Do I really have to take a statistics class?

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I’m a college freshman (premed/Biochem major). I am taking Calculus A and will get an A+ this semester even if I don’t take the final exam. I see that a lot of schools require a math class, with some requiring two semesters of a math class. I took statistics in high school and hated it from the bottom of my heart, so I really want to avoid taking it. Will I hurt my chances of getting accepted to medical schools if I don’t take the class?



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Platinumabi said:
I’m a college freshman (premed/Biochem major). I am taking Calculus A and will get an A+ this semester even if I don’t take the final exam. I see that a lot of schools require a math class, with some requiring two semesters of a math class. I took statistics in high school and hated it from the bottom of my heart, so I really want to avoid taking it. Will I hurt my chances of getting accepted to medical schools if I don’t take the class?



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Not satisfying the pre reqs is risky and yes, I believe it could ultimately get you rejected unless you go to school without any such requirements like Stanford or UCLA. However, those cases are the exception rather than the rule.

In my experience, a teacher or professor could make or break a class. Sounds like you had a bad high school teacher who made it harder than it needed to be because an introductory stats class is supposed to be just simple concepts. Besides, it could pay off with preparing you for the MCAT if you haven't taken it already. A lot of it involves a fair amount of data interpretation.
 
Take it. It’s easy and you’ll revisit it again in Med school anyway so might as well
 
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some schools require it, some dont. if you want to freely apply take it.
 
Platinumabi said:
I’m a college freshman (premed/Biochem major). I am taking Calculus A and will get an A+ this semester even if I don’t take the final exam. I see that a lot of schools require a math class, with some requiring two semesters of a math class. I took statistics in high school and hated it from the bottom of my heart, so I really want to avoid taking it. Will I hurt my chances of getting accepted to medical schools if I don’t take the class?



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Required or not, this class is extremely useful for research and statistical analysis. I 100% recommend this course not only to fulfill crucial prereqs but to know how to properly test hypotheses.
 
Honestly its a good, practical skill to have as others have said. It makes you better at interpretting data and handier around a lab if you end up doing research.

I wish I had kept up with my stats since undergrad. Very rusty.
 
Platinumabi said:
I’m a college freshman (premed/Biochem major). I am taking Calculus A and will get an A+ this semester even if I don’t take the final exam. I see that a lot of schools require a math class, with some requiring two semesters of a math class. I took statistics in high school and hated it from the bottom of my heart, so I really want to avoid taking it. Will I hurt my chances of getting accepted to medical schools if I don’t take the class?



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Take it instead of Calculus semester 2. You will use stats much more in medicine, and med schools are more commonly asking for it as a prereq.
 
Ok, I guess I will have to take it. Thank y’all so much for the great advices!


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Its stupidly easy, why not?
 
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unless high school statistics has improved dramatically since i was in high school (which is possible, since I feel like I just missed the boat of all the newfangled technology in K12 schools) college statistics will probably be at least slightly less painful than your high school class. If you pick the right class, you should be able to learn more about actual applications and statistical software/coding than high school classes. Definitely a very useful class that will come up in med school, way more than calculus
 
Stats is probably the most useful and practical math class I've ever taken.

Luckily my professor also used nothing but medical/science examples, so it was even easier to stay interested and relate to the material. Take it
 
gyngyn said:
It's the most important math you can learn for medicine.
Without it, you will never be able to read a paper.
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This, especially if you back it up with some research where you actually USE statistics.
 
This is a great class! I took it during my first semester of UG and ended up with a B, but it really helps in many science fields.
 
ciestar said:
This is one class worth taking as an UG. It shows up on Step 1 and 2 so you’re never going to escape it
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Biostats is also a *huge* portion of Step 3


Take a Stats class that also involves learning R / Stata / Python. Publish multiple papers in college and medical school. Crush med school and residency apps.

Seriously - knowing Biostats and R is the single most useful skill a med student can bring to the table for many a research project. Your PI will love you.
 
Mine was stupidly easy. Was on probability, odds, ratio, permutations, combinations etc. Didn’t require studying

How do two intro to stats courses vary in material that much?
 
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