courseloads/summer terms..does it matter?

[antispatula]

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Yesterday I posted a thread asking if the fact that my first year of college my load was a little light and I have consistently taken light summer terms was going to poorly affect my chances of admissions. I was suprised to see such an array of completely different answers. As I research it more, it seems like it is kind of a mysterious subject that not too many people are sure about. So I decided to call the admissions office of 4 MD schools in CA to to get a more realistic picture of the matter.

Here are the two questions I asked each school:
1. Does taking a lighter courseload (I gave my personal example, 12 credits fall and 9 credits winter) for a year negatively impact my application?
2.Does taking a science class with no other classes during a spring or summer term (8 week term) negatively impact my application?

Here are the results:

UC San Diego
1."No"
2."No"

2.Loma Linda.
1. "No, I don't think so"
2. "why should it?" (funny lady🙄)

Irvine
1."No, we care about the GPA of as a whole"
2."No"

UCSF (this lady was a little more talkative)
1."No. When your application is sent in, we only see which classes by year. Now, they can break down your grades by semester if they wanted, and they might, but the chances of seeing a few semesters with a lighter workload hurting your application is slim. We care that you fulfilled the pre med requirements, and got good grades, and spent your time doing extra curriculars."
2."No, it is quite common for students to take only a science class or two in the summer. For some people, that is the only way they can fit in the pre med requirements, especially if they have decided to apply for medical school a little later in their education, or have a lot of major classes to fulfill during a full semester."

So there we go. I thought people would like to see some more concrete definitive answers about this topic. I know I only called 4, but seeing that 100% of them seemed to answer in the same way makes me think that this is how the majority of medical schools think.

take care!

 

[dmf2682]

Thanks for doing the legwork, and then posting for everyone.

 

[Genecks]

 

[418865]

Yesterday I posted a thread asking if the fact that my first year of college my load was a little light and I have consistently taken light summer terms was going to poorly affect my chances of admissions. I was suprised to see such an array of completely different answers. As I research it more, it seems like it is kind of a mysterious subject that not too many people are sure about. So I decided to call the admissions office of 4 MD schools in CA to to get a more realistic picture of the matter.

Here are the two questions I asked each school:
1. Does taking a lighter courseload (I gave my personal example, 12 credits fall and 9 credits winter) for a year negatively impact my application?
2.Does taking a science class with no other classes during a spring or summer term (8 week term) negatively impact my application?

Here are the results:

UC San Diego
1."No"
2."No"

2.Loma Linda.
1. "No, I don't think so"
2. "why should it?" (funny lady🙄)

Irvine
1."No, we care about the GPA of as a whole"
2."No"

UCSF (this lady was a little more talkative)
1."No. When your application is sent in, we only see which classes by year. Now, they can break down your grades by semester if they wanted, and they might, but the chances of seeing a few semesters with a lighter workload hurting your application is slim. We care that you fulfilled the pre med requirements, and got good grades, and spent your time doing extra curriculars."
2."No, it is quite common for students to take only a science class or two in the summer. For some people, that is the only way they can fit in the pre med requirements, especially if they have decided to apply for medical school a little later in their education, or have a lot of major classes to fulfill during a full semester."

So there we go. I thought people would like to see some more concrete definitive answers about this topic. I know I only called 4, but seeing that 100% of them seemed to answer in the same way makes me think that this is how the majority of medical schools think.

take care!

uh.......dude I'm sorry that you didn't catch our "sarcasms" hehehe.

But if I'm not wrong, you had 3.99 gpa and such....but anyway..in a serious note: it doesn't matter like you heard back from the med schools unless you take 2 courses a semester (as long as u r full time..u shd be good to go).