How much biology for new mcat?

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numbersloth

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7+ Year Member
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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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These are the classes that I found most helpful in my prep.

Molecular cell biology, genetics, Biochem, Embryology
 
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.
 
Agree with physiology! Biochemistry is a must, but you may be counting that as a chem class.
 
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.