Pre-med for someone wha has done dual enrollment while in highschool.

[seals44]

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I am currently a high school Senior, and have been taking college classes at a local 4-year University since the beginning of my Junior year. At the end of this semester I will have accumulated 24 credits at a 4.0 GPA (including Anatomy and Physiology I and II during the summer). I will be attending the University of Pittsburgh next year, and so scheduled the classes as to fulfill almost all of my general-education requirements. As math is my weak area, I will also be taking Statistics next semester, and Calculus I over the summer, before I transfer to Pitt (while the school I'm attending now is an accredited 4-year university, it is much less academically rigorous).

I do not have a definite major at this point. Possibly a Biology/Japanese double major (already partially fluent in Japanese), possibly just one or the other.

I am thinking of taking Bio I, Chem I and Physics I my first semester at Pitt, and Bio II, Chem II, and Physics II my second semester. Does this sound like a logical plan?
If this was the case, I would then take Ochem I and II my sophomore year, and take the MCATs the summer between sophomore and junior years, meaning I'd be able to get in on the old test before they switch it over in 2015. I think that would be much preferable to trying to study for a new test that doesn't have a wealth of resources with which to prepare for it, nor any idea what to really expect.

Any other advice or things I should consider in my semi-unique situation?

Thanks!

 

[Chip N Sawbones]

Taking three prereq classes at once is going to be difficult. It's certainly possible (I'm doing it now), but trust me, it's difficult. I'd take general chem and physics your first year and then biology and organic in your second. Taking chemistry before biology will be a great deal of help in any case.

Your plan to take the MCAT early sounds workable, as long as you are willing to put in plenty of time to study for it. If you do badly and have to retake it the following year, there will be a great deal of additional material you'll have to study for.

It sounds like you might be able to graduate in three years, not counting your current dual enrollment. That will be a nice savings of time and money if it works out.

 

[Starlightembers]

From the way you have written your post, it seems that either A) None of your dual enrollment credits are transferring over to Pitt or B) You are choosing to stay all four years regardless. Whichever one it is, many on here would consider this to be a good thing. Had you transferred all your credits in (making you a Sophomore or Junior, credit-wise), you would have had less time than the average applicant to get in volunteer work, shadowing and other extracurricular activities and this would have put you at a disadvantage; from reports from other members, it seems that many medical schools would have questioned your maturity. If I have read your post wrong, feel free to correct me, though take note of what I have written. Many do graduate early and succeed in gaining admission; but it seems to hurt some.

Beyond that, there is nothing about your situation that should hold you back. As you may already know, AMCAS will factor in the dual enrollment credits into your final GPA when it comes time to apply, so it is great that you were able to get a 4.0 and it may actually help you if you struggle a bit when you first to get Pitt (make up a little bit for a couple A-/Bs). Otherwise, follow through with the other, normal premed things: do some clinical volunteering, shadow a few practicing physicians, join a club or two if you want, get involved in research, etc (I'm assuming this should be fairly east at Pitt).

One note on your proposed sequence, though: Most recommend that you only take two prereq classes at a time, so you may want to consider spacing it out more (ex, Bio + Chem first year, OChem + Physics next year).

Good luck!

 

[seals44]

From the way you have written your post, it seems that either A) None of your dual enrollment credits are transferring over to Pitt or B) You are choosing to stay all four years regardless. Whichever one it is, many on here would consider this to be a good thing. Had you transferred all your credits in (making you a Sophomore or Junior, credit-wise), you would have had less time than the average applicant to get in volunteer work, shadowing and other extracurricular activities and this would have put you at a disadvantage; from reports from other members, it seems that many medical schools would have questioned your maturity. If I have read your post wrong, feel free to correct me, though take note of what I have written. Many do graduate early and succeed in gaining admission; but it seems to hurt some.

Beyond that, there is nothing about your situation that should hold you back. As you may already know, AMCAS will factor in the dual enrollment credits into your final GPA when it comes time to apply, so it is great that you were able to get a 4.0 and it may actually help you if you struggle a bit when you first to get Pitt (make up a little bit for a couple A-/Bs). Otherwise, follow through with the other, normal premed things: do some clinical volunteering, shadow a few practicing physicians, join a club or two if you want, get involved in research, etc (I'm assuming this should be fairly east at Pitt).

One note on your proposed sequence, though: Most recommend that you only take two prereq classes at a time, so you may want to consider spacing it out more (ex, Bio + Chem first year, OChem + Physics next year).

Good luck!

My credits WILL transfer to Pitt, but I still plan on spending four years there. I will definitely be studying abroad/possibly doing a double major, so it should work out nicely.

Also: the only reason I am proposing three pre-reqs at once is that they would be the only classes I would take that semester. Would that fact that I would be carrying a 12 credit load change your opinion, or were you already inferring it?

 

[Starlightembers]

My credits WILL transfer to Pitt, but I still plan on spending four years there. I will definitely be studying abroad/possibly doing a double major, so it should work out nicely.

Also: the only reason I am proposing three pre-reqs at once is that they would be the only classes I would take that semester. Would that fact that I would be carrying a 12 credit load change your opinion, or were you already inferring it?

Thank you for the clarification. As I said, either way, I think many would support/agree with the choice to stay all four years.

As for the prereqs, I was assuming that you would be carrying the average (15 or so) credit load. The fact that they will be the only three classes you are taking does make it seem more manageable and agreeable; however, as many people on here have more experience than I do with these matters, I will let them chime in.

 

[patineurMD]

My credits WILL transfer to Pitt, but I still plan on spending four years there. I will definitely be studying abroad/possibly doing a double major, so it should work out nicely.

Also: the only reason I am proposing three pre-reqs at once is that they would be the only classes I would take that semester. Would that fact that I would be carrying a 12 credit load change your opinion, or were you already inferring it?

I feel like it would be fine to take all three as a freshman, primarily based on the fact that you're already well adjusted to studying for college courses and it wouldn't necessarily be a huge shock to you. If you do decide to split them up, I wouldn't recommend do as one poster suggested and do chem and physics and then bio and organic; while it might be advantageous to have chem before bio, most intro bios are so watered down (even at Pitt, I'd imagine) that you don't need to have more than a basic understanding of chemistry to do well in the course. It would, in my opinion, be to your advantage to have biology before organic just because there is so much biology inherent in the study of biological molecules. Also, if you end up as a bio major, you'll definitely want to have intro bio out of the way before you become an official sophomore.

 

[bunnity]

Just two random pieces of info since I went to Pitt:
-Their language courses are 5 credits (normal courses are 3). So they can be pretty demanding and hard to schedule around since they are 5 days a week. That might make the double major thing hard.
-Pitt tends to assign less credits to their classes than some other schools so 12 isn't awfully low for Pitt. If you're worried about it you could always take a PE class or intro music class or something to give you 15 credits.
I hope you love it as much as I did there 🙂

 

[seals44]

Just two random pieces of info since I went to Pitt:
-Their language courses are 5 credits (normal courses are 3). So they can be pretty demanding and hard to schedule around since they are 5 days a week. That might make the double major thing hard.
-Pitt tends to assign less credits to their classes than some other schools so 12 isn't awfully low for Pitt. If you're worried about it you could always take a PE class or intro music class or something to give you 15 credits.
I hope you love it as much as I did there 🙂

Good to hear that you loved it there! In regards to the language courses, it appears I will be able to skip out of a large number of them, so that is not a very big concern.

 

[seals44]

Anybody else have any opinions on doing just 12 credit semesters of the three pre-reqs freshman year in my situation?