Do I really need to take General Biology II?

[MedicallyEnthused]

Hello all,

So I realized I never took General Biology II as a freshman way back when.
I'm currently in my postbacc and will be graduating with a 2nd degree this coming may.

When looking at some of the schools I plan to apply to, I realized some say they require "1 year of general biology (with lab)", while others say they require "1 year of biology (with lab)"

The thing is, I have so many credits of biological courses than I can count (mostly upper division) --> I will have 214 credits once I graduate in may, the majority being some kind of biology/biochem/biomedical course (plenty of them with labs).
And at my school General Biology II only really covers plant biology and ecology.

Is it possible to get some kind of exception at schools that require general biology II or should I just take it?

My spring semester is filled with very interesting and fun classes that I would hate to switch one of them.
-Biochemistry of disease
-Functional neuroanatomy
-Pharmacology
-Nerve-muscle, toxins and disease
-Biochemistry lab (can't switch)
-Biochemistry Senior thesis (can't switch)

The only classes that I can actually switch that works time-wise seems to only be Pharmacology or Nerve-muscle, toxins and disease.
If I must take General Bio II, what would you recommend I switch (Is less useful to know for an SMP/Medical school)?

Also, General Bio I was my first ever pre-req taken way back in 2013, so I'm really hoping I can avoid taking a freshman class again at my age (29). I was looking forward to being done with undergrad for good in may, as I will be attending an SMP this fall (2022) prior to medical school.
In addition both of my degrees (Neuroscience and biochemistry), seem like they should fit all pre-reqs for a pre-med, but Gen biology II was never a requirement for the degrees.

Thank you for all any any advice on this situation.

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[xffan624]

Hello all,

So I realized I never took General Biology II as a freshman way back when.
I'm currently in my postbacc and will be graduating with a 2nd degree this coming may.

When looking at some of the schools I plan to apply to, I realized some say they require "1 year of general biology (with lab)", while others say they require "1 year of biology (with lab)"

The thing is, I have so many credits of biological courses than I can count (mostly upper division) --> I will have 214 credits once I graduate in may, the majority being some kind of biology/biochem/biomedical course (plenty of them with labs).
And at my school General Biology II only really covers plant biology and ecology.

Is it possible to get some kind of exception at schools that require general biology II or should I just take it?

My spring semester is filled with very interesting and fun classes that I would hate to switch one of them.
-Biochemistry of disease
-Functional neuroanatomy
-Pharmacology
-Nerve-muscle, toxins and disease
-Biochemistry lab (can't switch)
-Biochemistry Senior thesis (can't switch)

The only classes that I can actually switch that works time-wise seems to only be Pharmacology or Nerve-muscle, toxins and disease.
If I must take General Bio II, what would you recommend I switch (Is less useful to know for an SMP/Medical school)?

Also, General Bio I was my first ever pre-req taken way back in 2013, so I'm really hoping I can avoid taking a freshman class again at my age (29). I was looking forward to being done with undergrad for good in may, as I will be attending an SMP this fall (2022) prior to medical school.
In addition both of my degrees (Neuroscience and biochemistry), seem like they should fit all pre-reqs for a pre-med, but Gen biology II was never a requirement for the degrees.

Thank you for all any any advice on this situation.

Each school decides what courses are required for application to their school so it's difficult to give general advice about this. If you really want to avoid taking this course I would e-mail schools that you are interested in applying to that specify 1 year of Gen Bio and ask them whether Gen Bio II is required or something else might be substituted meet their requirements.

 

[MedicallyEnthused]

Each school decides what courses are required for application to their school so it's difficult to give general advice about this. If you really want to avoid taking this course I would e-mail schools that you are interested in applying to that specify 1 year of Gen Bio and ask them whether Gen Bio II is required or something else might be substituted meet their requirements.

I haven't really formulated a school list yet, but for some of the schools I know 100% I'll be applying to do say "1 year of GENERAL biology (with lab)" rather than just 1 year of biology (not-general).

I would just hoping since I had a ton of biological courses under my belt, I could get an exception, but to email 20+ schools (I plan on applying to 30-40 schools) about this feels impractical, given how busy they can be at this point in the application cycle and the fact that my semester starts in exactly 9 days. Plus the fact that I only really know of a few schools I will be applying to, so to find out at a later date that they require gen bio 2 will be too late.

So I would need to know 100% whether to take it or not before those 9 days are up and I doubt schools will get back to me so quickly, plus my school list won't be anywhere near complete until late spring.

I feel like I'm answering my own question here, so should I just take it to cover all my bases? If so which class should I switch? Pharmacology or Nerve-muscle toxins and disease?

Thanks again.

 

[xffan624]

I haven't really formulated a school list yet, but for some of the schools I know 100% I'll be applying to do say "1 year of GENERAL biology (with lab)" rather than just 1 year of biology (not-general).

I would just hoping since I had a ton of biological courses under my belt, I could get an exception, but to email 20+ schools (I plan on applying to 30-40 schools) about this feels impractical, given how busy they can be at this point in the application cycle and the fact that my semester starts in exactly 9 days. Plus the fact that I only really know of a few schools I will be applying to, so to find out at a later date that they require gen bio 2 will be too late.

So I would need to know 100% whether to take it or not before those 9 days are up and I doubt schools will get back to me so quickly, plus my school list won't be anywhere near complete until late spring.

I feel like I'm answering my own question here, so should I just take it to cover all my bases? If so which class should I switch? Pharmacology or Nerve-muscle toxins and disease?

Thanks again.

It doesn't matter. Which one would you prefer to take?

If you're asking which one would help better in medical school, probably neither will make much of a difference given the quantity of content covered in medical school but pharmacology probably has more broad overlap of concepts you will see in medical school compared to the other one.

If you don't want to e-mail all 20+ schools maybe you can pick a couple to gauge a response (if one says no substitute then probably others will) but that doesn't mean you can extrapolate to all schools but at least you might feel taking a freshman level course is less a waste of your time if you know some schools require it.

For the record, I AP'ed out of Gen Bio II in medical school so I technically had credit for it but most programs don't accept AP credit directly. IIRC I was able to substitute other Biology coursework for it (I was a Bio major). It was almost 10 years that I applied to medical school and I don't remember exactly how it worked.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

I haven't really formulated a school list yet, but for some of the schools I know 100% I'll be applying to do say "1 year of GENERAL biology (with lab)" rather than just 1 year of biology (not-general).

I would just hoping since I had a ton of biological courses under my belt, I could get an exception, but to email 20+ schools (I plan on applying to 30-40 schools) about this feels impractical, given how busy they can be at this point in the application cycle and the fact that my semester starts in exactly 9 days. Plus the fact that I only really know of a few schools I will be applying to, so to find out at a later date that they require gen bio 2 will be too late.

So I would need to know 100% whether to take it or not before those 9 days are up and I doubt schools will get back to me so quickly, plus my school list won't be anywhere near complete until late spring.

I feel like I'm answering my own question here, so should I just take it to cover all my bases? If so which class should I switch? Pharmacology or Nerve-muscle toxins and disease?

Thanks again.

If the schools' websites are not clear with the specific courses, send a short email. I would suspect taking higher level courses in biology would suffice. Many schools are leaning on biology competencies instead of courses, so they may have flexibility.

 

[2ndlifedoc]

I have a slightly different question, but it seems to be related and I wonder if OP or others here know. I'm just starting a DIY Postbacc and it seems the 2 course intro bio path is a little unclear as OP stated (especially compared to say Chem or Physics). What if a school does not have a set 1 and 2 intro to Bio, are there topics typically covered in that sequence to try and match it up? Are there courses that are too low or too high level to be considered a year of introductory bio for med schools?