Tips/ Advice/ Just Need a Reality Check?

[miniman]

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Hello all!


Ok, so first off I don’t want to come off as a troll. I simply want to know what your thoughts are on where I am, and what am going to do. With that said, I appreciate your input as where I am, I don’t come across many premeds to bounce anything off of.


Currently


I was duel enrolled (HS while at Comunity College) at age 16. I took it easy and took fewer than average classes ( on average I took three classes per semester). I also did some research over this time and last year published a working paper on a drug research for malaria. It was a science fair project that I wrote in HS, it was fairly advanced and I won my Colleges STEM award with it. This Summer I will be finishing up and transferring from this College to University. I currently poses a GPA of 3.73 and have zero shadowing hours.


I kinda knew I wanted to go into medicine, but wasn’t that committed. I was mainly thinking research, so my pre recs are not all done yet.


So now:


I’m 19 (18 but almost there!) I, like I said am transferring this summer to UNC-Charlotte. I have my Biology and English pre recs done, but that’s it. I’m a Biology major.


Here is what I was thinking in terms of getting them done: (I only included pre recs, )


Fall ’17

Gen Chem1

Physics 1

Sociology/psychology/anthropology (one of them I can’t decide which one yet)



Spring ’18

Gen Chem 2

Phsyics 2

Sociology/psychology/anthropology (one of them I can’t decide which one yet)



Fall’18

OChem1



Spring ’19

OChem2 (I am 21 at this point )


Over the summers I was thinking about shadowing and over the semesters I would work at the lab and continuing personal research. I am volunteering at a local food pantry, and I want to step that up. I am Jobless right now, but am applying like crazy now.


I will study during my last year semester for the MCAT as it’s my lightest semester. Then I will take it in the Summer and apply that year. (Not the best, but I suppose that will do.)


I am going to talk with a pre-med advisor winton the upcoming weeks and I wanted to have some goals that seemed real and not drag out my years in Undergrad.


So, what do you think? Is is attainable, or should I readjust and change something? Will it look bad on my application to Med school that I took a light load in college? I suppose all I am looking for is someone to say something.


Thanks,


M

 

[AttemptingScholar]

Good plan! You should probably trust your premed advisor/future classmates over SDN, but here are my thoughts.

My college does not allow anyone to test out of Bio (if they intend to move on) if they have the AP because they always do poorly in the next Bio class. They just stopped allowing it. How confident are you that your CC Bio will be a strong enough foundation for your Bio major classes? Ask your advisor if in the past people have been successful making this transfer. (if not, then take it and get a sGPA boost, but if that's the schedule you need to graduate on time, then obviously do it as you've laid out.)

Your ECs sound pretty good. Do you have a plan for your gap year?

Just keep in mind most plans don't pan out--they give you a useful direction to go in but at the end of the day you have to be flexible. I mention this only because some people will pass over better opportunities because it doesn't fit into their plan that's already a few years old!

I have faith. You seem to know what you're doing.

 

[efle]

Where is Biochem gonna be? Planning to do Calculus and/or Statistics?

Plans to get the paper peer reviewed and published?

 

[efle]

You should probably trust your premed advisor/future classmates over SDN

lmao nooooo

 

[RunawayGrape]

You should edit out your name in your original post to maintain anonymity.

Your schedule seems doable, but you should be wary of taking physics and gen chem in the same semester. It's doable, but know that many students have trouble with these two classes. You'll also need to fit in biochemistry (imo the most important premed class) after taking organic chemistry. And I think you will also need a math requirement, which I would recommend getting out of the way early on.

You should probably trust your premed advisor/future classmates over SDN, but here are my thoughts.

In my experience, SDN is better than 99% of premed advisors.

 

[AttemptingScholar]

lmao nooooo

Wait yeah true your advisor might be an idiot. What I meant was it can be a good idea to talk to people in your school environment about what class loads are doable/what the good teachers are/what mistakes people make (ex. in my school all upperclassmen say taking organic chemistry for majors is actually better). mSDN is smarter but the advice isn't specific to your school. What you should probably do is get advice from multiple sources and make the final decision that you will take responsibility for.

 

[miniman]

Where is Biochem gonna be? Planning to do Calculus and/or Statistics?

Plans to get the paper peer reviewed and published?

Wait yeah true your advisor might be an idiot. What I meant was it can be a good idea to talk to people in your school environment about what class loads are doable/what the good teachers are/what mistakes people make (ex. in my school all upperclassmen say taking organic chemistry for majors is actually better). mSDN is smarter but the advice isn't specific to your school. What you should probably do is get advice from multiple sources and make the final decision that you will take responsibility for.

Ok, Yeah that is not a requirement for the schools I am looking at, but yeah. Stats and calc are in there but again not pre recs for Med school for the places I am look at. However, for stats I am doing it this summer, and Clac I will be doing it this upcoming semester IDK when but in there. Bio chem is most likely last year with OChem1.

 

[miniman]

Oh for publishing, I need to finish up some more hard lab work at Uni (need a multi wave spectrometer and some other stuff.) I spent over 1000 hours over two years on the computer side of it... sheesh, I would sure hope to get it published! 🙂

 

[efle]

Which schools are you looking at? It's tough to try and predict schools of interest this early, unless you have a strong reason a certain place is best. If you're also taking the Biochem and the Math then you should be in great shape to take the MCAT and apply in Summer 2018

 

[miniman]

I have faith. You seem to know what you're doing.

One of the nicest lines have I have read on SDN in a long time. Thanks.

 

[efle]

Oh for publishing, I need to finish up some more hard lab work at Uni (need a multi wave spectrometer and some other stuff.) I spent over 1000 hours over two years on the computer side of it... sheesh, I would sure hope to get it published! 🙂

Good luck! Glad you can continue the same work at uni.

Also I missed your age before - is it correct you'd only be 20 years old when applying in Summer 2018?

 

[efle]

Wait never mind, I think it was a typo when you put Spring '18 as the bottom-most semester. Spring '19 and age 21 makes a lot more sense. Plan looks good to me.

 

[miniman]

Wait never mind, I think it was a typo when you put Spring '18 as the bottom-most semester. Spring '19 and age 21 makes a lot more sense. Plan looks good to me.

yeah thanks!

 

[tarheelpenner]

One thing to consider--I'm assuming your college spring semester starts in january. I started studying for the MCAT over winter break and continuedthrough April, and then I took the MCAT in mid-April. This way I had my score back by the time I was going to apply and could be more prepared. It was plenty of time to study for me. Just food for thought 🙂

 

[AttemptingScholar]

Hmmm... I may be looking in the wrong place but it looks like OChemII is a prereq for biochem at UNC-Charlotte? (it is at my school, which is why I looked for it)
CHEM 4165 - Principles of Biochemistry I - Acalog ACMS™

Have you taken this into account?

 

[miniman]

Hmmm... I may be looking in the wrong place but it looks like OChemII is a prereq for biochem at UNC-Charlotte? (it is at my school, which is why I looked for it)
CHEM 4165 - Principles of Biochemistry I - Acalog ACMS™

Have you taken this into account?

Eek.. I will have to see if it can be co-rec or pre-rec. Thanks for the heads up!

 

[miniman]

One thing to consider--I'm assuming your college spring semester starts in january. I started studying for the MCAT over winter break and continuedthrough April, and then I took the MCAT in mid-April. This way I had my score back by the time I was going to apply and could be more prepared. It was plenty of time to study for me. Just food for thought 🙂

Hmmm I'll keep that in mind! I think that way makes more sense than mine! 😉

 

[jcorpsmanMD]

You seem to have a very good plan set out for yourself so I won't nitpick it. Only thing I would suggest is maybe picking up a job / extracurricular activity that shows leadership skills. Any chance you could apply to become a tutor at your university? I tutored the sciences / math for 3 years, I got paid well, picked my hours AND it looked fantastic on my application! Good luck kid, keep working hard, stay diligent.