Recommended Pre-Med Classes

[pbehzad]

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I know med schools require the general classes, but i am wondering what classes would you recommend for the mcat? which classes seem to help, physiology, cell bio, biochem, etc.?
because im not a bio or chem major, i am only limited to a certain amount of premed classes outside of the requirements and i was wondering what classes are the most helpful for mcat?
thanks.

 

[Wahoo07]

I think developmental biology and immunology might help. You might also take a few English lit classes to prepare for the Verbal section.

 

[kidsmd]

I know being a physiology major helped me a lot on the mcat... i would suggest taking a physiology class somewhere down the line; my mcat instructor was always telling us to take a mammalian physiology class.

 

[riley290]

When they do the re-adjusting to the MCAT they are supposed to add more genetics problems and reduce some of the o-chem questions, so maybe genetics would help. I think I read about the change on the PR website.

 

[Adcadet]

I'd recommend physiology for sure. And cell biology, and genetics. All of those are key. And there's some developmental bio on it as well, although there didn't seem to be much immunology (I took an upper level immunology course rather than dev. bio, and I remember knowing way too much immu but not enough dev bio). I'm not sure how critical bio chem is - I didn't seem to need it (though I had just had it). I had a bunch of neurosci, which was overkill - if your physiology class covers neurosci a bit you might be OK.

Pick up a study book (Kaplan, Princeton Review, etc) that covers the major topics, and take it to a bio prof and ask which courses might be best. I know that at my college some classes didn't cover topics as well as one would think whereas others totally covered topics. Also, when you take your classes, refer back to that book to see if your class is skipping important stuff (like my physiology class didn't cover enough endocrinology..at least I didn't rembmer enough)

 

[jot]

i agree with developmental bio - it teaches everything - molecular,biochem,neuro but more importantly its very analytical which was a real help on the bio section. reading primary literature was also good practice (an unintended bonus) for it.
-jot

 

[kidmel45]

biochem was a big help. it reviewed some organic. cell bio covered pretty much everything else except genetics on the bio part.

Take as much physics as you can!! that section killed me. probably didn't help all my profs were horrible (ie more worried about star trek than teaching) and the princeton review guy was socially inept. upper level chem classes, like inorganic, cleared up some issues with gen chem.

practice timing yourself for the verbal section....some of my friends didn't finish when taking the test. btw....the writing section is the biggest joke! you seriously could write the same essay for both questions and get away with it.

ps less than 10 in a section isn't gonna kill you! i got an 8 in both the physical and bio sections and I still got in!

 

[tsman]

Definitely Biochem and/or cell bio for BS. Not only for information, but these two classes help to try and get you into MCAT-style thinking.

 

[Sprockette]

I found it helpful to have taken the following courses prior to the MCAT:

~Biochemistry
~Genetics
~Physical Chemistry
~Analytical Chemistry

I had never taken any molecular or cell bio classes before I took the MCAT (I take that back, I hadn't taken ANY bio except for genetics in the 5 years prior to the MCAT), so I can't say how helpful those would have been. I also took a crapload of psychology courses, which helped a bit on the bio stuff and also made me familiar with some of the topics in the verbal passages.

Hope that helps some.