I'm in third year. My school is in trisemester system and students can graduate in either of three semesters: Spring (Feb), Summer (June) or Fall (Oct). It appears that I might take an extra semester or two to satisfy my major's requirements and end up graduating in Fall 2010 or Spring 2011. (If I weren't taking any extra semester, then I'd normally graduate in Summer 2010.) Will med schools count this as graduating in 4 years? How bad will it be? I heard that med schools in general don't care about this, but that top schools are exceptions in that they usually don't like people taking more than 4 years to graduate.
If your school was anything like mine (we also operate under a trimester system of Winter, Spring and Summer), then Winter and Spring are considered one academic "year." I am fairly sure that graduating in between a single year (ie between Winter/Spring) is considered taking an extra half a year. Whether in the top schools this is rounded up or not is debatable, but if you are concerned about this being a factor I'd say you should be on the safe side and not take the extra time; rather you might want to do as many of your requirements in the Summer as possible.
I don't actually know the answer to this, but I would *imagine* that it's not a big deal to take an extra trimester. No med school's going to turn you away just because you took an extra trimester of class. What do other ppl think?
Not a big deal. Do well and graduate. An extra semester or two won't be any kind of hindrance to your application. Good luck.
Doesn't seem like a big deal to me, but if you aren't graduating in May "as usual" after 4 years then I would think it would be seen as taking extra time. But I really don't personally see one or 2 extra trimesters hurting all that much at any schools.
