Originally posted by Neuronix
I never took more than 14 credits per semester and I often took 12 credits. I took summer/winter special sessions all the time to make up for it. Meanwhile I was either working or doing research 20 - 30 hours per week and volunteering much of the time.
My point is that there are other, more important, factors to consider than courseload. Maybe they weren't taking all those classes because they were busy with other things? What ckent said is what I've heard other med students say. It's hard for everyone. How many credits you took as an undergrad isn't a real useful indicator of how you're going to do.
Besides, I'm not looking to burn out quite yet thank you. I've got another 8 years ahead of me in MD/PhD.
I am inclined to disagree. While I believe that people who spend a lot of time with extracurriculars will be viewed favorably by admissions, I also believe that doing well in an academically challenging curriculum is something that is seen.
From what Ive read and what my friends have told me, interviewers tend to ask about courses. Furthermore, med schools do know how many total credits you took. So the question isnt whether med schools know, because they do. As people have already stated, med school adcoms weren't born yesterday. It is jow they choose to evaluate this information is what is important.
Since everyone in med school takes the same courses, if you have two applicants who only differ in the # of credits they took (same MCAT, GPA, decent ECs, etc) then it would make sense to take the student who took the harder courseload. Even though both students could adapt to med school quickly, the one who managed to take more courses in the same amount of time is probably better likely to adjust to the med school curriculum.
So Im not saying taking extra courses at the cost of your GPA and ECs will benefit you. But if you are already doing the ECs that you enjoy and you are taking more courses along with that, it would be naive to assume that medical schools wouldnt notice. These guys have been analyzing applications for decades. In fact, according to my premed advisor, the rigor of one's undergrad curriculum is one of the top 10 considerations for adcoms. Undergrad premed advisors, if they write a letter of rec for their applicants, often include information about how they viewed a particular student's curriculum. Since they work at the undergrad and see a ton of apps, they can adequately inform adcoms of the relative rigor of a students curriculum.
While the benefits of taking extra/hard courses might not be obvious, it is still an important consideration. Not as important as the standard criteria (MCAT, GPA, LOR, EC, etc) but an important one nonetheless.