Unit Load Acceptable for PreMed?

[drslc134]

I guess my real concern/question is how much med schools examine strength of courseload per term. But here's my situation:

I'm a freshman at a perennially top-5 university, started off with 20 units this QUARTER. Then I dropped Orgo Lab (which is a separate class and can be taken later). So, I was at 17. Then I just basically bombed my Orgo lecture test. I'm strongly considering dropping the course (4 units) before the drop deadline (where there is no record on the transcript), but that deadline is tonight (4/24-04/25) at midnight.

My question is, then, is it acceptable to have 13 units for a quarter. For perspective, I have 35 units (3 of which were S/NC courses) from my first two quarters, so my cumulative units for the year would be 48 (45), so discounting the S/NC courses, that's 30 semester hours. Acceptable?

Anyone know how closely med schools examine/judge individual quarter performances, or simply concentrate on year trends and grades in specific classes (i.e. orgo)?

Thanks.

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[crazy_cavalier]

-They like to see positive trends upwards in the year
-admissions tend to look at orgo grades very strongly. I think it might be a favorite for them to judge
-30 semester hours cumulative in a year should be fine
-strongly consider dropping the orgo lecture. you'll be very grateful for having the lecture overlap with the lab later on. I, being that I am a dumb*** and foolish enough to think that I like lab so much, decided to take orgo lab with no prior orgo lecture and wound up with a C in the class.
-what school are you in? if you're at Princeton go talk to Dr. Cummings. He used to be our premed advisor... he's awesome!

 

[kenmc3]

While each semester is reported separately on the AMCAS application, they tend to concentrate on the overall GPA and Science GPA. However if there is one semester which has particularly poor performance, be prepared for a question about it during your interviews.

 

[g3pro]

-admissions tend to look at orgo grades very strongly. I think it might be a favorite for them to judge

What the hell are you talking about? Organic chemistry grades are relatively unimportant. Biochemistry is another story.

 

[drslc134]

Got some good responses...thanks to you guys who wished to put in your $.02.

Bumping to see if anyone still wishes to chime in. Thanks.

 

[willthatsall]

If you are going to do poorly, drop it. Schools care about GPA way more than how many hours you took. Nobody is going to say, "this guy only has a 2.9 GPA, but he took 20 credits per semester, so that's pretty good."

 

[jjmack]

I heard that med schools look at your organic grades to try to see how you will do in biochem so if you take a biochem class then the orgo grades aren't as important according to my pre-med advisor. To the OP I'd take less credits and just make sure you try to do well in the number of classes you are taking. A lot of semesters I was 1 credit away from having enough to make dean's list, but I didn't care. It didn't hurt me from getting into med school either.

What the hell are you talking about? Organic chemistry grades are relatively unimportant. Biochemistry is another story.

 

[rbfiji13]

I guess my real concern/question is how much med schools examine strength of courseload per term. Thanks.

To get into med school you have to take............one-hundred billion credit hours/semester. No seriously, I don't think that the adcoms would look too favorably upon someone with a 4.0 that only took 10 credit hours/ semester. The reason is probably because actual medical students take the equivalent of like 30-35 credit hours/ semester. Adcoms want to see that you are able to perform well with high amounts of material and that you can handle the course load that medical school presents.

 

[thirdunity]

To get into med school you have to take............one-hundred billion credit hours/semester. No seriously, I don't think that the adcoms would look too favorably upon someone with a 4.0 that only took 10 credit hours/ semester. The reason is probably because actual medical students take the equivalent of like 30-35 credit hours/ semester. Adcoms want to see that you are able to perform well with high amounts of material and that you can handle the course load that medical school presents.

IE, going to school part-time (a necessity for some of us who are holding a full-time job), is a bad idea?

 

[clc8503]

I guess my real concern/question is how much med schools examine strength of courseload per term. But here's my situation:

I'm a freshman at a perennially top-5 university, started off with 20 units this QUARTER. Then I dropped Orgo Lab (which is a separate class and can be taken later). So, I was at 17. Then I just basically bombed my Orgo lecture test. I'm strongly considering dropping the course (4 units) before the drop deadline (where there is no record on the transcript), but that deadline is tonight (4/24-04/25) at midnight.

My question is, then, is it acceptable to have 13 units for a quarter. For perspective, I have 35 units (3 of which were S/NC courses) from my first two quarters, so my cumulative units for the year would be 48 (45), so discounting the S/NC courses, that's 30 semester hours. Acceptable?

Anyone know how closely med schools examine/judge individual quarter performances, or simply concentrate on year trends and grades in specific classes (i.e. orgo)?

Thanks.

Do you have a death wish? My school is on the quarter system and the maximum coarse load we’re supposed to take is 12 hours (full time). 20 hours on a quarter system is almost equivalent to taking nearly 30 hours in one semester. You can only take up to 15 hours at my school and you have to have a letter from the dean (your gpa also has to be fairly high). Schools on the quarter system are too fast paced to be taking as many hours as you claim you are. I also would not recommend that you take organics your freshmen year. Get inorganic out of the way first. Slow down you don’t have to finish in 3 years. This can greatly hinder your GPA.

Yours,
Caraway

 

[drslc134]

Thanks for the comments, guys. It does seem like the discussion is veering away from my individual situation, but that's fine, because my decision has been made based on what I'm doing this quarter.

If the last posts were w/ regards to my situation, perhaps I should elaborate a little, since it's actually 13 units for this Spring quarter. Overall, I have 48 quarter units for the year, which is equivalent to 32 semester hrs (which is an average of 16 sem. units/sem, which is average, right?). This will definitely be an anomaly as a quarter, as well, as according to my four-year plan I'll have 50-54 quarter units/year from here on out.

 

[willthatsall]

Thanks for the comments, guys. It does seem like the discussion is veering away from my individual situation, but that's fine, because my decision has been made based on what I'm doing this quarter.

If the last posts were w/ regards to my situation, perhaps I should elaborate a little, since it's actually 13 units for this Spring quarter. Overall, I have 48 quarter units for the year, which is equivalent to 32 semester hrs (which is an average of 16 sem. units/sem, which is average, right?). This will definitely be an anomaly as a quarter, as well, as according to my four-year plan I'll have 50-54 quarter units/year from here on out.

Did you drop it?

 

[drslc134]

Hey clc8503,

I'm not sure. Perhaps our credits are a bit differently arranged at our respective schools. My school caps it at 20 units/quarter, w/ a min. of 12.

Chem is usually 4 units, Math and Humanities Core are 5, Bio is 5, CS classes are usually 4-5., etc.

 

[rbfiji13]

IE, going to school part-time (a necessity for some of us who are holding a full-time job), is a bad idea?

If you have to work a full-time job, of course your course load should not be as high as someone that doesn't work. Most college students don't work a full-time job. Obviously the OP doesn't or he/she would have never enrolled for 19 hours or whatever the origional number was. If you go into a med school interview and get asked why you took less than full-time hours, you will have a good reason. But like I said, most pre-med students should try and take a healthy course load because they aren't spending a large amount of time (or shouldn't be) doing much other than studying.