I hear you, but I've been advised that, while AP won't satisfy prereqs in some cases, depending on the school, upper level courses in the same subjects will. Hopefully this will be the case. Otherwise I will be screwed, since I placed out of the first year of just about everything! I am pretty sure this is the case, because the alternative really doesn't make a lot of sense, i.e., forcing someone with AP credits to retake classes versus demonstrating proficiency through upper level courses.
Assuming this is indeed the case, the same should apply for the foreign class, since it converted to American credits at OP's school, just like AP credits would. At that point, the med school should be agnostic as to what was the underlying basis of the credit, since what they are accepting is the UG credit, not the foreign or AP coursework. I understand why you are saying what you are (risk aversion), but it honestly seems like a huge waste of time and money to retake classes one has already received credit for because some random TBD med school
might be unreasonable and not accept the credit PLUS upper level coursework in satisfaction of a prereq requirement.
I obviously don't have your level of experience, and have not performed a survey of every med school, but, in my two years of obsessing on med school admissions, I have not yet come across a single school that insists on a specific class, and will under no circumstances accept credit for prior coursework (such as AP credit) or credit plus additional upper level classes. Do you know of a single example contradicting this so I can save myself some time and money next year, since under no circumstances am I going to go back now and retake bio 1 or physics 1? Thanks!!
Actually three memorable incidents come quickly to mind
1) a nontrad professional journalist and textbook editor, who never had an English as a UG (all writing was journalism classes) required to an English class before matriculation
2) a nontrad PhD chemist required to take freahman Bio II (with plants bio) prior to matriculation
3) in a similar vein, an acceptee who had to take one of a gen bio summer before starting, had completed the class prior to orientation at med school but UG registrar closed for a week in early August, official transcripts got to med school two days after acceptee was forced to defer for not fulfilling prereq
4) And I have known many acceptees who rushed to take a summer course to fill a missing prereq just prior to matriculation, which is becoming a more tenuous backup as medical schools start earlier and earlier
Now lets try to understand how all this works
1) the schools are accredited in part by having admissions criteria and policies, and are reviewed and re-accredited by following those policies.
2) If schools are continually granting waivers to these policies and this is seen on either an internal or re-accreditation audit, they can be "dinged" for excessive waivers and not adhering to their published admissions criteria
3) As the number of medical schools grow and how medical schools are falling under the umbrella of large corporate-structured health systems, this any ding to accreditation is seen as a liability to reputation and branding. Therefore, upper management doesnt want it
4) Over the past decade schools many schools have be altering admission prereqs to do so, moving from specific courses to either more general course and/or core competency requirements
5) In sum, applicants expect a school will be reasonable and flexible where in many cases it is constraint by fear of LCME and upper management.
As for the specific course questions/points raised in this thread
1) As prospective physicians, you should realize that specificity matters
2) a prerequisite course fulfills TWO things: the course content and the credits/time
3) AP credit awarded, AP course exemption/placement, Transfer credit from US school, Transfer credit from foreign school are all different things and medical schools handle them differently. And in many cases dont have a clear policy especially on the last ite,
4) Usually medical schools will allow AP to fulfill the content of prereq but not the credit. Hence you need to take additional credits in the area.
5) Medical schools will usually take transfer credits from a US school. This comes into play with some schools that do not accept CC credits for prereqs but are acceptable as transfer credits from a 4 year school.
6) For foreign transfer credits, policies are not consistent. My impression is that most will take them but applicant must assume they will need a transcript eval service and submit original transcript
7) Placing out of a course (as opposed to getting AP credit) is an issue at many medical schools.
As for my risk aversion philosophy
1) As I said, at most medical schools there is low risk
2) However, with 60% of applicants being rejected, and more importantly, 20% getting a single acceptance, do you really want to have applied to 27 schools, get 3 II, and get on 1 WL, get called in only to then find the school wont grant you a waiver for missing general bio II? The medical school is by no means required to defer you and then can simply take the acceptance back
3) So while the potential of the risk is low, the impact of the risk is high as in possibly not becoming a doctor
4) The only way to have this risk at zero instead of just low is having all the required prereq courses
5) while this can be seen as a waste of time, effort and money, not becoming a doctor because of not taking some prereq seems like a bigger waste.
6) I dont go thru all this just be one of the
“nattering nabobs of negativism.” ( either
@Goro @LizzyM will get that). Yes, all of this is rare except I have seen it all over my career. Do you really want to risk being one of the few acceptees per yea who winds gets that single acceptance only to be deferred a year or worse.
