Would an 'A' in Honors orgo help you stand out?

[Dreaming big]

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Would an 'A' in Honors orgo help you stand out? I'm taking it because I will end up learning A LOT more, but would an A help one stand out from the rest of the pack(in terms of applicants)/?

Thanks

 

[ColonelTigh]

Take it from me, someone admitted to med school...YES definitely, take the hardest version of every pre-med class and you will stand out. Medical school has a detailed list of all the classes available for each of the hundreds of colleges in the USA (I mean, they have read these apps for years!) so if you don't take the hardest available, it reflects badly on you. Some may disagree with this, you know this is correct. Also, even if you get a worse grade than if you took the non-honors class, that is FINE, med schools will totally understand and will take apart your entire transcript and re-calculate it their way, like when you applied to colleges. Besides learning science is fun, you should try your hardest.

 

[Ativanigans]

Take from me, someone on the admissions committee of a med school, it doesn't help that much unless it's part of a trend of taking all honors science classes. It commendable but it certainly won't "set you apart" like a 40mcat or l publication

 

[ColonelTigh]

I was just screwing with you OP, that was fun

 

[apumic]

If you know you can get the A w/o it affecting the rest of your coursework then by all means go for it, but as Ativanigans stated, it won't make a huge difference. They're looking for trends and one class isn't a trend. That being said, getting an A in a higher class is always more impressive than an A in a lower course.

 

[Thomas Hearns]

From my limited experience, it seems they really don't care that much about things like that... just get A's in the required classes, get a good MCAT score, and write good essays. And be cool in the interview. I don't think they aren't going to take the time to look through every class that every person took.

 

[ColonelTigh]

I disagree, they have hours and hours to take apart every single one of your classes over the past 4 years, and they WILL search through each word and register, hey, that was an honor class. ALong with reading your 5 recs, ps, activities, secondaries, over 10 pages of material of course...they have all the time in the world to tear apart each of your class and give some sort of bonus point for your here and there honors classes..

Just THINK OP

 

[amakhosidlo]

Take it from me, someone admitted to med school...YES definitely, take the hardest version of every pre-med class and you will stand out. Medical school has a detailed list of all the classes available for each of the hundreds of colleges in the USA (I mean, they have read these apps for years!) so if you don't take the hardest available, it reflects badly on you. Some may disagree with this, you know this is correct. Also, even if you get a worse grade than if you took the non-honors class, that is FINE, med schools will totally understand and will take apart your entire transcript and re-calculate it their way, like when you applied to colleges. Besides learning science is fun, you should try your hardest.

Man, points for trying though.

OP, for every 3.8 you get there will be two more applicants who 4.0'd. People don't stand out based on a grade in a course. They stand out based on their application as a whole. One grade is a drop in the bucket. Give it your best effort, by all means, but don't expect to get any brownie points for your "Honors Ochem/physics/art history/underwater basket weaving".

And no, adcoms don't care how "hard" your classes were. Case in point, look at all the engineering majors who are trying to switch gears to pre-med. Think thermo, statics, and whatever other god-awful classes they take are harder than standard-issue g-chem & physics? You bet. Yet how many of them are passed over every year in favor of psych. majors with 3.7's & 3.6's?

This isn't a "who can work harder" contest. Why put yourself through something like that when you don't have to? Oh, and trust me, half of what you "learn" in o-chem goes out the window before you get to biochem/the MCAT. The other half leaves the second you walk away from your biochem final/test day.

 

[apumic]

I disagree, they have hours and hours to take apart every single one of your classes over the past 4 years, and they WILL search through each word and register, hey, that was an honor class. ALong with reading your 5 recs, ps, activities, secondaries, over 10 pages of material of course...they have all the time in the world to tear apart each of your class and give some sort of bonus point for your here and there honors classes..

Just THINK OP

You forgot that they also individually call each of your LOR writers and EC supervisors as well as all previous professors, employers, and high school teachers and, finally, your school's premed advisor. Each of these people is asked a series of questions about your potential as a medical doctor with an auditory lie detector in use (in case your writers feel bad telling "the truth" about you). They will also receive add'l reports on your MCAT score (including subscores for each topic of chemistry, bio, o-chem, and physics) so they know what kinds of science questions to throw your way during the interview. No biggie, though, your ochem class is one in a million. If you take the regular one, you just need to be sure you take calc-based physics (honors) and both analytic and physical chemistry for the gchem req.

 

[casillas]

OP, no one honors class will not help you, schools don't sit around reading your application in that much detail.

The only time it will help is perhaps in the MCAT, but even that i doubt.

 

[CoolWhipp]

Take from me, someone on the admissions committee of a med school, it doesn't help that much unless it's part of a trend of taking all honors science classes. It commendable but it certainly won't "set you apart" like a 40mcat or l publication

Owned.

 

[FlowRate]

Interestingly enough, I was talking to one of the admissions secretaries at my local med school, and she said that part of her job is to go through and highlight any upperdivison/honors, etc. ("impressive") parts of your application. Our school doesn't get nearly as many apps as others, tho.

 

[Dreaming big]

Take from me, someone on the admissions committee of a med school, it doesn't help that much unless it's part of a trend of taking all honors science classes. It commendable but it certainly won't "set you apart" like a 40mcat or l publication

It IS part of a trend of honors science classes - by application time, I will have Hon Chem 1 & 2, Hon Bio 1 & 2, Hon Orgo 1 (not 2).

If you know you can get the A w/o it affecting the rest of your coursework then by all means go for it, but as Ativanigans stated, it won't make a huge difference. They're looking for trends and one class isn't a trend. That being said, getting an A in a higher class is always more impressive than an A in a lower course.

Will the 4 other honors classes be part of a trend? I have around 10 other non science honors classes as well.

Man, points for trying though.

This isn't a "who can work harder" contest. Why put yourself through something like that when you don't have to? Oh, and trust me, half of what you "learn" in o-chem goes out the window before you get to biochem/the MCAT. The other half leaves the second you walk away from your biochem final/test day.

Well, this will help me understand o-chem for the MCAT more.

OP, no one honors class will not help you, schools don't sit around reading your application in that much detail.

The only time it will help is perhaps in the MCAT, but even that i doubt.

Numerous honors classes will?

 

[da8s0859q]

Take it from me, someone admitted to med school...

Congrats on the acceptance. I'm playing nice today.

Take from me, someone on the admissions committee of a med school, it doesn't help that much unless it's part of a trend of taking all honors science classes. It commendable but it certainly won't "set you apart" like a 40mcat or l publication

Here you go, OP. Sounds like that's what you're doing -- going for honors much of the time -- so yeah, you'll probably be well served by your plan. It's not jaw-dropping, but it's a solid boost, as far as I am aware. Others here can probably tell you from honest-to-goodness committee experience more so than I can.

 

[TheMightySmiter]

It IS part of a trend of honors science classes - by application time, I will have Hon Chem 1 & 2, Hon Bio 1 & 2, Hon Orgo 1 (not 2).

...

Numerous honors classes will?

I doubt med schools have any way of determining whether the honors class was actually harder than the regular class. So, no, it probably won't make a huge difference, even if you have many of them.

 

[Handinhand]

I know at my school, honors OChem Lab has like 20-30 page lab reports. No way in hell I would put myself through that for a little (possible) pat on the back from an adcom.

 

[ChiDO]

No, one or even a few "A" grades in honor classes will not make you stand out. Maybe if you did your entire college with all honor classes and aced them all, you may get a slight advantage, but doubtful as your "high GPA" will be the same "high GPA" that took all non-honor classes.

 

[SpaceDementia]

This is what I always say: don't worry about classes/majors/etc., just get the grades. At the end of the day, my sense is that it's about the bottom-line GPA. Case in point, for example, I'd much rather be a humanities major with a 3.9 than a math-chemistry-biology triple major (if that's even possible) with a 3.7. Take classes you will enjoy and do well in.

 

[bamtuba]

OP, I'm willing to bet it goes something like this:

A) Applicant has a 4.0 (or very high GPA); let's see the difficulty of the student's courseload, double majors, minors, etc. (ie. just how much work DID the student do?)

B) Applicant does not have a 4.0 (or very high GPA); who cares, does it meet our minimum? Did they fulfill the pre-reqs? What was their MCAT?

End of story.

 

[MilkmanAl]

I doubt med schools have any way of determining whether the honors class was actually harder than the regular class. So, no, it probably won't make a huge difference, even if you have many of them.

My thoughts exactly. UNC's honors classes were just the normal classes. The honors students sat in with us dumb kids during the lecture and everything. Having honors courses on your transcript will probably make next to no difference. If it doesn't break your schedule to take them, go ahead, though. It certainly won't hurt. If your schools honors classes are substantially harder and you're up against getting an A in a "normal" class and anything less than an A (A- included) in the honors class, take the normal one.

 

[Ativanigans]

It IS part of a trend of honors science classes - by application time, I will have Hon Chem 1 & 2, Hon Bio 1 & 2, Hon Orgo 1 (not 2).

Having that many honors classes will help you stand out a bit more. Unfortunately, this also depends on the school you went to. If you went to no-name-tiny-school University, I might be less impressed with your 4.0 in honors orgo vs. someone with a 4.0 in orgo from harvard or stanford. But if this is what youve been doing from the start, and are fairly successful, I would encourage you to continue taking the honors classes.

 

[randombetch]

I disagree, they have hours and hours to take apart every single one of your classes over the past 4 years, and they WILL search through each word and register, hey, that was an honor class. ALong with reading your 5 recs, ps, activities, secondaries, over 10 pages of material of course...they have all the time in the world to tear apart each of your class and give some sort of bonus point for your here and there honors classes..

Just THINK OP

You forgot that they also individually call each of your LOR writers and EC supervisors as well as all previous professors, employers, and high school teachers and, finally, your school's premed advisor. Each of these people is asked a series of questions about your potential as a medical doctor with an auditory lie detector in use (in case your writers feel bad telling "the truth" about you). They will also receive add'l reports on your MCAT score (including subscores for each topic of chemistry, bio, o-chem, and physics) so they know what kinds of science questions to throw your way during the interview. No biggie, though, your ochem class is one in a million. If you take the regular one, you just need to be sure you take calc-based physics (honors) and both analytic and physical chemistry for the gchem req.

Was the sarcasm really necessary? Excelling numerous courses more rigorous than those typical premeds take does make one stand out.

 

[MilkmanAl]

But are honors courses necessarily more rigorous? As I stated, they're not at UNC. Harder courses really aren't a huge boost, anyway. You're always better off to get the high GPA than to take the hard class. If you can have both, kudos, but many people can't.

 

[rmj254]

\Harder courses really aren't a huge boost, anyway. You're always better off to get the high GPA than to take the hard class. If you can have both, kudos, but many people can't.

This.

 

[bigballer27]

at my school...some honors classes were seriously harder and some werent.

some classes (gchem) had an extra midterm, final, and even a paper....so should be worth getting some credit even tho u probably wont get anything for it lol

 

[apumic]

The thing about perceived rigor is that nobody really knows which classes are most rigorous or take the most time at your specific school. To be honest, many of the psych courses I took as a UG were far more rigorous than the bio and chem courses I have taken as prereqs for med school and the music courses I completed were quite a bit more difficult (and far more time consuming) than both of the other two categories combined. That, however, is not necessarily what someone looking at my transcript would expect. (Would you expect "BIOL 520. Advanced Research Methods in Immunology" or "MUS 370. History and Literature of Jazz and Commercial Music" to be more difficult? I can tell you one was faaar harder than the other, and it wasn't the science class....)

Likewise, who knows whether an honors curriculum is really any more difficult. In some cases, yes, but in many...not really.

 

[Dr McSexy]

Don't think it'll set you apart as a "wow" factor. The adcom committee probably won't know or care unless you are applying to a medical school that closely affiliated with your university.

If you have a pre-med committee that writes a LOR for you, they might be a little more favorable towards you in their letter, since they'll most likely know who's hard and who's not and what being in honors class entails. But that's about it.

Now, if you graduated with honors. That's a little different, especially depending on what the honors program requires (thesis, etc.).

 

[dru2002]

I know at my school, honors OChem Lab has like 20-30 page lab reports. No way in hell I would put myself through that for a little (possible) pat on the back from an adcom.

That's our regular Ochem Lab. It sucked. [/patting self on back]

 

[njbmd]

Would an 'A' in Honors orgo help you stand out? I'm taking it because I will end up learning A LOT more, but would an A help one stand out from the rest of the pack(in terms of applicants)/?

Thanks

One grade of "A" in one class is not going to offset an otherwise poor undergraduate GPA. The folks who "stand out" are the folks who have shown consistent high scholastic achievement over their undergraduate coursework and not just one course. If you look at the uGPA numbers for matriculants (because non-matrics don't actually count for much), you will see that the folks who are accepted, didn't slack off much in terms of achievement of high grades. Get the highest grades that you can and try to end up somewhere around that matriculant average for uGPA rather than looking at one course.

 

[rockymhs]

No

 

[bannie22]

Dude. everyone here has an A. do you think we stand out?
-.-

 

[caveat87]

Although I have never served on a medical school admissions committee, my pre-med advisor did for a while and gave me the following advice:

The best way you can stand out is to find something you are very passionate about and show that you really care about it. A popular way to do this is to assume a leadership role, form a club, attend national conferences, etc. If it is something health care related, that is definitely a plus. Unusual things tend to make applicants really stand out. You need to show you have had some exposure to medicine and be able to explain why you want to be a physician. Grades and MCAT score are probably the two most important factors in securing interviews, but its your personal accomplishments that will really wow a committee.

--Based on his advice, an "A" in honors orgo will probably not make you stand out. But if you took the initiative to set up an orgo tutoring program for your school based on your mastery of the material, you demonstrate strong leadership and character traits. That may help you to stand out amidst the sea of other applicants.--