Don't expect to petition any prerequisites for USC

[TheChemist]

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I've been trying to petition the second semester of USC's general biology prerequisite requirement and have been completely rejected. I have an MS and BS in Biochemistry/Chemistry and not one of my classes that I have taken would be considered to replace that prerequisite. The prerequisite class is a lower division intro to cell/molecular biology with lab. I've taken an upper division molecular biology course and a graduate level cell biology and a 5 unit molecular biology lab and they still won't let me skip that requirement. So this semester I'm trying to fit this class in with the anatomy and physiology courses I already have to take this semester and continue to work 40 plus hours as med chemist at the pharmaceutical company that I'm at. AHH 😱 Well beside my rant I just wanted to warn anyone that thinks that they can just petition a requirement to be careful because the admissions people sometimes don't listen to reason.

 

[starsweet]

I had a similar experience. UCSF wanted me to take English 101 because they wouldn't accept the credit I got from exempting the class through an SAT II exam. I decided it wasn't worth it. 😉 Also, I took a general economics course with both macro and micro but they wanted one or the other. So they are a bit anal about prereqs. Luckily they told me all this before I applied but I had to be persistent when I asked them.

Oops, just saw that your post was about USC. Oh well. 🙂 Beware of UCSF as well!