Pre-Req Help

[juliablaine]

Advertisement - Members don't see this ad

I'm in my first semester of post-bacc pre-reqs now and I'm trying to plan out the rest of my classes. My school offers a summer semester but with limited class choices. So I'm planning on taking Gen Chem II and Physics I, which will only put me at part-time status. After summer, I will have 2 semesters left no matter what since I'll still need O Chem I and II. The only other classes I'll need are Bio II and Physics II. So either I'll be taking 3 classes in the fall and 1 in the spring or 2 classes both semesters.

Do you think med schools will hold my light courseload against me? I would think that many non-trads would have this problem, since the chem sequence will take 4 semesters but there aren't enough other pre-reqs to hit a full course load that whole time. I have 8 semesters from college taking a full course load each semester so I would hope that med schools would consider that. I'll also be picking up a job in addition to my volunteering, shadowing, MCAT studying, etc.

 

[futuredoc331]

I haven't been in this situation yet myself, but I was just reading an identical thread yesterday. The consensus seemed to be that it would not matter as long as you've had full course loads in the past. There was a person only taking one class per semester.

I will hold off for other responders though.

 

[Woland]

This is only my personal anecdotal experience (in pre-application conversation with adcoms of WA and OR schools), but:
1) Light load suring summer will not be held against you (I was complemented on persistence in taking summer classes and doing well)
2) Med school will not hold taking some light semesters, however they do need to see you full load or more of science classes. I doubt a full load of history najor classes compares to medical school intellectual challenge.
3) Lastly, a full load needs to be recent. You might have had the ability to handle academic stress when you were 19, but if you are 30 now, many things have changed and they want to see that Jack Daniels did not kill off those grey cells.

Edit

I'll also be picking up a job in addition to my volunteering, shadowing, MCAT studying, etc

Do you plan on working through out the rest of your studies? Volunteering/shadowing/MCAT is expected and can hardly be used as an excuse if most pre-meds do it. Working is not as prevalent IMHO (except non-trads and disadvantaged) - so stressing the point that you had to work to survive/feed the family (cats do not count) might be to your advantage.

 

[juliablaine]

Thanks for your response. My major in college was Finance, so hopefully they would see that as a decently tough major though not nearly as difficult as science classes obviously. I also graduated in 2010, so my full class loads are pretty recent and I'm only 24. I guess I just don't want to risk not getting A's when I'll be finishing in the same amount of time regardless.
I do plan on working the rest of the time and I'm looking for a position now to start by summer. I had to quit my previous job because they were completely inflexible and wouldn't consider letting me work part-time or remotely.

 

[juliablaine]

Thanks, I'll look around for that thread.

 

[Bamfu]

Yeah, you'll be fine as far as how your classload looks to adcoms.

I did organic and physics at the same time during full length semesters, and it really wasn't bad at all. I would advise for 2 and 2 - take organic 1 with physics 1 and organic 2 with physics 2. IMO physics 1 is tougher than physics 2, and organic 2 is tougher than organic 1. It works out pretty well.

Summer courses blow, so I would take my easiest courses then (if possible). Chem 2 and Bio 2 are probably the easiest, although I don't know exactly how your Bio 2 works. We only had a single Bio class, so we all just considered Micro = Bio 2. If that's the case, micro can be a lot of information. I can see it being a difficult summer course. I did 5 week summer programs for A&P 1 and 2. The material obviously wasn't hard, but because our time was so limited, lab (anatomy) tests lined up with physiology tests (lecture) so often that it was just a huge pain in the ass. If your situation is more Micro in Bio 2 like mine, then your lab may consist of the unknown bacteria lab project. That can be pretty time consuming on top of a lot of information during lecture.

Anyways, good luck with whatever you end up doing.