Will taking most premed prerequisites one at a time hurt me for MD admissions?

[awasdeq]

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I’m a psychology major and have taken most of my premed science prerequisites one at a time alongside my major requirements. I’m trying to protect a strong upward GPA trend(2.7->3.5, have my final year left). Would continuing to take my remaining prerequisites one at a time hurt me for MD admissions because of course rigor, or is earning stronger grades more important?

 

[ontiquicuo]

Strong grades are more important. If you never take multiple science classes in the same semester, some might wonder about your ability to handle the med school workload. Other things factor in, like the need to work to support yourself.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

I’m a psychology major and have taken most of my premed science prerequisites one at a time alongside my major requirements. I’m trying to protect a strong upward GPA trend(2.7->3.5, have my final year left). Would continuing to take my remaining prerequisites one at a time hurt me for MD admissions because of course rigor, or is earning stronger grades more important?

We can't give you specific advice about your classes without knowing your transcript, so what advice have you received (prehealth, major, faculty advisors)? Your goal as a senior is to graduate. You can always take prereqs as a postbac.

 

[Moko]

I’m a psychology major and have taken most of my premed science prerequisites one at a time alongside my major requirements. I’m trying to protect a strong upward GPA trend(2.7->3.5, have my final year left). Would continuing to take my remaining prerequisites one at a time hurt me for MD admissions because of course rigor, or is earning stronger grades more important?

From an admissions standpoint, assuming you are still maintaining a full course load, preserving your upward trend and maximizing your GPA by taking one prerequisite at a time (if you are not confident in doing well in multiple prerequisites at once) will always be more beneficial than taking multiple classes and doing poorly. Knowing your limits is a strength. Just my thoughts.

 

[polymerization]

Irrespective of whether or not it hurts you for medical school admissions, play the tape to the end. If and when you get to medical school, the academic rigor of the hard sciences becomes overwhelming very quickly for pretty much everyone. Trying to piecemeal your way through them is a tactic that will only get you so far.

At my school, a single lecture on a topic like bacteriology encompasses the most important information about the discipline that you would normally only come into contact with in the context of an undergraduate course at the very end of the semester, once all of the introductory content has been presented, tested, and applied.

In medical school, they just expect you to either already know all of it, or fill the gap yourself... which of course you need or else you rote-memorize everything and those isolated factoids have nowhere to live in your brain, and ultimately are not retained over time and cannot help you reason through questions.

Ordinarily, you'd think, OK, I can spend a day doing the best I can to fill in my bacteriology gaps. But there is more than one lecture per day.

What do you do when you are presented with the coagulation cascade to memorize and guide treatment decisions and you've never seen hemostasis as a concept before in your entire life? Same for pharmacology, embryology, and histology... all at the same time? You only have the same 24 hours everyone else does. With anatomy it's usually not even enough to sit at your computer for many hours trying to memorize what hole goes where, visually. But you have to find the time or you fall behind.

And just when you think you've survived that week, the next comes, the topics are totally different, and you're just expected to continue playing catch-up for pretty much the rest of your academic career.

It's good practical advice to protect your GPA, but I think it is poor long-term advice. At some point, you have to give yourself the opportunity to see real rigor without handicaps you create for yourself. I'm not saying take 4 hard sciences in one semester, but you should really consider challenging yourself with content relevant to your goals while you can still control your workload. One at a time won't get you there, and you are running out of time if you do not plan further education beyond your baccalaureate degree. Just my 2c.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Let me make sure I understand what you are proposing.

How many prerequisites do you need to take?
Biology 1, 2, and/or 3 (for some schools/quarter systems) = 1 year + lab
General Chemistry 1, 2, or 3 = 1 year + lab
Organic Chemistry 1, 2 or Biochemistry = 1 year + lab
Physics 1, 2, and/or 3 = 1 year + lab

That takes us to 4 years. You should take these courses before you take the MCAT, and most will buffer about 4-6 months.

We haven't crossed upper-level biomedical science (i.e., "recommended") courses.

Protecting your GPA is one thing, but this doesn't help you with "upward trend" should you have one bad class experience.

You are preparing for a marathon by taking one step at a time. Walking 26 miles to your goal is great, but you can't expect to win the race when everyone else is running. And they also have people who sweep up the stragglers who trail at the end to get you to finish before the next day's rush hour begins.

This is why you need a plan and many accountability partners/advisors to push you to your goal in a reasonable amount of time. If you don't have that, your chances of failure are much bigger.