Courses

[leleg3728]

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Hello,
I have a few questions about my courses and whether it affects my admissions in both Canadian and US medical schools.

1. Taking Introductory Organic Chemistry during summer.

2. Overloaded semesters (6 courses)

3. Pass/fail on my electives (humanities, social science, and English, which are needed for some med schools i believe) or (other courses that are there just for breadth requirements for undergrad)

Thank you!

 

[Mt Kilimanjaro]

Hello,
I have a few questions about my courses and whether it affects my admissions in both Canadian and US medical schools.

1. Taking Introductory Organic Chemistry during summer.

2. Overloaded semesters (6 courses)

3. Pass/fail on my electives (humanities, social science, and English, which are needed for some med schools i believe) or (other courses that are there just for breadth requirements for undergrad)

Thank you!

These courses will affect medical school admission.

 

[HomeSkool]

The first two items will only affect your admission chances at US med schools in the sense that overloading yourself can compromise your GPA. Schools don't care when you take the courses, only that you do well.

My impression is that P/F electives won't hurt you, but perhaps one of my adcom colleagues can clarify on that point.

As far as Caribbean Canadian med schools, those people are kinda backwards anyway, so who knows, eh?

 

[sunshine859]

Pass/fail makes it look like you're taking the easy way out. Med schools don't know if you're doing A work or C work. Avoid Pass/Fail.

 

[HomeSkool]

Pass/fail makes it look like you're taking the easy way out. Med schools don't know if you're doing A work or C work. Avoid Pass/Fail.

This is incorrect. I did a little searching and found that @LizzyM, @Goro, and @gonnif have variously indicated that pass/fail matters not. I recommend avoiding it for prereqs, but it should be fine for electives like the OP has indicated.

 

[leleg3728]

This is incorrect. I did a little searching and found that @LizzyM, @Goro, and @gonnif have variously indicated that pass/fail matters not. I recommend avoiding it for prereqs, but it should be fine for electives like the OP has indicated.

Yeah, I'm thinking of doing that for courses like psychology that are not my degree or medical school requirements but are there just for my interest.

 

[leleg3728]

The first two items will only affect your admission chances at US med schools in the sense that overloading yourself can compromise your GPA. Schools don't care when you take the courses, only that you do well.

I know that Canadian medical schools do not use summer school grades as part of their GPA calculations. My impression of this policy was that summer school is an "easier" way and so students take "harder" courses like orgo chem in my case to get a better mark. So even though my GPA doesn't get calculated, I thought they'd think that I took it in summer because I can't handle it during regular school semester or something.. I don't know..

 

[sunshine859]

This is incorrect. I did a little searching and found that @LizzyM, @Goro, and @gonnif have variously indicated that pass/fail matters not. I recommend avoiding it for prereqs, but it should be fine for electives like the OP has indicated.

Darn, are you serious? My advisor hammered this home over and over. Could have avoided a lot of stress in undergrad.