US Prerequisites?

[White-Tiger]

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I am canadian, living in Quebec. Here our schooling system is somewhat different than everywhere else in Canada and USA. I will give you a quick overview of how it works before I state my problem.

Basically we got 5 years of high school, then 2 years of CEGEP (I'll elaborate on this in a few) and then 3 years of university for a B.Sc degree.
Cegep is basically where you decide if you are heading into "human sciences" or "pure sciences". If you want to be a doctor you don't have a choice go to with the pure sciences route as this is where you'll be taking most of your intro courses in calculus, inorganic chem, organic chem, biology and physics.
Then, when you enter university you are typically exempted from the freshman year and need to choose a major upon admission.

Anyway, here is my problem, during CEGEP I had no intention of becoming a doctor so I didn't really focus so much as I should have on some of them science courses, mainly maths and physics.
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Here's my CEGEP Science Marks
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Biology 1 : 85
Biology 2 : 91
Chem 1 : 86
Chem 2 : 89
Org Chem 1 : 87
...and this is where it starts hurting
Calculus 1 : 82
Calculus 2 : 69
Physics 1 : 75
Physics 2 : 68
Physics 3 : 82
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Now, seeing as to how most of these courses are the pre-reqs required by US Med Schools, what would you guys think my best course of action is :

1- Try and take "higher level courses" in all of these subjects as electives during my B.Sc and not submit my CEGEP record at all. To do this I would have to purposely not enter the Honours B.Sc as I wouldn't have enough elective credits to take them all. The honours program however, would give me 1 year of solid supervised research experience. So it would be a very bad trade-off.

2- Submit my CEGEP transcript, but take "higher level courses" in maths and physics to prove that I can do better in these subjects and enter the Honours B.Sc and earn 1 year of research to buff up my application

Will have lower marks in pre-req courses be that big of a deal if I secure myself a very high CGPA (3.8 to 4.0) and a rock solid MCAT? What do you all think?

 

[White-Tiger]

No opinions on this?

 

[liverotcod]

Assuming you get A's in your upper level classes in physics and math, what will your science GPA be upon application? That's an important number.

A 3.8 - 4.0 cumulative GPA will be not only fine but superb.

I would say to go with option 2. It's not at all uncommon to have poor early grades overcome by later excellent grades; the situation is common and well-understood by admission folk.

 

[White-Tiger]

CEGEP doesn't work on a GPA calculation scale, it's got a wierd rating system in which it compares you to the class average. And since most of my pre-reqs are taken in CEGEP, I don't know if a "pre-req GPA" is really applicable here?

I guess I could always take all my pre-req courses and figure out the GPA I'd of gotten if they were taken in university? But will admission comitees go thru the trouble of doing that themselves or do you think they'd just look at my microbiology&immunology cgpa?

 

[liverotcod]

CEGEP doesn't work on a GPA calculation scale, it's got a wierd rating system in which it compares you to the class average. And since most of my pre-reqs are taken in CEGEP, I don't know if a "pre-req GPA" is really applicable here?

I guess I could always take all my pre-req courses and figure out the GPA I'd of gotten if they were taken in university? But will admission comitees go thru the trouble of doing that themselves or do you think they'd just look at my microbiology&immunology cgpa?

Since the CEGEP is college-level work, the grades will definitely get included in your GPA when you complete AMCAS. You should read the AMCAS instructions to figure out the conversion, but as I recall, it's typically 85% for an A.

But I'm not talking about prerequisite GPA, but rather about the 3 GPA's reported by AMCAS: cumulative undergraduate (overall), science (biology, chemistry, physics, math) and all other. Science GPA, cumulative GPA and MCAT scores are the triumvirate of med school admissions in the US.