<p>I'm "that girl" who has dreamed of being a doctor since she was in diapers and has clung on to it in college. In other words, I'm the kid who "has" to take not only all the required classes for med school, but also the RECOMMENDED ones, AND participate in this "Medicine & Society" minor program that opens doors to a lot of internships/connections. Also, I'm shooting for a B.A. in a foreign language that is the [often only] language of 40% of the people in my city, where I plan to stay also after college for med school (there are several good med schools here). Did I mention I'm in my university's honors program? </p>
<p>Since I have so many required/recommended classes to take with little or no overlap (don't forget the irritating number of prereqs in the Chem and Bio departments), I'm looking at a possible grand total of up to 150 credit hours before I go to med school. (Don't ask me how I figured that out because it took me several hours.) I'm pretty sold on the direction I'm taking my studies, but not so much on the fact that I'm going to be in college for 5 years and will only have a B.A. to show for it. So...someone tell me this is okay, I guess? I graduated from high school in 3 years (but I took a year off in between), so the idea of finishing "late" is a bit scary.</p>
<p>I don’t really see why you need to take 5 years to finish. Taking a boat load of courses is not a good reason. I double majored in humanities and bio and had no problem finishing in 4 years without taking an above average course load. Without more detail I don’t see why you can’t either.</p>
<p>sorry, but the math just doesn’t add up. There are only 8/10 premed prereqs. A typical major is ~10 courses, +2 prereqs for a dozen. That’s 20, or just over half of what is needed to graduate, so you can easily graduate in 4 years. The minor is a nice-to-have, and worth doing if you enjoy the material, but of no value to med school admissions. If being in the honors program means extra coursework that requires a 5th year – and a 5th year of tuition – it too, is of no value to med schools.</p>
<p>Do your major and prereqs and get out in 4.</p>
<p>D went to a school with a core curriculum that offered no overlap, took the premed prereqs, majored in a combined foreign language/culture program, concentrated(minored) in bio and lived abroad for nine months. It was doable in four years. Most pre-meds take very heavy course loads. Taking extended tim abroad meant that D did not finish the prereqs until the bitter end so I should add the qualifier that she did not go directly to medical school - that allowed her to wait until graduation to concentrate on the MCAT.</p>
<p>^this brings up something I didn’t think to say. You would be better off taking 4 years and applying right after graduation and taking a gap year than taking 5 years to graduate and going straight out if for whatever reason you can’t get it done and apply within 4 years.</p>