Hello everyone. I am an incoming freshman at the University of Rochester. Along with my major I will be on a Pre-Med track.
I have a couple of questions regarding pre-med.
Should I take any Pre-Med courses during freshman year? I know some doctors who have told me to not take any during Freshman year because the MCAT is taken in Junior-Senior year and it would be hard to remember stuff that was learned freshman year.
What are the harder Pre-Med courses? I know Organic Chemistry is pretty hard so I will be studying that a head of time. I like to become aware of certain material before taking the class so that I am better prepared.
When should I start and how long should I be studying for the MCAT? I heard the longer the better, but when is the perfect time?
Any general advice from people that have been successful at getting into Medical school?
The introductory courses are the foundations for courses you take later on. Your school will have required courses for your major, general education requirements (e.g. every student may be required to take a foreign language and/or philosophy), and you will need to fit in the courses required for med school.
Typically, medical school requires:
General Chemistry with lab 1 year
Organic chemistry with lab, 1 year (and General chem is usually a pre-requisite for o-chem)
Biology with lab 1 year
Physics with lab 1 year
English
Most medical schools are now encouraging students to take Biochemistry, Statistics, and social science coursework such as Sociology, Psychology or Anthropology.
As you finish the last of the required courses is around the time you'll want to start preparing for the MCAT. Some students take a lighter course load for one quarter and treat MCAT like their 5th course, others devote a solid 3 months full time for prep.... The soonest you need to think about it realistically would be 2 years from now as you start Junior year.
To fit it all in you might want to start freshman year with Gen Chem with either Physics or Biology. Then O-chem and whatever is left (Bio or Physics) your second year. That still leaves 3 courses for general education requirements, your major courses, and electives.
O-chem is usually the course that people have the hardest time with (lower grades than average). I'm sure someone can share some study tips with you.
As LizzyM said, there are a bunch of prereqs for medical school. Generally, people will take Gen Chem freshman year and Orgo sophomore year, fitting Physics and Biology in those two years too. They'll then take biochemistry their Junior fall. That's the "standard" approach, but it can be done all sorts of ways.
How much time is necessary to study for the MCAT varies. 3-4 months is probably sufficient. I think that once you hit 5 months, it's getting excessive and you're likely not going to be getting much out of that extra time. Don't take the MCAT until you have taken all your prerequisites.
If I were to give you one piece of advice it would be that GPA is the hardest, slowest, and most expensive thing to fix with regard to your eventual application, so make sure that it is priority #1.
You likely will only take gen bio and gen chem as far as pre-med goes.
Gen chem is hard at a lot of places by it is a weed out class. Other than that biochem, ochem, cell bio, molecular bio, and other upper level sciences class depending on your major tend to be the hardest.
You don't want to study ahead of time. Relax! It's a marathon not a sprint. Enjoy your free time, and don't put in unnecessary work (you will get burned out before you even reach med school)! I know what it's like being so eager before you start pre-med. it's important to enjoy other aspects of life.
Study for the MCAT for about a semester (take a very light class-load this semester).
Do research and shadow (medical schools main focus is gpa, mcat, and all-around resume). God bless and good luck!
