taking it easy in your senior year

[specialflava]

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Hey everyone. This may be the most paranoid/neurotic pre-med question I've ever asked, so I apologize in advance if it seems silly to you. At the moment I'm planning on dropping a class that I don't need for the semester. That would put me at 13 units total, with 4 coming from honors research and 2 coming from a volunteering program. Last semester I only took 15 units, with 4 coming from honors research, because I couldn't handle a heavy load alongside all the traveling necessary for interviews. Right now I'm trying to figure out whether to add a new class in place of the class I'm dropping, despite the fact that it's 2 weeks into the semester.

My question is whether or not med schools care at all about your courseload in senior year, as long as you graduate and you keep up your academic performance. I'm afraid that admission offers might be rescinded if they take a look at my transcript and say "damn this kid got lazy as soon as senior year hit, I don't think we want him at our school anymore".

Anyhow, does anyone have any experience with this? Has anyone heard horror stories of admission rescissions for super light courseloads? Sorry again for the over-paranoia. I'd really appreciate any advice or info. Thanks a lot in advance!

 

[nanpa]

I don't think medical schools care about how many units you are taking per semester. They may be more concerned on how many units you are taking and how well are you doing with those units..going slow your senior year is by no means being lazy.., with all the interviews and traveling you will have to do..less hours is great!

 

[ucsdhibiscus]

As long as you've had multiple times where you've taken heavy loads and done well you are fine. My senior year two quarters I took light loads and multiple pass/fail courses and took my third quarter completely off and have already been accepted to a couple of programs.
Take some time off before medical school, gain your sanity back, and have some fun!

 

[1956Goldtop]

They only care about what you report up until the time your AMCAS gets submitted. After that, you just need to finish your degree and get C's or above in your classes.

 

[nevercold]

If you are not submitting more coursework for consideration of admission (i.e. you have already gotten an offer of admission), then TOTALLY TAKE IT EASY.

I took 12 credits my last semester. Two of those were a course in first aid. I took some easy 2-credit lab, a course in neural systems (which was easy after doing neurophys the previous semester), criminal justice at the intro level, and something else I don't even remember. I had Fridays off entirely and didn't start before 11am on any of the other four days. Use the time to take some fun courses or to chill. You deserve it.

 

[lord_jeebus]

Light courseload is fine as long as you get your degree in the end.

I remember going part-time with 9 units during my final months - good times

 

[xiaoyi666]

spending tuesday and thursday afternoons on golf courses......hope it doesnt hurt my chances.

 

[brianmartin]

US med schools don't care. Now Canadian schools, they have strange requirements like you have to take a certain number of credits in each year of your undergrad. It's more subjective here. If they ask you about what you did senior year, just tell them you were taking some classes and doing some other things too. As long as you're doing SOMETHING, and didn't randomly drop off the map.

 

[Risa]

my last semester of college, i took intro to drawing, intro to dance, and intro to two different kinds of asian drumming. i couldn't be happier that i took some time to relax and enjoy myself before starting med school, and it wasn't an admissions issue at all.

have a fun semester!!!

 

[mc4435]

i'm currently taking only two classes... and one is P/F haha

 

[BMBPSU2008]

C'mon, take P chem lab and Transition Metal Chemistry with me...



Worst idea ever.

 

[coldweatherblue]

I was thinking about this when signing up for classes last summer. I only needed 13 credits to graduate. It would have been a pretty chill/easy semester at 13 credits, but I decided to take Biochemistry because I thought it would be interesting (it was) and because I wanted to be able to tell interviewers that I was taking biochem (I'm not a science major). So I ended up with 17 credits my last semester, but even with working 25 hrs a week it was still pretty chill.

 

[seraph524]

I recommend taking it easy...senioritis is damn hard to fight off...

 

[Concordia]

If you can take it easy, go for it. If you are good on all your graduation requirements there is no reason for you to take up classes that you don't need or don't have the extra money for. Maybe you can use the extra time to do some extra volunteering or a research project.