<p>Why should I take AP Biology if I plan to go into medical school? If I pass the AP exam, I'll be able to skip one or even two courses (two courses if I get a 5) at my state university. Won't this hurt me on my MCAT since it'll have been a while since I last took biology instead of taking it in college?</p>
<p>Please help!</p>
<p>Taking AP Biology in high school will not help or hurt your chance for med school.</p>
<p>Depending on which college you attend, you may or may not be able to skip freshman biology.</p>
<p>Depending on your major, you may or may not be required to take additional upper level bio classes.</p>
<p>Whether skipping freshman bio will make it more difficult for you to prep for the MCAT is entirely dependent on you, your memory, how well your AP class is taught, how much time you’re willing to spend reviewing bio for the MCAT, whether you take any additional upper level bio classes at college and a whole host of other factors.</p>
<p>tl;dr It depends. Too soon to tell. </p>
<p>But I wouldn’t not AP Bio just because it might have a hypothetical effect in the future.</p>
<p>Reasons to take AP Bio:</p>
<p>1) potential opportunity to skip weeder freshman bio at college</p>
<p>2) give a stronger background for freshman bio to help survive the weeder curve</p>
<p>3) the more times you see the material, the more likely it is to stick</p>
<p>4) some schools require AP bio as a pre-req for honors/accelerated freshman bio class</p>
<p>5) opens space in your schedule to take other classes you’re more interested in</p>
<p>So, when I am in college, how will I know whether or not I should take intro to bio or not? Is it also true that even if I do take the Ap bio test and get a passing score, I can still elect to take intro to bio?</p>
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To learn? This is like asking “Why should I take AP Physics if I plan to be an engineer”? Why would you not?</p>
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Wonderful. Take as many AP classes as you can. There is never a good reason to delay your education. However, I would not skip any classes unless I scored a 5 on the exam. A 4 is just too weak. </p>
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<p>Take more biology courses (physio, genetics, cell, micro etc. ) and build on what you’ve learned.</p>
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If it is the policy of your UG institution that you must take it, then you must. Otherwise, if you scored a 5 on the exam, don’t retake it.</p>
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You can do most anything you want; however, why would you ever retake a class that you have already mastered? Life is short, the journey to become a physician is long.</p>
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It is likely that, even if you have taken AP biology, you will take a few additional bio classes nefore MCAT.</p>
<p>Or, look at this issue from another point of view. Are you willing to sit next to another MCAT tester who has had 4 years worth of biology classes under his belt, and years of reading biology related research papers, and compete against such a test taker only with the knowledge and reading skills of what you have obtained from your high school AP bio class? Heck, DS knew a person with a PhD in biology and had had many years of full-time bio research experiences at a top research center as a postdocs who also took MCAT test a year before DS took the MCAT test.</p>
<p>Although DS is an outlier because he took his MCAT quite late (a couple of days after his graduation), he had been graduated with a bio BS major, with all of his biology classes taken with As, when he took his MCAT. And he thought the biolgy section on his MCAT test is not easy when he walked out of the test room. (He did end up with a 14 though.)</p>
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I think this depends on the policy of the college you attend. Some college (esp. some state college which is under budget) will not allow you to take intro bio once you have had the AP score; some college (esp. the departmental academic advisor of, say, bio department, BTW, this is not the same as the premed advisor of the premed committee if your school has one) will encorouage you to take the next-level bio classes.</p>
<p>At DS’s college, I heard that, in one year, the majority of students who are in an intro bio class have had an AP bio 5 at high school. (and in a mid term exam, DS heard the average grade was like 46 out of 100!)</p>
<p>Some CCers here once suggested that AP Bio is the only AP test (among Biology, Chemistry and Physics) that you could take without any potential disadvantage if you go to a school that prohibit the students with AP test scores from taking intro science classes – unless you will definitely major in chemistry or physics.</p>
<p>Do not get me wrong. You should take any many AP classes as possible to build up your strength in sciences. You will need that for two purposes: 1) A competive college will not accept you without these under your belt, generally speaking. 2) You will need the academic strength obtained by taking AP classes to survive premed classes. The reason 2) is a particularly important one. Just be careful about taking AP test and have a score from college board, unless you are sure you will compete well against science majors in their bread-and-butter upper-division classes (e.g. P-chem or quantum physics) and/or your future college will not prohibit you from taking intro science classes after you have had AP test scores.</p>
<p>D. took both Honors and AP Bio (5 on exam, both As) at her private HS. Was not able to skip any Bio classes at her state public UG and was EXTREMELY CHALLENGED in the very first Bio class that went thru AP Bio material in about first 2 weeks, then moved on to new stuff. She commented many times that good thing that she did NOT skip this class, since all other Bio classes were based on it.
You will need to study for MCAT very hard no matter what you take. By hard I mean several weeks for few hours every single day. So, take whatever, it will not affect MCAT, except that physiology and genetics used to be helpful (for the old MCAT, according to my D.)
Thinking about MCAT in HS is very pre-mature and pretty irrelevant.</p>
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<p>The college usually has an AP credit policy indicating whether you are allowed to skip a course with AP credit.</p>
<p>However, if you are considering skipping a course that is a prerequisite to more advanced courses you will take, it would be best to review the college’s final exams for the course to be skipped, in order to make sure that you really know what the college expects you to know from the course.</p>
<p>Medical school policies on AP credit may require you to take some more advanced courses in the subject if you skip courses with AP credit.</p>
<p>This is just my opinion, but this is why I think it’s beneficial to take AP Bio and take the exam.</p>
<p>If you do well, then you can retake Bio I in college, but skip Bio II and go on to the next level. Many kids don’t like Bio II in college cuz it’s about plants and stuff. So, they end up using “half” of their AP credits. Or you can skip both Bio I and II and go on.</p>
<p>I hear they are changing the MCAT test, but I do think that if you skip courses, specially sciences one’s you’ll be able to forget stuff more easily. U could always take other science classes.</p>
<p>“Won’t this hurt me on my MCAT since it’ll have been a while since I last took biology instead of taking it in college?”
-Another consideration, D. has mentioned that none of the material from Bio class was on MCAT. She said that helpful classes were Physiology and Genetics. However, she would not be successful in these classes without taking first Bio. So, it depends on specific college program. As it is different from school to school and only pre-med advisor at specific school can point you in a right direction.</p>