Fulfilling course prerequisites

[feline fury]

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Most med schools are okay with prerequisites being fulfilled in the spring semester prior to matriculation, right? I was just viewing the UC Davis SOM website and noticed that they want prerequisites done by January of the matriculating year. I haven't seen this issue addressed on any other med school website so I was wondering what the stance of most schools may be...

Anybody know of any schools that specifically want the prerequisites done extra early (other than UC Davis)?

Thanks.

 

[Mattabet]

I've never seen the January thing; my guess is that it's pretty rare. My guess is most medical schools won't care if you finish off a couple of your prerequisites in your last semester. Otherwise, they're basically saying that you have to graduate early or not do anything useful in your final few classes.

On the other hand, I wouldn't put off important stuff until the very end, for obvious reasons.

 

[Brent8927]

Some schools (like UCLA) just want you to finish the requirement before your matriculate--so you could take the course in the early summer (though I wouldn't recommend waiting that long!).

However, I would highly, highly recommend finishing all the "universal" pre-reqs (bio, chem, o-chem, physics) before you take the MCAT, and thus before you apply. Of course, it's still best to have all additional pre-reqs finished before you apply (like statistics, biochem, etc.) if possible.

 

[feline fury]

Thanks for the replies. I've already taken the MCAT so that's not a problem. The reason I ask is that I didn't do very well in one of my semesters of organic chem (C-) and I need to retake it. I'd like to send out my application this year unless a good number of schools don't allow taking prerequisites after applying.