Which Pre-req is the "weed-out" course at your Undergrad?

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A7X

A7X

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As the title asks. I know it's Orgo for most schools, but for my school, it's actually Gen Chem 1. I'm curious as to what the weed-out courses are for other schools.
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The number of PreMeds divides in half after each chemistry course.
 
My undergrad had 1500 students per class, of which 800 were pre-med coming in.

After gen chem 1 - 600
After gen chem 2 - 400
After orgo 1 - 270
After orgo 2 - 210

On graduation 160 went on to matriculate in MD programs. Don't know what happened to the other 50. Either DO, found something better to do, hated medicine, weeded out by something else, etc.
 
mimelim said:
My undergrad had 1500 students per class, of which 800 were pre-med coming in.

After gen chem 1 - 600
After gen chem 2 - 400
After orgo 1 - 270
After orgo 2 - 210

On graduation 160 went on to matriculate in MD programs. Don't know what happened to the other 50. Either DO, found something better to do, hated medicine, weeded out by something else, etc.
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160 matriculating vs 800 coming in; that's pretty good imo.
 
Depends on the teacher. Our introductory biology classes are extremely challenging. Much more so than the upper division biology. Organic Chemistry definitely weeds a lot of people out too, but I think that has more to do with how people reason and how they study than the difficulty of the course.
 
A7X said:
As the title asks. I know it's Orgo for most schools, but for my school, it's actually Gen Chem 1. I'm curious as to what the weed-out courses are for other schools.
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I think all of them. After Bio a number of premeds change direction. After Chem, more premeds drop out. After Orgo, more premeds drop out. And so forth.
 
O Chem is considered easy at my school, whereas Integral Calculus (yes yes prereq here) + Physics 2 and 3 are quite the heavy thing.
 
A7X said:
As the title asks. I know it's Orgo for most schools, but for my school, it's actually Gen Chem 1. I'm curious as to what the weed-out courses are for other schools.
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All of them. 500 pre-meds down to about 80 by the beginning of senior year.
 
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MedPR said:
All of them. 500 pre-meds down to about 80 by the beginning of senior year.
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80 is still a high number. I feel like my university is down to like 50 max from 600 my freshman year.
 
It's the whole process that eventually weeds people out (at least where I am). Certain courses can hurt your GPA, but they don't always lead to people switching career plans.
 
Definitely Gen Chem I and II. I never understood how so many pre-meds could completely change paths and become business majors...
 
Chem 1 and Bio 1 - instantly. There's people who couldn't even catch up to mitosis and acid base reactions. The advisors and faculty are very rude too; up until you've proven yourself to them (i.e. get all A's), then will some magical switch flip on and they'd be on your side.
 
Bio 2! It's the most commonly retaken class at my school. Haha 😛
 
Skull Pell said:
Chem 1 and Bio 1 - instantly. There's people who couldn't even catch up to mitosis and acid base reactions. The advisors and faculty are very rude too; up until you've proven yourself to them (i.e. get all A's), then will some magical switch flip on and they'd be on your side.
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Couldn't be more true... F***ing advisor at my school almost made me cry when I was a freshie. Made me change career plans for a while too.
 
Honestly not sure, but probably gen chem or physics. Most commonly I see people switch before ochem since they know it's not worth the trouble if they're unsure. At my school the number of pre-meds always seems limitless though..
 
Skull Pell said:
Chem 1 and Bio 1 - instantly. There's people who couldn't even catch up to mitosis and acid base reactions. The advisors and faculty are very rude too; up until you've proven yourself to them (i.e. get all A's), then will some magical switch flip on and they'd be on your side.
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Not being able to handle simple stuff like that means they didn't study or were unintelligent, not that the class was weedout.
 
People who usually identify themselves as pre med because they like biology and find it OK. The problem is the abstract nature of chem, o chem and then physics. Sometimes they'll be alright at chemistry but just suck at physics, and sometimes vice versa. So I'd say them three are the biggest weed out classes.

From my estimations... ~2500-4000 freshmen 'premeds' at my school w/ only ~400 applying.
 
O-chem by faaaaaar! Last year, 1 section only had 12/50 pass O-chem 1, with the highest grade being a B-. Typical is around here is around 50-60% failing each semester
 
O chem is definitely the most difficult, but most survive Bio 1 and 2 but are weeded out by Gen chem 1 before they ever get to O chem.
 
Shouldn't all of them have similar weed-out factor?
For example, in the pre-req classes, about 20% of the students get A's. Technically, shouldn't all of them have equally weed-out effect?
 
jorgediaz said:
People who usually identify themselves as pre med because they like biology and find it OK. The problem is the abstract nature of chem, o chem and then physics. Sometimes they'll be alright at chemistry but just suck at physics, and sometimes vice versa. So I'd say them three are the biggest weed out classes.

From my estimations... ~2500-4000 freshmen 'premeds' at my school w/ only ~400 applying.
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400 applying from your school alone? What number of those are getting in?
 
A7X said:
As the title asks. I know it's Orgo for most schools, but for my school, it's actually Gen Chem 1. I'm curious as to what the weed-out courses are for other schools.
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Lol how is Gen Chem 1 weed out? Orgo at my school. 130 to start orgo 1. 40 to start orgo 2.~30 to finish.
 
jorgediaz said:
About half, so 200. Large state school 🙂
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Holy cow that is a lot. I go to a large state school too, but our numbers are nowhere near close to that. We have a board that has all a picture of each person that got into a health professional school and it will have 200 pictures on it for every professional school accepted student (pt, pharmacist, doctor, optometrist, etc.). I thought that was decent, but apparently not even close.
 
BABSstudent said:
Holy cow that is a lot. I go to a large state school too, but our numbers are nowhere near close to that. We have a board that has all a picture of each person that got into a health professional school and it will have 200 pictures on it for every professional school accepted student (pt, pharmacist, doctor, optometrist, etc.). I thought that was decent, but apparently not even close.
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It depends on what kind of students end up at the college/university and the focus of the students. The numbers I posted were for Wash U (where I went to undergrad). With half of the students coming in being pre-med, it isn't surprising that there is a pretty big focus on developing a reasonable pre-med program which ends up attracting people that will ultimately stay in on track to medical school.
 
Gen Chem was a big weed out class, orgo probably slightly better(only because people who dropped chem already changed direction). I remember my Bio 1 class being really tough on freshmen. Compared to all the other professors who had all MC exams, we got the only professor who had a more extensive exam format. On the bright side, all other bio classes weren't bad compared to that 😛
 
Gen chem 1 was a big weed out class at my school. The average on the first test was a 32 and everybody freaked out.
 
tiedyeddog said:
Sounds like you had a terrible chem department/o-chem teacher.
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Enormous state public university. The larger the population, the more that don't belong. It was good. I assure you.

Edit: good in a sense that I learned what I needed and it thinned out the applicant pool like a difficult class should.
 
I Love Cats said:
Enormous state public university. The larger the population, the more that don't belong. It was good. I assure you.

Edit: good in a sense that I learned what I needed and it thinned out the applicant pool like a difficult class should.
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I don't doubt you got a good education but the purpose of a college class really shouldn't be to flunk people. I also went to a massive undergrad (2nd-3rd biggest depending on where you look) and had >300 in my ochem classes. Average was a C+ in most of them but by no means did most people fail.
 
Ochem, definitely.

I don't know about the other courses, but of those who started Ochem1 when I did, less than 30% actually passed every term.
 
A7X said:
As the title asks. I know it's Orgo for most schools, but for my school, it's actually Gen Chem 1. I'm curious as to what the weed-out courses are for other schools.
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Yeah, it's definitely subjective. I agree with the others that all the prereqs are challenging and intended to reduce the premed population.
 
Skull Pell said:
Chem 1 and Bio 1 - instantly. There's people who couldn't even catch up to mitosis and acid base reactions. The advisors and faculty are very rude too; up until you've proven yourself to them (i.e. get all A's), then will some magical switch flip on and they'd be on your side.
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+1000

They only give you the red carpet treatment once you get the grades! I had one advisor tell me to look at other fields like nursing, PA school, etc. when she looked at my grades. I never wanted to see her again because she really did not care about what I wanted which was medicine (if she did she would have told me to apply to post-bacc programs or SMPs). Plus she really thought PA school is a backup! The average of PA schools is 3.5! I could get into medical school with that GPA.
 
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Gen Chem 1, for sure. Random quizzes throughout the year that if you didn't take, you automatically failed the course. Needless to say....quite a few F's at the end of the year.
 
I Love Cats said:
Lol how is Gen Chem 1 weed out? Orgo at my school. 130 to start orgo 1. 40 to start orgo 2.~30 to finish.
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At my school, ~60/160 kids dropped the class after the first exam of Gen Chem 1. The exams can be pretty difficult, but the average rises after all the students who brought it down drop it 😛

People who make it to Orgo at my school usually tend to stick it out, not too many people drop that class.

The Bio professors at my school are really good, so people don't drop the course that often, even though the average never goes above 70.
 
It's Organic Chemistry II at my school.

I aced all the med school prerequisites (A+), but then decided to screw myself by enrolling in an Immunology course that I decided to take "just for fun". I'm probably going to have to take a W at this point, geez.
 
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I Love Cats said:
Enormous state public university. The larger the population, the more that don't belong. It was good. I assure you.

Edit: good in a sense that I learned what I needed and it thinned out the applicant pool like a difficult class should.
Click to expand...

Yeah, thats a problem with being a pre-med in a state school, they see it as their mission to weed out pre med students. My school actively discouraged kids from being a pre-med. Heck at orientation they assured us how most of us will end up switching to something else.

And for me its all classes minus Biology 1&2. I honestly still don't understand why Physics is necessary except to make sure the subject doesn't fall into obscurity. I think medical schools should just replace that with Calc 1 & 2.
 
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