<p>According to yale's website, students are generally limited to 4-5 courses per semester, although they can take more with special permission.</p>
<p>I was wondering, do the labs for the sciences count as a full class when considering the 4-5 courses/semester, or do they count as a half-credit?</p>
<p>As far as I know, some colleges only offer one semester of labs to correspond to year-long courses. For med school, is it generally expected to take the entire years' worth of labs at yale?</p>
<p>Finally, I noticed on some other threads discussion of taking freshman orgo vs. general chemistry. Do the additional research opportunities (?) and learning outweigh the added challenge of taking freshman organic chemistry in your opinion?</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>Labs are a half credit. A few labs meet twice a week, and those are a full credit. some meet twice a week for half the semester, and are a half credit. </p>
<p>Usually you take 4-5, although 5.5 is common and 6-6.5 has been done (although you shouldn’t do this. it’s horrible.). 3-4 is also equally common. </p>
<p>Yale offers a full year of labs for all pre-med courses (gen chem, orgo, physics, the intro bio sequence/higher level bio courses). If you take the accelerated (1 semester) gen chem option, you can get your second chem lab from biochemistry or a higher level chemistry class. </p>
<p>You don’t get additional research opportunities for taking freshman orgo. I’m sure you could find a position in a lab even if you’re in general chemistry. Freshman orgo is intenseish, because it’s a self selecting group of students and hard material. I would recommend taking the non-freshman orgo sequence (CHEM 220-221) if you place into organic chemistry. It’s a more traditional experience. Just make friends in the class quickly so you can study together.</p>
<p>Also, if you’re planning on doing organic chemistry in freshman year, do yourself a favor: email the professor after you get the blue book, find out what the text book is, order it and begin working through it from the beginning. The more you come into orgo already knowing, the easier your experience will be.</p>
<p>Thanks that helped a lot! Since most if not all premed classes are there to weed students out, about how difficult do you think it is to get decent grades (mostly A’s) at the premed classes @ yale?</p>