Course load not rigorous enough?

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DoctorSaab

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I was wondering if there is a place on medical school applications to explain certain things. I feel that the committees might think that I didnt take rigorous course loads, even though I have taken all of the requirements and many more classes like biochemistry, genetics, cell biology, and physiology. I have also been researching for the past 2 semesters, which actually is given as credit for a class, and it hogs up a lot of hours in the laboratory.

I am a biology major, in my spring semester of 3rd year. I havent ever taken more than 14 credit hours in any semester -- but I am going at a steady rate. By the end of this semester, i should have 89 credits, although i want to add 1 more, just to make it 90 even.

My concern is if medical schools will think as if I cannot handle a rigorous schedule. I have seen many people in here with extremely difficult classes, and so many of them. I have worked part time every semester in the nights as well. So, I really havent had time to take too rigorous of a schedule. Now that it is MCAT season, I am only taking 13 (or maybe 14) just so I can study more for the MCAT.

Sorry for such a long post, and thanks for bearing with me. To conclude, I guess my question really is if there is a place on the applications to explain this concern. Or should I not worry at all?

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I think the purpose of everyone having all those other meaningless activities is so that you can prove to selection commitees that you can carry a load of courses and not have to study all that hard because you are occupied with crap. That being said, I don't think you really have to worry. I never took more than 15 hours and I didn't have a job. I just did a bunch of other crap that you're supposed to do, which it looks like you have. I'm in a med school and got accepted at several. Do well on the MCAT and keep your GPA decent. Do all those dumb activities, and I say you'll be fine. Oh yeah, as an aside I didn't finish any of my secondaries until november. In retrospect, that was a bad idea, but it all worked out, so convention can take it.
 
DoctorSaab said:
I was wondering if there is a place on medical school applications to explain certain things. I feel that the committees might think that I didnt take rigorous course loads, even though I have taken all of the requirements and many more classes like biochemistry, genetics, cell biology, and physiology. I have also been researching for the past 2 semesters, which actually is given as credit for a class, and it hogs up a lot of hours in the laboratory.

I am a biology major, in my spring semester of 3rd year. I havent ever taken more than 14 credit hours in any semester -- but I am going at a steady rate. By the end of this semester, i should have 89 credits, although i want to add 1 more, just to make it 90 even.

My concern is if medical schools will think as if I cannot handle a rigorous schedule. I have seen many people in here with extremely difficult classes, and so many of them. I have worked part time every semester in the nights as well. So, I really havent had time to take too rigorous of a schedule. Now that it is MCAT season, I am only taking 13 (or maybe 14) just so I can study more for the MCAT.

Sorry for such a long post, and thanks for bearing with me. To conclude, I guess my question really is if there is a place on the applications to explain this concern. Or should I not worry at all?

Rule #1 of a successful application cycle.... Don't volunteer information that you don't want them to know. Im pretty sure that most schools won't even notice. I also would bet that at least 50 to 60% of the applicants sitting around your interview table are in your same boat. I definately was and it wasn't an issue. Best of luck.
 
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don't sweat it. i had all my pre-req's for med school before i applied and even had BS like golf and first aid on my txscript. my interviewer even laughed about it and asked about my "blow off" classes. heck, i didn't even take any bio classes my last semester. they don't care. keep up the gpa and do well on the mcat. no problems.
 
Dr. Saab,

You are definetly fine, especially if you worked part time in school. Now, I would say that this will stand out if it was a consistent job (i.e. not baby sitting or something like that). Like the others said, I bet nobody will notice your credits per semester, but if you are worried about it, it wouldnt hurt to attach a SHORT explanation (i.e. no more than 2-3 lines) with your secondaries.

I did that with a part of my application I was worried about this year, and it worked out - 6 interviews, one acceptance in hand.

Good luck!!
 
Really, don't worry about it. I used to think the same thing, but all that really matters is that GPA. In my experience, it seems that they don't care how you take your classes (as long as you're not in undergrad for 8 years) but how well you do in them.
 
yah i doubt the really notice much. Its the kinda thing I might bring up in an interview if they seemed to doubt for any reason that you can handle the med school course load. But I dont know that this comes up too much. It would simply be too much work for them to sit down and analyze each semester or see if you took a difficult course load. The things that matter are those numbers out of 4.0 that they can see visibly on the amcas and to show an upward trend. It might be worth taking a look at the AMCAS of a friend to get a better sense of what im talking about.
 
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