Genetics or Bio II for MCAT

[Birdnals]

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I plan on taking the MCAT next summer and was going to take Bio II in the spring. However, I just had a meeting with my pre health advisor and he recommended that I take genetics instead and said that doing so would be more beneficial for the MCAT than bio would. Seemed a bit different to me. What do you guys think?

 

[Redpancreas]

I plan on taking the MCAT next summer and was going to take Bio II in the spring. However, I just had a meeting with my pre health advisor and he recommended that I take genetics instead and said that doing so would be more beneficial for the MCAT than bio would. Seemed a bit different to me. What do you guys think?

Take this with a grain of salt as it varies by schools but generally where I'm from Bio I is organismal so like macrobio: organ systems, ecology, intro to phys. Bio II was cellular biology so like macromolecules, signal transduction, cell membrane transport, dna/rna and the big three processes, genetics implications (i.e. cell division and genetics) etc.

I HIGHLY recommend you have the cell bio version of biology under your belt before the MCAT. The MCAT has left out a lot of physiology and is now focusing on a lot of molecular things IMO. Instead of throwing tricks like what kind of blood does the pulmonary artery carry, they ask things like if a patient develops a mutation in their 20s in their eye what % of the progeny have this mutation and they ask things like what drug can be used to inhibit transcription/translation/replication etc. Genetics would be a good bet IMO but so would cell bio. If you could skip anything for now, skip the organismal bio.

With that being said, there's definitely still some physio on the MCAT but it's easier to figure out by reading the passages. Knowing stuff will help but I think molecular would be useful to learn.

 

[Birdnals]

Take this with a grain of salt as it varies by schools but generally where I'm from Bio I is organismal so like macrobio: organ systems, ecology, intro to phys. Bio II was cellular biology so like macromolecules, signal transduction, cell membrane transport, dna/rna and the big three processes, genetics implications (i.e. cell division and genetics) etc.

I HIGHLY recommend you have the cell bio version of biology under your belt before the MCAT. The MCAT has left out a lot of physiology and is now focusing on a lot of molecular things IMO. Instead of throwing tricks like what kind of blood does the pulmonary artery carry, they ask things like if a patient develops a mutation in their 20s in their eye what % of the progeny have this mutation and they ask things like what drug can be used to inhibit transcription/translation/replication etc. Genetics would be a good bet IMO but so would cell bio. If you could skip anything for now, skip the organismal bio.

With that being said, there's definitely still some physio on the MCAT but it's easier to figure out by reading the passages. Knowing stuff will help but I think molecular would be useful to learn.

Thanks for the response. I just took a look at the course catalog here and found that our bio 1 program focuses on cell biology and bio 2 focuses a lot on ecology related bio. Given this and your statement it seems like genetics is going to be a lot more useful for me. But shouldn't I get some physiology in before the MCAT?

 

[Temperature101]

Thanks for the response. I just took a look at the course catalog here and found that our bio 1 program focuses on cell biology and bio 2 focuses a lot on ecology related bio. Given this and your statement it seems like genetics is going to be a lot more useful for me. But shouldn't I get some physiology in before the MCAT?

Since your bio 2 focuses on ecology, genetics will be much more useful IMO.

 

[typeAheel]

Genetics, hands down