Ecology type courses

[deleted647690]

I realize this has probably been discussed before, but would adcoms, even if they say they don't, look differently at my science gpa if I had ecology/conservation biology type courses done? I'm sure it's been said they won't, but why would someone who took tough neuroscience type courses not be looked upon more favorably than someone who took ecology courses?

To be honest, I am more interested in neuroscience type of stuff, not ecology. But unfortunately, I need to do everything I can for my GPA, and I feel like taking easier ecology science courses will boost me. Maybe I'm wrong though. Maybe I won't do as well since I'm not as interested.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[WedgeDawg]

No one will care one bit at all ever.

 

[Goro]

I consider these fluff courses and am not impressed by them. I won't blast you for it, though.

I realize this has probably been discussed before, but would adcoms, even if they say they don't, look differently at my science gpa if I had ecology/conservation biology type courses done? I'm sure it's been said they won't, but why would someone who took tough neuroscience type courses not be looked upon more favorably than someone who took ecology courses?

To be honest, I am more interested in neuroscience type of stuff, not ecology. But unfortunately, I need to do everything I can for my GPA, and I feel like taking easier ecology science courses will boost me. Maybe I'm wrong though. Maybe I won't do as well since I'm not as interested.

 

[deleted647690]

I consider these fluff courses and am not impressed by them. I won't blast you for it, though.

So, it does have an effect for some adcomms I guess?

 

[WedgeDawg]

I consider these fluff courses and am not impressed by them. I won't blast you for it, though.

Goro, I know you're a hard science microbiologist type, but did ever take a real ecology course in undergrad? They can be very challenging, and honestly, I think they're applicable to medicine, especially when you start learning about commensal bacteria and their pathogenesis.

The (possibly second) hardest science course I took in college was an ecology/evolution course. The easiest I took was a neuroscience course. It's so difficult to tell how challenging a course was just by looking at the name.

 

[Glandzburg]

The ecology class I took in college was tougher than most of my upper level bio classes, including neuro. The prof was one that loved to pull random minutiae from the book chapter for the exams.

It probably didn't help that I hated ecology.

 

[Lawpy]

I consider these fluff courses and am not impressed by them. I won't blast you for it, though.

Goro, I know you're a hard science microbiologist type, but did ever take a real ecology course in undergrad? They can be very challenging, and honestly, I think they're applicable to medicine, especially when you start learning about commensal bacteria and their pathogenesis.

The (possibly second) hardest science course I took in college was an ecology/evolution course. The easiest I took was a neuroscience course. It's so difficult to tell how challenging a course was just by looking at the name.

With all due respect to Goro, i can see how ecology is a fluff course because it is intuitive in a way. But ecology can be a very dry and surprisingly very analytical course. How?

1. A professor who taught an evolution course said when he was a grad student, he had to analyze the composition and ecology of the species found on a piece of chalk.

2. Lotka-Volterra predator-prey and competition models are a pair of differential equations that describe the critical ecological dynamics that form the basis of ecology. Saying ecology is a fluff course is equivalent to saying that neuroscience (described by Hodgkin-Huxley model) is a fluff course

 

[WedgeDawg]

With all due respect to Goro, i can see how ecology is a fluff course because it is intuitive in a way. But ecology can be a very dry and surprisingly very analytical course. How?

1. A professor who thought an evolution course said when he was a grad student, he had to analyze the composition and ecology of the species found on a piece of chalk.

2. Lotka-Volterra predator-prey and competition models are a pair of differential equations that describe the critical ecological dynamics that form the basis of ecology. Saying ecology is a fluff course is equivalent to saying that neuroscience (described by Hodgkin-Huxley model) is a fluff course

Neuroscience is fluff though

Spoiler

joking

 

[Glandzburg]

Just curious @Goro , what are some other biology classes that appear to be fluff at first glance?

 

[Lawpy]

Neuroscience is fluff though

Spoiler

joking

Also, ecology can describe a lot about cancer biology and the tumor microenvironment. A lot of research papers focus heavily on exploiting ecological pronciples to develop new cancer treatments. So its kinda disrespecting ecology for no reason.

 

[GrapesofRath]

Well the thing to consider here is how does your performance in these courses compare to the rest performance in the rest of your science classes.

Do well in your pre-reqs and classes directly related to medicine, nobody will care about your major and the courses that might happened to get designated as part of the sGPA. Dont do well in your pre-reqs and courses related to medicine, and then yes, for those who might evaluate your transcript closely you run the risk of leaving a bad taste in their mouth if they see your sGPA fluffed up by science courses. This topic has come up alot in the past recently and really how much your transcript will get scruitinized(if it does at all) is dependent largely on situation and individual evaluator.

So in short, if your pre-reqs and other grades are good this isnt worth worrying about. If you are looking for some form of sGPA boost or repair because you dont think your's is adequate right now, ecology courses wouldnt be my top choice on how to boost that numerical GPA number. We can argue about ecology's direct relation to medicine all we want, but Goro isnt the only person to bring this up, Catalystik has in the past as well. In general, you start comparing courses like "plant bio" and "ecology 101" to "biochem" or "immunology" and it's clear which has more direct correlation to a medical school curriculum.

 

[WedgeDawg]

Well the thing to consider here is how does your performance in these courses compare to the rest performance in the rest of your science classes.

Do well in your pre-reqs and classes directly related to medicine, nobody will care about your major and the courses that might happened to get designated as part of the sGPA. Dont do well in your pre-reqs and courses related to medicine, and then yes, for those who might evaluate your transcript closely you run the risk of leaving a bad taste in their mouth if they see your sGPA fluffed up by science courses. This topic has come up alot in the past recently and really how much your transcript will get scruitinized(if it does at all) is dependent largely on situation and individual evaluator.

So in short, if your pre-reqs and other grades are good this isnt worth worrying about. If you are looking for some form of sGPA boost or repair because you dont think your's is adequate right now, ecology courses wouldnt be my top choice on how to boost that numerical GPA number. We can argue about ecology's direct relation to medicine all we want, but Goro isnt the only person to bring this up, Catalystik has in the past as well. In general, you start comparing courses like "plant bio" and "ecology 101" to "biochem" or "immunology" and it's clear which has more direct correlation to a medical school curriculum.

FWIW, the course I was talking about was the intro course to evolution/ecology. Not that the class I took has any direct bearing on the classes other people take even if they're named similarly.

I think that some people also have an aptitude for ecology or evolution and for whatever reason may not be quite as good at organic chemistry.

Would you think the same thing if someone was an earth science or astronomy major and got lower grades in organic chemistry or biochemistry than in their major classes? Both of these majors have a reputation for being "easier sciences" along with ecology/evolution, yet without taking the classes, it's very difficult to say whether or not they're actually harder than courses like immunology.

That being said, the above is the way I think it should be, not necessarily how it is. Goro has stated that he looks at them differently which may imply other adcoms do as well, so that might be worth taking into consideration.

 

[GrapesofRath]

Would you think the same thing if someone was an earth science or astronomy major and got lower grades in organic chemistry or biochemistry than in their major classes? Both of these majors have a reputation for being "easier sciences" along with ecology/evolution, yet without taking the classes, it's very difficult to say whether or not they're actually harder than courses like immunology.

Well a major reason for pre-reqs is because by requiring everybody to take them to provide a means of direct comparison amongst applicants and a way of distinguishing them. If you arent doing well in the courses your competition is taking, naturally that is not going to be a positive thing. How much it will hurt will vary tremendously, but we can all acknowledge not doing well in courses that are required and that your competition is taking isnt a positive.

We base our judgments, opinions etc from what we are familiar with. Same things goes for evaluators. They are familiar with microbio, immunology, pre-reqs etc and know what those classes are about. Many people who work for a medical school arent going to know much about "astrology" or "ecology". For someone like this to be looked at decently, it requires you to give them the benefit of the doubt that the courses you know nothing about were "also quite challenging and rigorous". I think what you see from Goro or Catalystiks points in the past is thats not always going to happen. Ultimately, there's only so much time to evaluate one app. Your just not going to get that many people to really stop and think about these courses like "ecology" and "astrology" and think about how difficult they are compared to the pre-reqs. It's not even necessairly about perceptions of ecology being easy or something; it's just not a known product. Schools have a better idea of what good pre-req performance entails than good performance in non pre-reqs. Often in a short time period, just those mediocre pre-req grades can be enough to leave a not so favorable impression.

If you are asking for my own personal opinion, I would focus more on the overall GPA number and performance. But this also highlights the problems with GPAs and part of why in general I tend to favor giving more weight to standardized tests than GPAs like this. But that's an entirely different discussion completely.

 

[WedgeDawg]

Well a major reason for pre-reqs is because by requiring everybody to take them to provide a means of direct comparison amongst applicants and a way of distinguishing them. If you arent doing well in the courses your competition is taking, naturally that is not going to be a positive thing. How much it will hurt will vary tremendously, but we can all acknowledge not doing well in courses that are required and that your competition is taking isnt a positive.

absolutely

We base our judgments, opinions etc from what we are familiar with. Same things goes for evaluators. They are familiar with microbio, immunology, pre-reqs etc and know what those classes are about. Many people who work for a medical school arent going to know much about "astrology" or "ecology".

agree with you

For someone like this to be looked at decently, it requires you to give them the benefit of the doubt that the courses you know nothing about were "also quite challenging and rigorous". I think what you see from Goro or Catalystiks points in the past is thats not always going to happen. Ultimately, there's only so much time to evaluate one app. Your just not going to get that many people to really stop and think about these courses like "ecology" and "astrology" and think about how difficult they are compared to the pre-reqs. It's not even necessairly about perceptions of ecology being easy or something; it's just not a known product. Schools have a better idea of what good pre-req performance entails than good performance in non pre-reqs. Often in a short time period, just those mediocre pre-req grades can be enough to leave a not so favorable impression.

Also agree with you

If you are asking for my own personal opinion, I would focus more on the overall GPA number and performance. But this also highlights the problems with GPAs and part of why in general I tend to favor giving more weight to standardized tests than GPAs like this. But that's an entirely different discussion completely.

reasonable

The thing that I would bring up in this discussion is that ultimately, we don't know how GPA will be evaluated at every or even most schools and the level of scrutiny that exists when looking at the transcript. Based on adcom surveys (such as the one we like to reference when talking about whether undergrad matters or not), GPA is the most important thing that they look at. However, we don't know if that encompasses strength of schedule (as one might put it) or just the number. I don't know if strength of schedule is its own category ("completion of challenging non-science courses" is listed as least importance). It might just come down to whether they look at your classes and what inherent biases that particular adcom holds.

If an applicant came to me saying they need to raise their science GPA, the objectively best course of action would be too take "hard" science classes and do well in them (so physics, chemistry, upper level biology), but if they knew they could not do A level work in those classes, getting As in less highly regarded science areas (ecology, evolution, earth science, astronomy) not necessarily because they are easier, but because they have more of an aptitude for those classes or whatever the reason may be, that is the next best option.

 

[GrapesofRath]

absolutely

The thing that I would bring up in this discussion is that ultimately, we don't know how GPA will be evaluated at every or even most schools and the level of scrutiny that exists when looking at the transcript. Based on adcom surveys (such as the one we like to reference when talking about whether undergrad matters or not), GPA is the most important thing that they look at. However, we don't know if that encompasses strength of schedule (as one might put it) or just the number. I don't know if strength of schedule is its own category ("completion of challenging non-science courses" is listed as least importance). It might just come down to whether they look at your classes and what inherent biases that particular adcom holds.

Well what I'll say to the bold is I think the consensus that comes up whenever this gets mentioned by the ADCOMs we have on this site(and mimelim actually talked about this the other day) is that your transcript ordinarily probably wont get scrutinized unless there's a reason for it to be. A 3.9 GPA applicant who aces their pre-reqs is not going to be judged for taking fluff science classes. There's only so much time to look at an app, you have to pick and choose what you want to scrutinize. A reason for scrutiny as an example is when there is discordance, ie with GPA and MCAT(say a 3.9/27 or a 3.3/37 type thing as an example).

The whole strength of schedule thing kind of relates to what youll hear over and over on here "Nobody really cares what you major in only that you do well". Do well in the science classes, you've proved your academic worth if you get a good MCAT score. Often times it's that simple.

I agree with your last para btw. I'd honestly argue you're better off taking psych classes with a medical focus (say clinical psychology, physiological psych, cognitive psych as ex) than a course in astrology or ecology. The psych classes technically dont get counted in your BCPM GPA but there's a pretty consistent precedent that if you when you classify your courses list these under the BCPM category, AMCAS wont change it and let you have those courses for your sGPA. Especially with the MCAT now having psych stuff and increasing importance being placed on psychological aspects in medicine, it's easier to justify taking those courses under the idea of "preparing yourself for medicine" or whatever you would like to call it.

 

[WedgeDawg]

I agree with your last para btw. I'd honestly argue you're better off taking psych classes with a medical focus (say clinical psychology, physiological psych, cognitive psych as ex) than a course in astrology or ecology. The psych classes technically dont get counted in your BCPM GPA but there's a pretty consistent precedent that if you when you classify your courses list these under the BCPM category, AMCAS wont change it and let you have those courses for your sGPA. Especially with the MCAT now having psych stuff and increasing importance being placed on psychological aspects in medicine, it's easier to justify taking those courses under the idea of "preparing yourself for medicine" or whatever you would like to call it.

I think this is easier to do when you can make the case that they're related to neuroscience. I think this would be less successful (but still could be) if the course was called social psychology or something.

 

[AsianPersuasion]

Omg, ecology was so hard and I didn't even take regular ecology it was ecological immunology...I died. Got an A but I died.

 

[Goro]

Ecology was a requirement for my UG Bio degree!

Goro, I know you're a hard science microbiologist type, but did ever take a real ecology course in undergrad? They can be very challenging, and honestly, I think they're applicable to medicine, especially when you start learning about commensal bacteria and their pathogenesis.

The (possibly second) hardest science course I took in college was an ecology/evolution course. The easiest I took was a neuroscience course. It's so difficult to tell how challenging a course was just by looking at the name.

 

[Goro]

Limnology comes to mind.

Keep in mind that I'm just one Adcom member, and we're talking about what, 3-6 credits out of 120?

Just do well, all we really ask.

Just curious @Goro , what are some other biology classes that appear to be fluff at first glance?

 

[salemstein]

My ecology class: Prof wasn't even formally employed by the university. Graded class high school style (didn't know what curving was), but with college level exam questions. Averages were around ~70%, meaning most of the class got C-'s. Worst class evaarrr

 

[efle]

Neuroscience is fluff though

Spoiler

joking

ಠ_ಠ

Many colleges have eco as required (or one of a few options to satisfy a requirement) in the Bio track so I can't imagine anyone dinging you for it! You should take the neuro if it interests you though, since it is the best science.