Medical How do medical schools find out if I took prereq online classes if it doesn’t appear in my transcript?

[MusicDOc124]

I’m currently taking Physics 1 online and recently I found out that med schools don’t accept online prereq classes but at my institution the transcript doesn’t show if a class was taken online. Is there any other way med schools can find out?
Im thinking of withdrawing this Physics online class and taking it again on classroom. Does anyone have any recommendations? I’m afraid of finishing this class and then have it come up I’m my med school application.

There are various ways. Sometimes it's listed as online flat out. Sometimes it's in the title of the course. Sometimes the code has O or OL at the end (i.e. PHYS201OL) signifying On Line (or another code). Sometimes the school itself is an online school. Sometimes the campus is online only, which would depend on if the school designates campus anywhere on the transcript.

With that said, the way you are asking it is as if you want to hide it - "they can't find out, so I'm going to take it online and not tell anyway" - and this is very bad. Not because of the course being online, but because you'd be lying if you're looking for a work around, and thats not good.

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[Mr.Smile12]

I'll also add that with many schools sanctioning and supporting online coursework for the last decade -- accelerated more by the current COVID-19 epidemic it also appears -- I want to clarify what I think is the issue with online coursework. If you rely solely on online coursework from a non-accredited institution of higher education (say LinkedIn Learning or Coursera or Trump University [not that they're all equivalent]), admissions committee members are usually going to reject it because we don't know issues surrounding security or rigor of the courses. Nowadays many programs offer courses online as an option to traditional lectures, even with a mixed component where some lectures or talks that are recorded are expected to be viewed by students. To that end, if it is an online course that is equivalent to a lecture-based course in terms of syllabus, these type of online courses would probably pass muster.

I would receive many requests from prospective applicants about online courses or postbac options. My response is to request the syllabus to determine who is the host institution and what the syllabus says are the course activities and security assurances that the grade reported is equivalent to the efforts done in-person.

So in light of a lot of universities asking students to stay away from campus after spring break and offering lectures and activities relevant to coursework to online course management systems, I think this is going to be less an issue provided all that I mentioned is covered. If anything it may help some of us admissions professionals in persuading our faculty who are anti-online coursework to begin to consider compromising their stance.