Prerequisites in 4 Semesters?

[ACUtoScrubs23]

Long story short, I am leaving active duty in a year and starting my medical journey. I have a BS in a non-STEM field, so the only science classes I have taken were 16-7 years ago (Chem I and A&P). I already have college algebra and statistics. I am wondering if it would be possible to take all the science prerequisites in roughly 4-5 semesters. I plan to start spring semester 2025 and work straight through spring semester 2026 and hopefully be ready for the MCAT and med school application in spring/summer 2026 for 2027 matriculation. I understand this will largely be dependent on class availability, but this is what I'm looking at currently:

Spring '25 - General Bio I / General Chem I / Physics I
Summer '25 - General Bio II / General Chem II / Physics II
Fall '25 - Organic Chem I / Genetics / Sociology
Spring '26 - Organic Chem II / Biochem / (higher level chem/bio if needed) / MCAT prep and testing
Summer '26 - Any other courses that look good to ADCOMs even if "in progress"

Is this possible? Is 3 lab classes at a time too much? Do ADCOMs look down on such a short career changer postbacc, especially if it consists of mostly 100-200 level classes? Thank you for your help!

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[operaman]

Definitely looks doable. The limiting factor in the premed sequence is chemistry—>orgo—>biochem. This is really what seems to dictate the timeline.

I compressed it a bit more back when I did it but I did have to request exemptions to do it:

Maymester- biochem 400
Summer 1- Chem 1
Summer 2- chem 2
Fall- orgo 1
spring- orgo 2
Fall- MS1 started

And peppered in a ton of upper level biology, physics, stats, etc. I never actually took biology 101/102 - they let me just jump in to upper level classes.

Definitely a lot of work but doable. I too had a few months heads up that I’d be doing this so I self studied for the mcat ahead of time and took it at the start of the post bacc so I could apply concurrently. That basically set me up to ease through the classes since I’d already learned most of it for free online.

Many ways to do this - just make sure you can get As with whatever you do. Definitely no sympathy points if you try something extreme and bomb.

 

[WashedUpPreMed]

It's doable. Given your timeline and the pace at which you'll be working to gather other aspects of your application, I would suggest finding an MCAT Anki deck. This will allow you to begin spaced repetition with some of the coursework you are covering, making MCAT prep easier a year later. Just a thought, though. ADCOMs care more about your academic success in general and the story that your application tells. I have classmates who were music majors, film majors, anthro, psych majors, etc., and the only science classes they took were the prerequisites and nothing more.

 

[ACUtoScrubs23]

Definitely looks doable. The limiting factor in the premed sequence is chemistry—>orgo—>biochem. This is really what seems to dictate the timeline.

I compressed it a bit more back when I did it but I did have to request exemptions to do it:

Maymester- biochem 400
Summer 1- Chem 1
Summer 2- chem 2
Fall- orgo 1
spring- orgo 2
Fall- MS1 started

And peppered in a ton of upper level biology, physics, stats, etc. I never actually took biology 101/102 - they let me just jump in to upper level classes.

Definitely a lot of work but doable. I too had a few months heads up that I’d be doing this so I self studied for the mcat ahead of time and took it at the start of the post bacc so I could apply concurrently. That basically set me up to ease through the classes since I’d already learned most of it for free online.

Many ways to do this - just make sure you can get As with whatever you do. Definitely no sympathy points if you try something extreme and bomb.

How did it appear to ADCOMs that you were applying while still completing most of the prereqs? Did you have any science to base a GPA off of?

 

[ACUtoScrubs23]

It's doable. Given your timeline and the pace at which you'll be working to gather other aspects of your application, I would suggest finding an MCAT Anki deck. This will allow you to begin spaced repetition with some of the coursework you are covering, making MCAT prep easier a year later. Just a thought, though. ADCOMs care more about your academic success in general and the story that your application tells. I have classmates who were music majors, film majors, anthro, psych majors, etc., and the only science classes they took were the prerequisites and nothing more.

My academic record is dual enrollment A&P in high school (A), then 5 semesters at university with a steady decline until the last semester when I enlisted in the Army and stopped going to class so I received 5 F's (2.0 GPA). Then an EMT class in 2014, and finally finishing my bachelors in emergency management and homeland security last December (4.0) while still active duty. Hopefully the military side of my story will sell me better haha.

 

[operaman]

How did it appear to ADCOMs that you were applying while still completing most of the prereqs? Did you have any science to base a GPA off of?

Not sure. I guess it looked good enough to get accepted. I actually never took a real science class in college. I was a music major and took things like “history of science” and stuff like that. So no sGPA to speak of. Solid mcat score though so they knew I would probably be able to handle it, but my last official science class was sophomore year of high school physics.

My way was definitely a bit nuts but I wanted to do things as fast as humanly possible and I knew without a doubt I could do the work. I’d never recommend it to anyone, but it worked for me so I share it as more of a concept that there are many paths and non trads in particular seem to have pretty unique ones.

 

[ACUtoScrubs23]

Not sure. I guess it looked good enough to get accepted. I actually never took a real science class in college. I was a music major and took things like “history of science” and stuff like that. So no sGPA to speak of. Solid mcat score though so they knew I would probably be able to handle it, but my last official science class was sophomore year of high school physics.

My way was definitely a bit nuts but I wanted to do things as fast as humanly possible and I knew without a doubt I could do the work. I’d never recommend it to anyone, but it worked for me so I share it as more of a concept that there are many paths and non trads in particular seem to have pretty unique ones.

See now you have me thinking lol. I have a year to kill before I get out, might as well study until then and worst case if I don't feel ready to take the MCAT, I just wait until further in my studies. Right now all I have science-wise is A&P from 2006 and chem 101 from 2007, and then a couple psy courses and a public health in emergency management course they MIGHT care about.

 

[operaman]

See now you have me thinking lol. I have a year to kill before I get out, might as well study until then and worst case if I don't feel ready to take the MCAT, I just wait until further in my studies. Right now all I have science-wise is A&P from 2006 and chem 101 from 2007, and then a couple psy courses and a public health in emergency management course they MIGHT care about.

Yeah I think some free online course work and self study isn’t a bad idea. It will just make everything easier when the time comes - that was my thought. Lots of great mcat resources out there - just don’t burn the nice official full length tests until you’re legit thinking about sitting the exam so you can estimate your score.

I honestly didn’t think I’d even get in the first time, but my state school gave extra points to reapplicants so I thought I’d just retake and get an even higher score and reapply. Then I got lucky and was accepted even before finishing the post bacc.

Taking mcat early is definitely a risk, but if you’ve learned the material and done well on a couple practice tests may be worth a shot. It does potentially shave a year off the process. I know my score would have been higher had a waited - there were many questions where I had no clue what it was asking until months later when we finally got to that material in class. But in the end it was high enough to get me to the next level!

 

[Justify2018]

Long story short, I am leaving active duty in a year and starting my medical journey. I have a BS in a non-STEM field, so the only science classes I have taken were 16-7 years ago (Chem I and A&P). I already have college algebra and statistics. I am wondering if it would be possible to take all the science prerequisites in roughly 4-5 semesters. I plan to start spring semester 2025 and work straight through spring semester 2026 and hopefully be ready for the MCAT and med school application in spring/summer 2026 for 2027 matriculation. I understand this will largely be dependent on class availability, but this is what I'm looking at currently:

Spring '25 - General Bio I / General Chem I / Physics I
Summer '25 - General Bio II / General Chem II / Physics II
Fall '25 - Organic Chem I / Genetics / Sociology
Spring '26 - Organic Chem II / Biochem / (higher level chem/bio if needed) / MCAT prep and testing
Summer '26 - Any other courses that look good to ADCOMs even if "in progress"

Is this possible? Is 3 lab classes at a time too much? Do ADCOMs look down on such a short career changer postbacc, especially if it consists of mostly 100-200 level classes? Thank you for your help!

That is basically exactly what I did and it worked for me.