Taking biochem and physics II over the summer at Harvard?

[cafe_au_lait]

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I want to take both biochemistry and second semester physics over the summer because that seems to be the only way I can apply to med school without taking a gap year and without compromising my MCAT score.

I'm currently a sophomore and plan on taking the MCAT January of my junior year. This is so 1) I'll have time to retake it if I need to and 2) I will take it almost immediately after my 3 week long winter break in December, during which I will be intensively studying for the test.

By the start of this summer, I will have completed gen chem, o-chem, lots of bio, physio, and psych/soc. All that's left is biochem and physics. My college offers biochem but it is curved to a C+, so there is no way I am taking it here (organic was curved to a B and I barely managed an A-). If I take physics over the school year, I will not have completed more than half the course by the time I take the MCAT. If I take the MCAT in January, I will miss E&M, optics, and waves. If I take the MCAT in March (not ideal), I will still miss optics and waves. And my school only offers mechanics in the fall and the other topics in winter/spring (too late).

Most students here take physics during the school year and self-study the material they miss; however, the majority of them have an AP physics background from high school and are comfortable with the material, while I have no physics background and am very concerned about physics. Summer classes are also expensive but I am fortunate enough to not have to worry about money.

My plan is to take second semester physics over the summer and take the first semester at the start of my junior year at my regular school. Harvard seems to be literally the only option for me if I want to take both biochem and physics II concurrently because 1) they let you take physics II before I 2) their summer session starts late enough that it doesn't conflict with the end of my school year 3) they offer both biochem and physics 4) the session ends early enough that I still have nearly two months before my junior year starts, which means I can do non-academic stuff. I emailed the biochem professor, who said it is an "intensive course" but it is "quite common" for students to enroll in 2 Harvard Summer School classes. I also talked to the physics professor, who said students could do well in physics II with nearly no physics background, but it would be difficult to take another class at the same time.

I am ready to devote all my free time to these classes, and I currently attend a very rigorous, highly ranked school so I have no problem working my a** off. I am just worried that taking biochem + physics II at the same time will still be too much for me. Do any of you have thoughts on this? If it helps, biochem is with Viel and physics is with Girma Hailu.

Thanks all!

Edit: I can't take these courses at my own school over the summer because I'm pretty sure times would conflict and the school wouldn't let me, for good reason. Course evaluations have students reporting spending an average of 20 hours a week on biochem and physics, each. Can this be expected at Harvard too? (I asked the profs via email and they didn't really answer this question...)

 

[deleted577188]

You attend a very rigorous, highly ranked school at which you work you a** off, but you're scared to take biochem there because it's only curved to a C+?

 

[cafe_au_lait]

Yes. I already took a couple B's in hard science classes curved to B-, I really don't want anymore, even one. Like I mentioned before, I barely pulled an A- in ochem curved to a B. Additionally, I don't want to take such an intensive course (biochem) at the same time I am studying for the MCAT.

 

[beachside]

Sounds like a very short summer semester, if you have two months remaining at the end of it. Probably best to just take only one course. Don't be afraid to take the MCAT in June if need be. You shouldn't plan for a retake scenario anyway, since that hurts you significantly. Make a plan that enables you to ace it on your first and only try. Perhaps even study for it during those remaining two summer months.

 

[moop]

Sounds like a **** summer and not a plan for success. Harvard is no sneeze, and yes, as a former TA for a summer HYP class, 20 hours a week is easily attained by summer school science classes. It sounds like you already struggle a bit at your school, even factoring out the deflation, so I'm going to say you don't quite qualify to do both at the same time.

I would recommend doing Biochem only because it is better to learn it in a smaller setting at summer school. Save physics for your own school so you can find study groups and mooch off of older students for help. Take MCAT in June if you need to. Sucks you have no physics background, but that's over and done. Try to teach yourself through an SAT II Physics book over the summer. Just read and do problems, you'll get some hang of it that'll make intro more bearable.

Or find out what drop and refund policies are and see if you can try out both first, then drop if necessary.

 

[moop]

You attend a very rigorous, highly ranked school at which you work you a** off, but you're scared to take biochem there because it's only curved to a C+?

Yo idk where you attend but a C+ curve is brutal if it's a competitive deflation-oriented university with top kids running around. You wouldn't know unless you did it.

 

[medic86]

Yo idk where you attend but a C+ curve is brutal if it's a competitive deflation-oriented university with top kids running around. You wouldn't know unless you did it.

I'm glad I don't have to deal with that s***. 😛

 

[Gurby]

20 hours/week/class seems like a reasonable estimate to me. I took Chem I+II last summer at HSS (also 8 credits in 7 weeks) and it ended up being around a 40-hour commitment between class every day, discussion sections, lab, homework, studying. A lot of people spent less time, some people spent more. Doable, but in retrospect I feel accelerated summer programs are a kind of big risk. You can do well and knock out a bunch of credits quickly, but if you're struggling it can be impossible to catch up. And then you get 8 credits worth of C+ or whatever, which is not what you want.

Also worth noting is that Physics II is probably harder than Physics I. I'm just starting my second semester of Physics, and my first thoughts when doing the pre-reading for the first lecture were "there will be blood this semester". A lot of people struggled with the first semester, and it seems like Physics II is going to be much more difficult. I'm not sure how much overlap there will be, though, so maybe jumping into the 2nd semester won't be too big of a deal.

Personally, I would be uncomfortable attempting this... I think I'd probably be able to pull it off and get A's, but I'd be a bit nervous going into it. But I think it's a doable plan for someone with a strong science background. As far as I know, these classes aren't curved, so if you can just learn the material you should be able to do well. I would try to pre-study and just get a sense for it - a lot of otherwise very smart people seem to have trouble with physics for some reason. As long as you aren't one of those people whose brain just has a lot of trouble with the mathyness, you'll probably be okay.

 

[Ace Khalifa]

Why not take a gap year? Then you can space out taking physics, biochem, and studying for the MCAT during the entirety of your junior and senior years. This will allow you to use your summer for something more productive like research, volunteering, or clinical experience. This will also allow you time to increase your GPA if it's a little low right now. I came from a top ranked deflating school, and a lot of students take a gap year so that they can improve their GPA using senior year grades. It sounds like you're trying to cram everything into 3 years before applying, which will NOT be worth it in the end.

 

[Lannister]

I can't imagine taking both biochem and physics over the summer at the same time. I took physics 1 last summer and between class, lab, and the homework I was spending an average of 8 hours a day working on physics. It was exhausting. And I had taken AP physics C and gotten a five, so it's not like I was struggling to understand the material or something. The work just took that long.

 

[Lannister]

Yes. I already took a couple B's in hard science classes curved to B-, I really don't want anymore, even one. Like I mentioned before, I barely pulled an A- in ochem curved to a B. Additionally, I don't want to take such an intensive course (biochem) at the same time I am studying for the MCAT.

I'm taking biochem at the same time that I'm studying for the MCAT. It's not that bad. I mean yeah it's a ton of work, but what's nice is that I won't really have to do a ton of MCAT reviewing for biochem because I'll be reviewing it all for the class anyways, if that makes sense. Plus biochem is not as bad as people make it out to be. It's so much easier than ochem, it's just a lot of memorizing. And it's really interesting, in my opinion.

 

[Gurby]

Also worth noting is that Physics II is probably harder than Physics I. I'm just starting my second semester of Physics, and my first thoughts when doing the pre-reading for the first lecture were "there will be blood this semester". A lot of people struggled with the first semester, and it seems like Physics II is going to be much more difficult. I'm not sure how much overlap there will be, though, so maybe jumping into the 2nd semester won't be too big of a deal.

Personally, I would be uncomfortable attempting this... I think I'd probably be able to pull it off and get A's, but I'd be a bit nervous going into it. But I think it's a doable plan for someone with a strong science background. As far as I know, these classes aren't curved, so if you can just learn the material you should be able to do well. I would try to pre-study and just get a sense for it - a lot of otherwise very smart people seem to have trouble with physics for some reason. As long as you aren't one of those people whose brain just has a lot of trouble with the mathyness, you'll probably be okay.

I would like to change my position on this... I'm working through my first homework assignment for Physics II, and there is no way you could do this assignment without having already completed Physics I. Even though we're covering electricity, you still get cameo appearances from kinematics, torque, friction, etc.

Maybe if you basically taught yourself the first semester of physics beforehand you'd be okay. But jumping straight into Physics 2 without any previous experience with it since high school sounds like a bad time.

 

[cafe_au_lait]

In light of all of your answers (thank you!), I am now leaning towards taking biochem at my own school over the summer (it is curved to an A- over the summer), taking physics during my third year, and taking the MCAT in March. I would still have to self study optics and waves for the MCAT, but at least this way my summer course load won't be as brutal, I can stay at my own school instead of going some place I won't know anyone, I'll get an extra two weeks of summer, and if I have any free time while enrolled in biochem, I can spend it doing research in my lab. What do you guys think of this plan? It seems good as long as I can manage learning optics and waves by myself (which would be while I am taking E&M, I suppose)...

 

[ridethecliche]

Sounds like uchicago or swat.