Please advice for opition 1 or option 2. My son wants to do option 1. Thanks!
Option 1:
AP English
AP Calc
AP Bio (2 periods)
History
Band
Option 2:
AP English
AP Calc
Physics (1 period)
History
Band
Language 3 (strongly recommended by UC, 3 years in a row per his school counselor. She also said physics is not required for him)
He wants to go to a UC, we are CA resident. Thank you!
If he has taken some level of biology prior to senior year, I say Option 2 with the foreign language. Otherwise Iād drop band and add foreign language to Option 1.
It would help to provide some context, like the courses taken already and courses planned for 12th grade after each of these 11th grade schedules.
Generally, a pre-med will want to have at least high school level biology, chemistry, and physics before taking those subjects in college. More advanced or AP level course work in high school can be helpful, but be careful of the implications of AP (or college/DE) credit for pre-meds.
High school level 3 or higher of high school foreign language is preferred for UCs and probably many other more selective colleges. In addition, knowledge of a foreign language common in the region of medical practice could be useful for physicians if they are able to communicate to patients or their relatives or caregivers who may understand that language better than English.
Obviously, he may want to consider if there are any high school courses helpful for his college major (most college majors can be done by pre-meds; the exceptions would be those with very high volumes of non-overlapping requirements like architecture).
Regarding band, note that UCs require a year of visual or performing arts for frosh admission, so he needs to keep band if he has no other visual or performing arts in his overall high school schedule.
And I think most CA high schools require it for graduation (a visual or performing art, not necessarily band).
Why does AP Bio take 2 periods? It doesnāt seem worth jamming up his schedule with that. If it were one period, yes, but not worth two. He should definitely include a foreign language, even if that means skipping AP Bio and taking a 1 period science class of some sort.
he is not pre-med. he is pre-college.
he should take a foreign language- both for his own sake and because colleges want to see it.
he will have enough bio later in life if he sticks with pre-med.
For the context:
My son had 1 bio, 1 chem.
The fact that he wants to pursue a premed program in college is irrelevant to his HS coursework. I think the more general question is, what is the optimal HS coursework for admission into the types of colleges heās interested in.
I would definitely go with # 2 - take physics and a foreign language. Skip the two period classes and maybe circle back to AP Bio senior year.
I think continuing band is important. If he doesnāt want to limit his optionsā¦the second option you listed is a better choice. There ARE colleges where completion of level four of a foreign language is recommended but reallyā¦that is the bar he should aim for, in my opinion.
You donāt want to come back to language. Take it consecutively.
Thatās going to impact admissions more.
Remember pre med is advising. Itās not a major.
Anyone admitted can do pre med. but first you have to get admitted.
For getting into a UC, the AP bio isnāt as important as the continued foreign language and arguably the physics. The pre-med hope is nearly irrelevant to getting in. If your kid was considering BS/MD programs, that would be the only reason to consider prioritizing AP Bio (doesnāt need to be as a junior necessarily) but even then, doing it at the expense of a foreign language puts the whole college admissions situation at higher risk overall.
Iāll disagree a bit with my fellow posters here and contend that his pre-med intention is relevant in HS. Not relevant for academics, but relevant to what he ought to be doing outside of class.
Many HS kids arenāt aware of more than a handful of career fields so medicine is attractive. And even within medicine many can only name a few such as doctor or nurse but these are far from the only in the health field that help people. Physical therapists, radiology techs, speech pathologists, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, to name but just a few as shown on http://explorehealthcareers.org Careers that take less than 11+ years of education and training and the immense debt that comes with a M.D.
Unless heās already been working as a volunteer in a health care setting itās better to think of him as interested in exploring a career as a doctor rather than someone who has already made the decision.
And Iāll suggest he look for volunteer opportunities during the summer and perhaps after-school to get some exposure to what working in health care is really like. Such exposure at some point, BTW, is an unwritten requirement to be admitted to med school.
This is true but at least in my post I specified that itās irrelevant āto get inā - in terms of earning an admission spot at a 4-year college that prepares students for the possibility of med school. Your point, which is a good one, is that knowing right now that a high schoolerās acceptable alternative to med school might be a parallel health care track ā like PA or nursing or PT ā becomes relevant to choosing which college to attendā¦in that it isnāt necessarily at the same places that are optimized for med school placement. For example, choosing a particular kind of school might shave years off of the trajectory to one of those other career endpoints, but not be similarly optimized for med school preparation and admission. But with that awareness also comes the dilemma of how and whether to hedge for different outcomesā¦
This is exactly right. He turns 16 this month and finally qualified to volunteer in most healthcare setting in our area.
Kids can change their minds, nothing sets on stone.
BS/MD might be a āreachā for him. He is getting 4.0 but it is common in his school to maintain that GPA.
thanks!
My kid is a premed, currently in soph yr of college. If weād known then what we know now, we would have had kid get some sort of certification while in high school, such as EMT or CNA or med asst or such, so that they would be able to get in some clinical hours easily while in college, without having to waste time getting the certification while in college.
If it is at all possible to do AP levels of Chem, Bio, and Physics while in high school, Iād advise it, since it makes those courses easier to do while in college. If Calc AB or Calc BC or AP Stats are an option, that too, same rationale. Unless oneās college major is Chem, or something less demanding that the kid really loves doing, itās tough to manage both the grind of the pre-med pre-reqs AND a demanding major, so anything that one does to make it easier, helps.
I think the amount of work it takes for kids to get into med school these days has gotten out of hand. the coursework required is bad enough, and then they are also expected to have high MCAT scores, research time, volunteer time, and clinical experience, all while being well-rounded people majoring in classics or linguistics. a lot of this experience will be unpaid, while their business major friends are making big money for summer internships that can lead to 6 figure salaries right out of college. now med schools pretty much expect their applicants to have at least one or 2 years of experience after college before starting- just adding to the delay before they can start making good salaries as practicing physicians.
I understand that medicine is a calling and we want hard-working dedicated people doing it. But it seems to me we are losing many excellent would-be physicians who decide itās too much effort and takes too long and opt for a different path.
sorry for the off-topic rant.
Yes, and EMS and CNA jobs pay decently enoughā¦and there is a huge shortage in both areasā¦so getting a job is very possible.
in my state, it is not possible to get emt or cna until you are 18 years old! basicly after highschool!