classes (each with a lab), 1 higher level math class, and 1 history class, 20 credits. I was kind of cornered into taking that load, but I was able to end that semester with a 3.9.
Would I have done that if I had the choice? Probably not. Because when exam time came around, I'd have to be jumping from studying from one exam to another, and most of the time, I'd have 2-3 exams all in one week, and then more exams the next week. But what I did take out of this was time management and being efficient. In a sense, I'm kind of glad that I took all that because it really helped me out in the long run, as well as boosted my GPA.

But again, if you're studying for MCAT, like what others said, I'd highly suggest you stick with a lighter load. Med Schools aren't going to know about your course load, unless you tell them during your interview, or some how squeeze it into your PS, which I wouldn't rely on too much.

Best of luck

 

[zealotmarine]

wait what? schools dont know how many credits you took per semester?
Do they just get a long list of all the classes you took in one page, instead of the courses split into indivual semesters like on our transcript?

 

[redlight]

^they see courses split by year, not semester.

 

[argonaute]

wait what? schools dont know how many credits you took per semester?
Do they just get a long list of all the classes you took in one page, instead of the courses split into indivual semesters like on our transcript?

technically schools will know what classes you took per semester, because schools get a long list of all the classes you took, along with when you took your classes. but i don't know much they care about this.

IMO, it's definitely not worth risking your GPA and MCAT to take a few extra units. While it may have some merit that proving you can take a heavy courseload, i doubt it will count much for medical schools, while risking a lower GPA and MCAT score will severely hurt your chances of admission.

I'm switching out of engineering next year to MCB for this vary reason: so i can take less classes 😀

 

[rockaction]

^they see courses split by year, not semester.

No, on your AMCAS have you have to list them per semester/quarter/whatever. And they will also have your transcript. They will see them if they want; the point is that they probably won't look too hard at it.