Which of these courses sound harder?

[str8flexed]

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I'm torn between taking summer courses here at my school, Penn, and back at home, at the U. of South Carolina (state school). I want to retake Orgo1 here at Penn, but I can't because I didn't fail it, so if I want to retake it I will have to go to USC. My main motivation for taking courses is to help my AMCAS science GPA. Which of these couples of classes would adcoms be more impressed with?

Here at Penn, I may take:
Math 170--Ideas in Mathematics
Biol175--Principles of Microbiology (OR Biol102--Intro to Biology)

However, if I take courses back at USC:
Chem333--Organic Chemistry I
Biol244--Human Anatomy/Physiology II

The ideas in mathematics sounds easy, and the title sounds easy. Microbiology sounds decent but is unfortunately full right now, and Biol102 sounds easy. The courses at USC both sound harder than the Penn ones.

Do the difficulty of the courses at USC outweigh the prestige of taking courses at Penn? Or would adcoms look down on me more for going to a lower institution to take courses?

 

[QuantumMechanic]

won't you have AMCAS submitted before these grades are received???????

 

[str8flexed]

The class is from May 29-Jun 27... then I'm hoping to get the transcript to AMCAS early July....and hopefully processing wont take long...so then I can submit the AMCAS mid July.

I dont think it's too late in the game at that point, and this will strengthen my application...

 

[j-med]

won't you have AMCAS submitted before these grades are received???????

can't we send in an update later too?

what about the summer jobs/internships etc. that we do this summer, where do those go?

 

[aa58]

I'm torn between taking summer courses here at my school, Penn, and back at home, at the U. of South Carolina (state school). I want to retake Orgo1 here at Penn, but I can't because I didn't fail it, so if I want to retake it I will have to go to USC. My main motivation for taking courses is to help my AMCAS science GPA. Which of these couples of classes would adcoms be more impressed with?

Here at Penn, I may take:
Math 170--Ideas in Mathematics
Biol175--Principles of Microbiology (OR Biol102--Intro to Biology)

However, if I take courses back at USC:
Chem333--Organic Chemistry I
Biol244--Human Anatomy/Physiology II

The ideas in mathematics sounds easy, and the title sounds easy. Microbiology sounds decent but is unfortunately full right now, and Biol102 sounds easy. The courses at USC both sound harder than the Penn ones.

Do the difficulty of the courses at USC outweigh the prestige of taking courses at Penn? Or would adcoms look down on me more for going to a lower institution to take courses?

if you are looking to pad your grades you should take the lower divission classes (nubered in the 100 range)
if you are looking to imprese someone you might want to think of something more impressivie.

 

[novawildcat]

I have a feeling the ideas in mathematics course is the usual "transitional math course" that is offered at most universities. By transitional, I mean it is probably a course where you start to do real mathematics (i.e. proofs) instead of mere computational problems like in diff eq. and calc. Every school usually has this for their math majors & minors. They will probably start you off with some easy proofs like proving that there are an infinite amount of primes, proving that the sqrt of 2 is an irrational number, etc. You might also get to do some interesting math like some intro. set theory stuff, learning about the different sizes of infinity, and probably some really basic formal logic.

 

[str8flexed]

This is what's written in the course description:

L/R 170. Ideas in Mathematics. (C) Gen Req IV: May be counted towards the General Requirement in Formal Reasoning & Analysis. Staff. May also be counted toward the General Requirement in Natural Science & Mathematics.

Topics from among the following: logic, sets, calculus, probability, history and philosophy of mathematics, game theory, geometry, and their relevance to contemporary science and society.

aa58--that is what I'm thinking. I think I will take the USC courses since they are slightly higher level, but are with state school students, and I feel confident that after busting my ass here at Penn I can get an A in those 2 classes..

 

[TNATION]

biology 102 at Penn is not an easy course. Harder than chem 241 in my opinion.

 

[novawildcat]

This is what's written in the course description:

L/R 170. Ideas in Mathematics. (C) Gen Req IV: May be counted towards the General Requirement in Formal Reasoning & Analysis. Staff. May also be counted toward the General Requirement in Natural Science & Mathematics.

Topics from among the following: logic, sets, calculus, probability, history and philosophy of mathematics, game theory, geometry, and their relevance to contemporary science and society.

aa58--that is what I'm thinking. I think I will take the USC courses since they are slightly higher level, but are with state school students, and I feel confident that after busting my ass here at Penn I can get an A in those 2 classes..

i think you should definitely take that class. it should be interesting. geometry, sets, logic, philosophy of math, and game theory are all very very interesting.

 

[red dot]

it doesn't matter. they don't care. they won't care. what does matter is: which one are you going to get an A in? that is all...

 

[CMar830]

biology 102 at Penn is not an easy course. Harder than chem 241 in my opinion.

Hey, I went to Penn too, and I agree that Biol 102 is not easy. Not terrible, but not easy.

I didn't take the Ideas in Math class, nor the Principles of Microbiology, but of those two, I'd say go for Microbio if you think you can do well. Unless you really like math, I think you'll get more out of Microbio and, indeed, it will look better.

My thoughts on retaking a class: I've been told (including by my pre-med advisor at Penn) that retaking classes don't really show med schools anything. Most anybody could get a better grade taking the same class the second time around just because they've seen the material for a longer period of time. So I wouldn't advise taking Orgo1 again. Take something at the same or higher level and do well.

However, Human Anatomy/Physiology at USC sounds fun too, and very med school relevant. So not only will it look good, it will be good preparation for first year. And as much as I had hoped I would have been cut some slack for a lower GPA coming from Penn, it didn't happen, so I highly doubt that whether you take a class at Penn or USC will make any difference.

So I guess my bottom line is to decide which class sounds most interesting so that you'll actually enjoy it, and where you want to be this summer. If you ask me, I couldn't wait to get out of Philly when finals were over!

Good luck.

 

[HemaOncoDoc]

I'm torn between taking summer courses here at my school, Penn, and back at home, at the U. of South Carolina (state school). I want to retake Orgo1 here at Penn, but I can't because I didn't fail it, so if I want to retake it I will have to go to USC. My main motivation for taking courses is to help my AMCAS science GPA. Which of these couples of classes would adcoms be more impressed with?

Here at Penn, I may take:
Math 170--Ideas in Mathematics
Biol175--Principles of Microbiology (OR Biol102--Intro to Biology)

However, if I take courses back at USC:
Chem333--Organic Chemistry I
Biol244--Human Anatomy/Physiology II

The ideas in mathematics sounds easy, and the title sounds easy. Microbiology sounds decent but is unfortunately full right now, and Biol102 sounds easy. The courses at USC both sound harder than the Penn ones.

Do the difficulty of the courses at USC outweigh the prestige of taking courses at Penn? Or would adcoms look down on me more for going to a lower institution to take courses?

Wait, you would have sent your AMCAS before taking Orgo? I guess its possible, but wouldn't you have had a hard time on the MCAT then?

 

[CMar830]

I guess I should have also added this: if it truly is just an A that you want to boost your GPA, then go for the class where you can get one. I do agree that it won't really matter what you take in the grand scheme of things.

 

[NehsNairb]

It sounds like you're only taking one course in which case getting an A won't raise your science GPA that much. Have you calculated your GPA if hypothetically got an A in that course?

No, med schools don't care where you take the classes or its difficulty. But it's hard to figure out what class you'll get an A in for sure. I've taken easy classes but gotten B's because the professor gave out a small amount of A's and vice versa.

 

[Em1]

Have you taken intro bio before? Since it's a pre-req at nearly every med school, they'll probably want to see that you can do well in it before you apply.