Question about med school course requirements

[cms5423]

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When medical schools say they require 2 semesters of general biology, what exactly does this mean?

Do courses like cell biology and microbiology count? Is it that if amcas classifies the course as a biological science then it would count as a general biology course requirement?

I ask because I have taken one semester of intro to biology, but as a biochemistry major, I have taken cell biology as a biochemistry course, but the same class it is crosslisted as a biology course as well. Would this count as the second semester of biology for med school?

 

[Electronegative]

Any course that is offered by biology department and or has prefix BIOL### will count as biology pre req.

 

[cms5423]

Ok that works for me!

 

[mdbound1987]

Any course that is offered by biology department and or has prefix BIOL### will count as biology pre req.

I'm pretty sure that's not true. Ecology is a Bio course and def doesn't replace general bio. You need to ask your health professions office the exact classes that a pre-med should take for the gbio requirement.

 

[gravitywave]

most pre med advising offices are pretty bad for answering questions of this kind. in general, upper level BIOL courses that require the intro courses as pre reqs are acceptable. the student is responsible for all the material tested on the MCAT, however - regardless of whether they seen it in class.

 

[mdbound1987]

most pre med advising offices are pretty bad for answering questions of this kind. in general, upper level BIOL courses that require the intro courses as pre reqs are acceptable. the student is responsible for all the material tested on the MCAT, however - regardless of whether they seen it in class.

If the pre-req for an upper-level bio course is 2 semesters of bio, then of course OP will be fine. My point is that an upper level class does not replace a gbio course as a pre-req. Considering health professions send people to med school every year, I'm pretty sure they would know which bio course at their university is considered the gbio pre-req. Health professions offices can be pretty useless depending on the school, but in regards to knowing which class to take, how could they not know?