pass/fail med school requirement?

[roboticsintent]

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I'm placing this in the MD/PhD category, although I know the MD admissions board may be a better fit, because I am ONLY interested in MD/PhD-- my passion is for robotics, and I'd love to be able to apply it to medicine, but I don't imagine myself going straight MD.

My question is about med school admissions requirements-- is it okay to pass/fail a med school required course?

For background: I am an engineering major with a very strong science GPA, including biology and other chemistry course work. However, due to certain circumstances, I am in the middle of taking my second semester of organic chemistry a full year after taking the first semester. Because of these circumstances, my scores are not up my standards and I am expecting a C in the course (compared to an A- from 1st semester). I do not want this grade to affect my GPA because I am hoping to graduate with honors. I am fine with the admissions offices seeing this relatively low grade (or not), because I believe I am overall still a strong applicant.

What do you guys think? I was thinking that since the MCAT tests organic chemistry, if I do well it should demonstrate my scientific aptitude. I wanted to make sure there were no hard and fast rules against it, or if it would look so bad it wouldn't be worth it.

Thanks for your input,

 

[OddNath]

The issue of prereq grades is not different for MD/PhD than MD-only admissions. It looks pretty bad to choose to take a P/F grade for a required pre-med class. We'll just assume you made a D.

So, no, not okay to P/F a required prereq.

 

[CielloStelatto]

As nice as it would be to move to pass/fail so it won't alter your gpa, I'm fairly certain that this change would actually be more of a red flag for med schools looking at your transcript. Why else would you be suddenly changing one of the required, classically "difficult" courses to pass/fail.

Moreover, my guess is that plenty of med schools (and thus md/phd programs) require the pre-requisites to be taking for a grade. I remember seeing a few schools doing this (sorry, just don't remember which), and also in my undergrad meetings we were told we needed to take all prereqs for a grade. The only way to get around this would be to take another course in advanced o chem or something, and use that as your pre-req? Or just suck it up with the GPA, one class shouldn't change it all that much.

I would take the grade.

 

[Freak]

So a couple of thoughts ...

Graduating with honors, good thing for the CV and will actually last for a while. This is important whether you chose to go to med school or not.
P/F major course, looks bad to med schools and I would have put it at a C-, but we are splitting hairs between that and a D 😛

Can you talk to the professor ... I got a B+ in my orgo class (also second semester) when that was not numerically possible because I showed significant improvement towards the end of the class.

 

[achamess]

I agree with the other posters that a P/F on a required class like Orgo is a no-go. But what about P/Fing it now, and then taking it again for a grade? Sure, it's not ideal, but this way, you don't hurt your GPA and you have a sort of 'pre-review' for Orgo. Any thoughts?

 

[roboticsintent]

Numerically I am expecting about a C at this point. So "what it looks like" is pretty much what it will be. I will converse with my professor to see how he will change things to account for increasing effort/performance.

My question is really about the requirement. I understand it looks bad to pass/fail or get a low grade. Is there a *rule* against the pass fail at most schools? I'm more interested in protecting my honors than looking superb for med schools, although I still want it to be an option, even if it is not very viable.

I would only be accepted into MD/PhD programs because of my demonstrated commitment and success in (robotics/engineering) research, not because of my GPA. I have a strong GPA for my engineering school, but not compared to most pre-meds. If I tried I could definitely pull off a high MCAT, but at this point I won't count on it. I am very good at what I do, but I didn't think about MD/PhD as an option until too late in my undergrad career.

 

[achamess]

I'm pretty sure that the required pre-med courses must be taken for a grade. If you have a pre-med advising office at your school, they may be able to give you more insight into your question, but a P/F for a class is as good as if you never took the class, I would imagine in the eyes of an adcom member. But I think that if you P/F the class, but retook it (and got a good grade), the P/F would be overlooked. Does P/F a course at your school preclude you from graduating with honors?

 

[CielloStelatto]

many schools state in their requirements on the admissions page that a minimum grade of a C must be earned in all prereq courses. my guess is that you'd have to ask the schools specifically if a pass counts.

just a few other examples:

this compares three schools, and on table 2 it shows that all three schools do NOT count s/u or p/f courses for requirements: http://und.edu/org/uma/Medical%20School%20Accepted%20Student%20Profiles.pdf

and somewhere in here it says schools won't accept a p/f for a pre-req: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/745807-mandatory-pass-fail-english-classes.html



i've never heard of a schools allowing p/f for a requirement, nor have i heard anyone recommend it. but apparently creighton takes p/f courses, though it's unclear if that's for the prereqs or for total credits http://medschool.creighton.edu/medicine/oma/app/req/index.php