If what @blugrn6 says is true, I think the unpublished rule about only being allowed to take Cell Bio 202 in Year 2 summer is gigantically stupid, assuming it is still being implemented. The course isn’t taught any differently in the summer even though most people in the course are BA/MD students - everyone else is enjoying their summer vacation by the pool. It’s the same class, the same textbook, same thing covered, as it is every semester. It’s an undergraduate science course run by the UMKC School of Biological Sciences (SBS), not the medical school. I would find out definitively whether it is still possible to take it during a 16 week semester. Needless to say, it’s much easier to learn and process a science course if you have 16 weeks to learn the material, rather than 8 weeks. The only reason it’s taught by SBS faculty in the summer is because of the School of Medicine. The course directors, themselves, think it’s a stupid idea to teach the entire course in 8 weeks. If you like science, you’ll like the information in that course, but taking it with Organic Chemistry + Organic Chemistry Lab, makes that summer semester hell (only to be rivaled by Pharmacology done in 2 months or by HSF IV with a cumulative final).
If it’s one thing you’ll figure out and will have to get used to at UMKC is that there are lot of official stupid rules, as well as unofficial “unsaid” rules that you won’t find in any official handbook you’re given, as to why things are set up the way they are. And it always seems like they are able to come up with new policies or make existing policy harder on students. These are rules that sometimes have no rhyme or reason but are just done that way because it’s always been done that way. It’s part of the reason so many of us were frustrated with them and were glad to finally graduate. It seems though that rules are applied differently if you’re an on-track BA/MD student vs. if you’re an extended BA/MD student (go to 7/8 years). The problem is many times you’re not given enough advance notice about these things.
Here are several examples that happened in my class:
a) I had a friend who took Summer Cell Bio, Summer Orgo Chem + Orgo Chem Lab, and had to withdraw out of Cell Bio because he wasn’t doing well academically. Even though Cell Bio was offered that upcoming fall and he had plenty of room in his schedule, he wasn’t allowed to take it along with Genetics and Biochem, even though he had come in with a lot of other credit, and he was prepared to focus hard and study for 3 sciences. There is no official rule banning taking 3 sciences in 1 semester, and it is completely do-able, especially if you have no other classes. So he ended up extending by 1 year, unnecessarily, since he wouldn’t have had credit for Cell Bio by the time the students come up for promotion that coming May.
b) I had classmates who elected to do a summer Year 4 campus (you are required as an on-track BA/MD student to enroll in an undergrad Year 4 campus semester, no exceptions, even if you’ve finished all Bachelor degree requirements) which is 2 months long vs. a full Fall/Spring campus, which is 5 months long. So with those 3 saved months you could have the chance to maybe take extra clinical electives, take some extra study months, fit in a vacation month (rather having it split with a regular campus), etc. Well, apparently some people in the administration felt that because you got those 3 extra months with no requirements, you should then have to schedule your USMLE Step 1 board exam much earlier than June, which is usually the month you took it if you had a full fall/spring campus, rather than just getting an 3 extra months to do with what you want and still take it in June with everyone else. So what they would do is force them to schedule their boards earlier, like in March, by scheduling them in a Year 5 rotation right afterwards. And you could only change it by petitioning the Council on Curriculum, which was almost always rejected.
The problem was that no one was told this tidbit beforehand and if they had known this fact, they would never have agreed to sign up for a summer campus in the first place, knowing they would have to take their boards earlier, especially since many of the Kaplan Step 1 review courses running at the time in Kansas City end in May. Maybe this has changed now, but this was one example of the unpublished rules that @blugrn6 mentioned which aren’t directly stated, because a lot of time it is a judgement call.
c) I’ve known people who have wanted to switch Year 5 rotation months with each other and weren’t allowed to do so for one reason or another even though it would have been an even switch. I mean it literally doesn’t make a hill of beans difference to the faculty in the rotation.
d) I know someone in my class who took a Year 4 Spring campus who wasn’t allowed to enroll in an out-of-town 7 week Step 1 Kaplan Live Prep course (they’re only offered in certain cities in the country), even though all of her undergrad classes were online classes. They said because she was scheduled at that time for campus, she couldn’t go somewhere else. Apparently, you can only enroll in that course if you give up one month of vacation and use up one study month.
I agree with @Blugrn6 here, don’t get too attached or inflexible in terms of getting courses in the way you want them bc the school has a bad habit of throwing a wrench in it. It will just drive you crazy and.
Some battles are worth fighting, and some aren’t.