Do You Think

[Dawsonkw]

---

Members do not see this ad.

Med School Adcoms will look down on an applicant if it took him or her five years to complete a bachelors degree. i wanna take it slow so i don't mess everything up.

 

[hithere3387]

Hard to say. I know several people who are in medical school who took more than 4 years to complete their degree. However, I do not think that they took the extra years because they were limiting themselves to 9-15 hours a semester. Their reasons typically were more along the lines of school transfers or major changes. The rule of thumb is that medical school admission committees want to see students who are doing a lot. They expect you to show them that you are anticipating the overwhelming amount of work that you'll have to do once you enter medical school by doing more than the average student would while you are in undergrad. That means taking more upper-level classes. Taking more hours than most. Having several extra-curricular activities. All the while doing it well.

 

[Catalystik]

You will not be discriminated against because you take longer to earn your undergrad degree. Protecting your GPA is your highest priority, and if you need more time to achieve competitive grades, that's fine. However, adcomms do like to see that you can carry a heavy load and still achieve great grades. That load need not be all academic. It can include work or family responsibilities, heavy involvement in volunteering or leadership activities, a lot of time in a research lab, or studying for the MCAT. If you are taking a lighter class load, then your list of activities should show that you were busy in other ways, IMO.

 

[Cytotoxic]

As long as you're not ****ing around, no.

 

[TexasPhysician]

Its only one example, but a classmate of mine took a full 6.

 

[Seven of Nine]

I think it really depends on what you plan on doing in that time. For example, all you do is focus on your academics and take half a courseload, you could possibly get the 4.0 and 40. On the same token, you might also choose to sacrifice extracurriculars that would make you a valuable candidate to medschool.

However if you are working hard and are doing a lot in that time, then that will be taken into consideration. I was at an event just the other night where my local Dean of Admissions was giving advice and insight to us. He said that he is blown away that people can earn the dual degrees and more in just five years. It really just depends on what your goals are for that period of time.

 

[Perrotfish]

Based on the experience of previous SDN applicants the answer is an unqualifed no: they will not care how long you took to earn your degree. I do mean unqualified, BTW: they will in no way differentiate between the GPA earned by someone taking 6 credits a semester in basket weaving and the guy taking 18 credits a semster of engineering coursework while working 2 jobs and taking care of his 4 sick grandparents. For ADCOMs, it seems like the highest number always wins, period.

 

[njbmd]

You do need to have some full-time coursework at some point. If you are part time for a majority of your undergraduate career and don't have a full-time job, you may give the impression that you can't handle the rigor of medical school.

Taking an extra year is OK but you can't take less than a full load. You don't have to take all "time demanding" courses as others have said but you do need to be full time if you are not working full time.