How much biology for new mcat?

[numbersloth]

Most medical schools still require only two semesters of general biology as prerequisites for admission. But with the new MCAT, I feel like one semester of cell/molecular and one semester of organismal won't be enough. What elective classes would be helpful? Is taking a class worth taking the chance of lowering my GPA, or can I still do well on the new MCAT if I only take a year of intro biology and spend the entire summer studying (only doing some volunteering on the side as well)?

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[eteshoe]

Maybe Genetics and Physio (I didn't take the new MCAT, but I imagine those classes would be helpful).

 

[Hospitalized]

I'm finding a lot of information from my A/P to be helpful. Definitely could be self-studied in a summer though.

 

[Astra]

These are the classes that I found most helpful in my prep.

Molecular cell biology, genetics, Biochem, Embryology

 

[GCS-15]

biochemistry, biochemistry, biochemistry!

 

[Astra]

biochemistry, biochemistry, biochemistry!

You forgot biochemistry

 

[Terror Billy]

As I said somewhere else today, can't recommend Molecular Biology enough. It's a pretty good class to have a strong background in for a lot of passages that I've seen come up in the Bio/Bioc sections.

 

[bee17]

Agree with physiology! Biochemistry is a must, but you may be counting that as a chem class.

 

[boogerlice]

Agree with everyone else, the biochem. I could have easily done better but I mixed up a lot of my amino acids' single letter notation; they love the amino acids now. That whole molecular biology field is full of gimme points.

Also, be able to read quickly. My passages were long and dense.