What counts as 'biology'?

[Abby_Normal]

A lot of medical schools list a year of 'biology' as a prerequisite (of course), but are remarkably unspecific as to which biology courses they'll accept. I've taken cell biology and general microbiology and my senior year will take biochemistry and physiology, but I tested (read: talked my way) out of 100-level intro to life science. To be on the safe side, should I consider going back and taking it?

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[mvenus929]

Make sure you take labs.

 

[boaz]

A lot of medical schools list a year of 'biology' as a prerequisite (of course), but are remarkably unspecific as to which biology courses they'll accept. I've taken cell biology and general microbiology and my senior year will take biochemistry and physiology, but I tested (read: talked my way) out of 100-level intro to life science. To be on the safe side, should I consider going back and taking it?

That 100-level would just be a waste of time. I think adcoms understand that many schools don't offer good intro biology courses. The courses you took are general enough to be considered "general biology." Assuming they were including lab, you're good to go.

 

[Tin Man]

Usually the class titles are something like "Cellular and Molecular Biology" or "Cell Biology", and "Organismal Biology", or "Biology of Organisms." Labs are a must.

These are the somewhat basic biology courses, but not so basic that you skim the detail.

 

[physicsguy]

You know, I've been wondering about this too. I've looked at a lot of med school websites, and they seem to have similar but vague policies. Here's something I found at Minnesota:

http://www.meded.umn.edu/admissions/prerequisites.php

Note that it says:

"These course requirements CANNOT be fulfilled by AP credits. Those who received AP credit for courses such as general chemistry or biology still will need one semester of chemistry and biology with labs. This can be an advanced chemistry, organic chemistry, or any advanced biology course. Do not re-take coursework for which you already received AP credit."

I would infer from this that if you test out of one biology course (as opposed to using AP credits), you can take an advanced course to meet the requirements. But I'm very new to all of this, so someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[chman]

I think a lot of schools have a set of intro courses for biology that are worth it for advanced studies. I think that is what they mean by "general biology." These courses usually cover things such as evolution, genetics, biodiversity, conservations biology, metabolism, cell structure, etc. An introduction to all of these concepts is pretty key, IMO, to moving on and is what med schools look for I believe.

 

[Abby_Normal]

Thanks. All science courses at my school are lab sciences, so it didn't occur to me to clarify, but both bio courses I took had labs.

It's just a bit confusing in terms of prereqs because the only really general bio course (ie. not specifically focused on micro, cell, genetics, etc) is intro to life sciences and I had a chat with a member of the bio faculty about whether I should take it my freshman year and she told me it probably wasn't worth it. But it has been nagging me that she wasn't a premed adviser...