<p>I was just wondering if AP Classes taken in high school can fulfill some of the pre-med course requirements mandatory for admission into med school? I've taken AP Chem, AP English Lang, and I'm taking AP Bio next year.</p>
<p>Any help would be greatly appreciated =)</p>
<p>Sometimes yes, but unfortunately in medical school admissions “sometimes” isn’t good enough. Enough medical schools will refuse it that you’ll have to retake them in college.</p>
<p>For example, you need two years of “core” chemistry. You can either take a year of general chemistry and a year of organic. Alternatively, you can use the AP credit, skip a year of general chemistry, and take organic… then ALSO take physical chemistry.</p>
<p>Similarly, you’ll need a year of biology, which the AP won’t get you out of. But you can skip over intro bio, and take genetics or physiology instead.</p>
<p>Be careful though. Sometimes AP classes may not adequately prepare you for upper level sciences at your specific university. In that case, you’d probably be better off retaking the intro class, provided that your goal is to get into medical school. There are horror stories of kids who got AP credit from their universities and then bombed in the 2nd level classes. </p>
<p>My own personal example: I made an A in my high school class and a 5 on the AP exam (exempting me from intro bio at my school), then elected to take a more advanced anatomy and physiology class, and still only made a B in the class. However, that was mostly because I had somewhat forgotten how to study for a class with that much memorization though. I started out making C’s at the beginning of the semester, but by the end of the semester, I was making A’s in the class.</p>
<p>Good news is that it seems that most medical schools will accept AP credit for their math requirement, if they have a math requirement (at least according to NYU’s pre-health website). There are a few exceptions though, namely a few California schools.</p>
<p>UT Southwestern doesn’t take AP credit. Harvard med does (for certain things).</p>
<p>You just have to look around and figure it out. For me, I’m not using my AP credit, because I wanna take all the classes in college and leave as many options open as possible.</p>
<p>ok thanks guys that helps alot</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It seems that they do.
</p>
<p>Curm:</p>
<p>I think you know very much about Texas Medical Schools as your D is applying this year. Can I ask you a question? Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>If a school granting the credits only lists the “subject” and “title” of the course and the number of units granted per course in the transcript, do you think UTSW will take it?</p>
<p>Two examples: for Chemistry and Calculus, they are listed as:</p>
<p>Subject = CHEM,
Course = ACCL
Title = Accel Credit Chem(GeneralChem)
Credit Hours = 2.00</p>
<p>Subject = MATH,
Course = ACCL
Title: Accel Credit Math (Calculus)
Credit Hours = 2.00</p>
<p>Do they (e.g. UTSW) count them?</p>
<p>BTW, if I remember correctly, your D could go to my kid’s school 3 years ago if she chose to do so at that time. If this is the case, I think there is a chance that you may know what the “accel credit” is at that school so I do not try to explain it in more details here. If it is not clear to you what it is, I will then explain. Also, one credit hour at my child’s school is usually equivalent to 3 hours at many other schools. It requires 36 hours before a student can graduate.</p>
<p>Seems to me that they give a specific course name (Gen Chem, Calculus) and specific hours granted (2,2) . Looks good to go to me. That is, if it was AP credit. </p>
<p>Now, I’ve lost lots of brain cells in the last 3 years. What is accl credit? Is that like CLEP? or a departmental exam? or IB? If so, I’m absolutely not equipped with enough data to even guess how they’d view that. I’d have your D e-mail admissions.</p>
<p>First, Thank you for your input.</p>
<p>Acceleration credit: (This “weird” credit system is specific to my child’s school):</p>
<p>An acceleration credit is the equivalent of one course credit that may be applied to the 36-course-credit requirement for the bachelor’s degree only by students who are permitted to accelerate their progress toward graduation, that is, to complete the requirements of the bachelor’s degree in fewer than eight terms.</p>
<p>Acceleration credits may be acquired:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>On entrance: Freshmen who have scored 4 or 5 on an Advanced Placement test of the College Board will in many subjects be awarded two acceleration credits at matriculation. Similarly, for subjects in which acceleration credits are awarded for specified scores on Advanced Placement tests, freshmen may be awarded the same number of acceleration credits for scores of 6 or 7 on higher-level International Baccalaureate examinations.</p></li>
<li><p>Students may be granted acceleration credit in some subjects at the end of freshman year if during the year they successfully complete an appropriate advanced course in that subject. Such acceleration credit is in addition to the course credit earned, but is not in addition to acceleration credit already granted in that subject on the basis of an Advanced Placement test.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>So, strictly speaking, only when a student chooses to graduate early, an acceleration credit can be converted to a “normal” credit (still without a grade). Since my child does not choose to accelerate (i.e., to graduate early), one interpretation is that he really does not receive the credits (which can be used to fulfill the 36 credit hours graduation requirememnts) after all. This is the reason why I worry that none of his AP credits can be used at any Texas Medical Schools.</p>
<p>Since very very few student chooses to graduate early (too much fun?), most students think the acceleration credits that come from AP or IB test scores are essentially useless.</p>
<p>Yeah. Right. That’s weird. But , at the time of application , it will show like you posted vefore? My gut tells me that will be good enough but again…e-mail the schools and present it. Don’t expect an immediate answer.;)</p>
<p>curmudgeon, Thanks again. I wish I knew about this pre-med forum and educated myself all of these a few years ago. Well… back then, I really did not know whether my S would be a premed or not. Heck, not long ago, after he had a TA (for his orgo lab) who happens to be a law school student (I heard that the TA had been admitted to both LS and MS, and chose to go to LS), he thought that it may be better for him to be a pre-law instead of pre-med. He has changed his mind many times. Hopefully he will not change his mind again in the next two years. (or more correctly speaking, if he would like to change his mind, he had better change it within the next two years :-))</p>
<p>Here’re your options:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Just get into a bs/md program and avoid all this hassle of carefully picking classes again in college like u did in hs. </p></li>
<li><p>Repeat the class after taking the ap and turn the req into a gpa buffer, an easy A</p></li>
<li><p>Skip the class, and take higher level classes instead - more impressive for getting in med school, but more work and more risk of damage to ur gpa</p></li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li><p>tried and failed when he was in HS. EC not good enough (not medicine related) for the bs/md program he was interested in.</p></li>
<li><p>Was more interested in going to the graduate school while in freshmen, so decided against taking a lower level course at that time. (Also, not sure about the “easy A” part. I heard that extremely high percentage of students with a 5 in AP take the class which is supposedly similar to the AP class. It is not necessary easier in the grading after the “curve.” At least this does not work at my child’s school where there are no lack of “grade grubbers.” The lower level you go, the more likely you will run into hundreds of these “premed grade grubber.” It is just not very pleasant to take that kind of course – it makes you feel like being in a (maybe super) competitive high school again.)</p></li>
<li><p>Use the courses in the chemistry series as an example: follow the advice from the academic adviser (not the pre-med adviser) to take one term of accelerated/honor general chemistry, two terms of orgo, and one term of biochemistry, all with labs, as pre-reqs for his intended major. So, short of one term of general chemistry. Actually, one pre-med adviser recently told him that it is good enough to have these 4 courses. But we are still not very sure, as the “Republic of Texas” tends to be different from the rest of the country :-)</p></li>
</ol>
<p>At the bottom of the issue is that he was not a very determined pre-med in freshmen. So, he only paid attention to what are the pre-reqs for his major, which may not be exactly the same as pre-med pre-reqs.</p>
<p>UTSW requires that the specific course that the AP credit is being applied to as well as the number of credit hours for that course be listed on the official transcript.</p>
<p>For example: </p>
<p>AP Bio (5 ) = Bio 101 (3hrs) and Bio 102 (3hrs)</p>
<p>UTSW does require that at least one math class be taken IN college so you can’t use your AP BC calculus to replace the entire math requirement. Most use statistics to cover this requirement. This requirement is one that confuses many undergrads. </p>
<p>From their website:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Their use of the phrase “college calculus or statistics” can be interpreted broadly so a few years back I called for clarification. S took the stats class his senior year to meet requirements.</p>
<p>
eadad, I had checked that before and so I had it checked again today. What follows is an email, followed by UTSW’s response. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>OT: BTW here is what they say about English:
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The portion of the last sentence “…is on your official transcript as credit FOR THAT PARTICULAR COURSE” makes me worried. At my kid’s school, it is documented that the credit earned by a AP test will be forfeited if you take a particular course (actually a particular set of courses) again in college. But it does not say explicitly that if you have the AP test score, the credit for a particular course is granted to you.</p>
<p>I believe that the following two statements are not the same (any LSAT high scorer may help me to decipher this :-)) The notation “–>” means “imply.”</p>
<p>Have the AP test score –> You will be granted the credit for the course X.</p>
<p>Have the AP test score AND have taken the course X or Y or Z –> your credit earned by means of the AP test score will be forfeited.</p>
<p>At one time, my S jokingly told me that I had been trying to find the answer to this particular AP-related question since his freshmen year but still had not found a definite answer after N years 
It must be a very difficult question to answer!</p>
<p>If I understand you, which is not a given ;), </p>
<p>Student has AP Eng Lit
Receives 6 hours credit
3 for Freshman Writing
3 for Special Topics in Eng
shows on transcript
She then chooses to “re-take” Freshman Writing
Both the AP credit and the actual course taken still show on the “official transcript” (with the same course #)</p>
<p>Is that the question? Well, guess what? That is exactly what mine did and what her transcript shows. I have always assumed she loses the AP credit for that 3 hours.</p>
<p>I don’t believe they let you double-dip. I can’t imagine they would. She proceeded as if it was forfeit. I don’t remember my LSAT. ;)</p>
<p>In your case, you still have 6 hours in the end so there is no problem for you.</p>
<p>In my case, use the chemistry as an example. Come in with an AP 5. The college said “You are too advanced for the very first General Chemistry course. You should take the 4 hours accelerated general chemistry instead.” So you did as your college told you. When you apply for medical schools, the medical school says “I do not care what your school says. What I say counts. Give me 8 hours of General Chemistry in any college.” Or in TMDSAS case, if, on your transcript, your school does not put in the wording that TMDSAS likes to see for the credits you earned through AP, you are out of luck.</p>
<p>I am not trying to double-dip. I just think if TMDSAS treats my child differently just because the “wording” in my school’s policy is somewhat different, it is not fair. I know many texas college students with AP (esp. those somewhat more advanced students) do take only one Advanced/honor General Chemistry and their college cooperates with TMDSAS and puts in whatever TMDSAS wants to see for the other 4 hours of credit they earned via the AP test on their transcript.</p>
<p>The worst case scenario is for my kid to go to a local college to take a beginning general chemistry just so that TMDSAS can see it. He is prohibited by his college to go back to take that beginning General Chemistry as he has taken a more advanced version of General Chemistry. (As NCG here told me before, my child’s Biochemistry credit is nothing like General Chemistry so it will not count as such. Some mid-west MS actually counts Biochemistry as Orgo II.)</p>