bbaek said:
well, i'm a 2nd year at uci, and i had the dilemma to take physics in the summer... but i hear students from other private schools, i.e. stanford, come over for the summer and mess up the curve. possibly is true.... but yes, should i take physics 3 or 7? i really don't want to overload myself, and i was wondering if optics is that important on the mcats.
I'm a fourth year biology major at UCI so I'll try to offer any some advice. The schools solid when compared to other public schools. The main thing I don't like about it is the extremely large classes which you know can easily be over 300 people in a single lecture.
If you're numbers are solid enough you can apply to a lot of top schools from UCI. I know of two brothers, one of which was accepted to the UCI medical school and his younger brother got into UCLA's medical school and both were from UCI.
I'm currently applying this year and managed to get an acceptance at SLU. It probably isn't the greatest school to many people but I'm happy just to get my foot in the door and know that I have a future. Going through the application process, I have come to realize how difficult and grueling it can be, espcially if your stats are more on the "normal" side. I have managed interviewed at some bigger named schools (University of Iowa, and the Ohio State Univ) but I'll find out about those later on.
First off, if you're thinking about medical school, don't take the physics 7 series. It's meant for engineers and it will be a waste of time taking more advanced classes then necessary, especially when you will be balancing other difficult biology classes. The 3 series is fine. I probably would recommend taking 3A/3B in between your second and third years. I took it the traditional way, during my third year, and it was sort of a pain in the ass learning the new physics stuff on my own. But it is not impossible. So if you want to save your summer for doing extracurriculars and such, don't be afraid to just take physics with everyone else.
About students coming down from Stanford and other schools for summer school. During my summer between my third and fourth year I took Physics 3LB and my class had a bunch of people from UCSD and UCLA but the class was pretty straighforward and I got an A without having to put in too muich effort even though the class is curved.
Probably what I would suggest, is save physics labs for later on and take the classes. Labs as you probably already know are a waste of time and physics is no different.
But if you want to get into the "big" name schools you need high GPA, high MCAT, and good extra curriculars. Sorry that it's so generic but that's just how it is.
