Difficulty of Classes

[sunshine02]

Do prestigious Med schools like Harvard Med, Yale Med, or Johns Hopkins Med factor the difficulty of courses taken into account when making admissions decisions? I know GPA matters a lot, but would a lower GPA with way harder courses look better than a higher GPA with easy courses?

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[TheMightySmiter]

There might be some slight compensation, but not much. Won't excuse a 3.0 or anything, but might make a 3.6 stand out. And a higher GPA always looks better.

 

[sunshine02]

So you should stay away from those hard classes and take easy to moderately difficult ones?

 

[JESSFALLING]

Their prereqs are the level of difficulty they expect to be mastered.

 

[TheMightySmiter]

So you should stay away from those hard classes and take easy to moderately difficult ones?

I, personally, think the best thing to do is pick a moderately easy major that you enjoy, like biology or a social science, or history/philosophy/literature, etc. You'll have room to take classes you like, you'll have space in your class schedule for a few upper-division science courses, and you'll have the time to excel in your classes.

 

[Lil Mick]

Just my experience, but a high gpa with a few graduate classes/honors classes were a plus when I was applying. Just make sure you can do well in those courses if you choose to take them. A 3.9 in easier classes is much better than a 3.5 in harder classes, but a 3.9 in hard classes will be viewed better than either of the previous two. Challenge yourself, but not to the point where you might fail at it if you're applying to medical schools...

 

[sunshine02]

What about competitions? Will many top, prestigious medical schools care if you do science/research competitions? I don't know much about med school admissions; just going off general criteria for college admissions. Anyone who can shed light on this will be greatly appreciated, and thanks a bunch to those above who replied!