Ask a 4th Year, PreMed Integrative Bio (Human Bio) Major anything!

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Berkeley
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<p>Seasons greetings :)</p>

<p>I signed into this account after a year and found my old thread helping out other people while shamelessly promoting the decal (decals are student-run classes that count for units on campus. Usually 1-2 units of Pass/No Pass on really interesting things; topics can be as serious as Infectious Diseases to as carefree as Scrabble/Batman decals)</p>

<p>Still shamelessly promoting both of my decal classes. If you're a current student, look to decal.org and find either "PreMed 101" or "Pre-Health DeCal" and sign up!! As I am graduating this year, they will be my last (tearful) semesters teaching both courses. I have taught the premed course for 7 semesters now and founded/taught the pre-health decal for 3.</p>

<p>Otherwise, ask away. Used to be a CC junkie, now just doing my part to give back to the paranoia that I used to remember was CC. There's a previous thread I made with more info on me, so you can look to that if you want. Only thing that's changed really since then was 1) deciding on premed as my final career choice, 2) studying abroad this Fall from a 13-unit IB course in French Polynesia, 3) Working in my 3rd and final research lab in cancer metabolomics after my immuno lab, and 4) starting/finishing an education minor </p>

<p>I'm sure there's HS peeps doing last minute application essays and/or underclassmen looking for classes that could use some advice :)</p>

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<p>congrats on surviving and moving on to the next step in your education, fellow fourth year!</p>

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<p>Wow! You sound like a successful premed student! Do you have any tips for math 1b, chem3b, bio1a, physics 8b, and mcb 102? I heard those are the hardest classes so can you give us some tips on how did you survive them? Any tips on how to do well on them? What is a good gpa for medical school? Do medical school look down upon a B?</p>

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<p>Do you have any experience with the MCB major at Cal as well? Would you recommend one over the other for eventual med or grad school? </p>

<p>I’m applying to Cal this week and need to pick a major. :stuck_out_tongue: With MCB I’d pick the neurobiology track.</p>

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<p>sllamas1: lol hello 4th year. I wouldn’t really call it surviving at this point. The first two years were surviving. Now I just consider it enjoying my education while I still have it.</p>

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<p>starmia: haha, not sure if I would tack on the “successful” part yet. I would think a successful premed student would imply getting into med school, for which I haven’t applied for yet so…</p>

<p>Math 1B: as I’m sure you know for Math 1A, professors DO matter. Ask around, find the easiest professor with the easiest midterms. Doesn’t matter if they’re “better lecturers” – all of them are terrible. Of all the classes I’ve taken so far, Math 1A/1B lectures have been the most useless.</p>

<p>Chem 3B: practice, practice, practice. I have a huge post about it in my 2011 thread, with practice tips and stuff, especially if you have Volhardt.</p>

<p>Bio 1A/1AL: Don’t put any other time consuming classes with it. Meaning none of your prereqs, if possible. I did Physics 8A with Bio 1A/1AL…not saying it was horrible (everyone else did it) but I would have much appreciated studying physics on its own and bio on its own semester. I had the time to do it – I just got caught up in the “well that’s what everyone else is doing” wave.</p>

<p>MCB 102: Same study tactics as Bio 1A lecture. 102 isn’t that bad after you’ve taken Bio 1A/1AL together. </p>

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<p>myuusmeow: Was previously an MCB major, applied as a biochem track. You have more than enough time to decide on what major you want once you’re here. I would recommend looking at the upperdivs for all the MCB emphases/IB tracks, and look into MEB and other biologies to make sure there’s not something else out there that interests you more. What matters early on is just the Math 1 (harder single variable calculus) vs Math 16 (easier single variable calculus), otherwise everything else is the same in the first two years meaning you have two years to decide really.</p>

<p>There’s no bias for med school. However, GPA is crucial. A wise soul once told me on CC that I should go IB. Didn’t listen to him, and got a terrible grade in Math 1B for MCB. Jumped to IB soon thereafter because of the better GPA trend/more interesting upper divs.</p>

<p>For grad school, I’m sure a major in the grad school you’re intending on applying for makes more sense.</p>

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<p>Do you think that if one has lackluster grades (GPA~3.2) and a low MCAT score (<30) mean that they won’t have a chance at MD schools!? Should the person just consider DO schools? What if they do more extracurriculars to pad their resumes to make up for it (ex. start new clubs or decals, etc)? Would med schools know and frown upon that? HELP!!! I am panicking and need advice to strengthen my app because the numbers that I have are absolutely atrocious!!! Also, would taking more community college classes to boost my GPA look bad?! Please give me your wise words of wisdom, thanks in advance :)!</p>

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<p>Note that both MCB and IB now require either Math 1A-1B or [url=<a href=“http://math.berkeley.edu/~bernd/math10a.html]10A-10B[/url”>Math 10a - Method of Mathematics - Fall 2012]10A-10B[/url</a>] (another poster did mention individually asking MCB whether they accept more advanced courses and got a response that they did).</p>

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<p>Oh, right I had heard something new about the 10 series awhile back. Not familiar with it at all, though it looks like it’s now the new “math 16”. Looks…bizarre. I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks ucbalumnus</p>

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<p>First off, holy guacamole. A lot of exclamation points, a lot of question marks. Lets see if we can try to help you out…</p>

<p>1) 3.2 GPA, low MCAT</p>

<p>Doesn’t mean there’s NO chance, but the chances become significantly lower, as I’m sure you’ve figured out by now. But that doesn’t mean you’re bound to a DO school, neither does it mean you can never go to an MD school. Depending on how low you fall below that 30, you would be scraping off the low end of a DO school possibly. The grade replacement policy for DO might work in your favor if you redo those bad grades. For MD, you’ll very, very likely need to do post-baccalaureate work to raise that GPA and redo that MCAT to a 30+ score.</p>

<p>MD averages: <a href=“https://www.aamc.org/data/facts/applicantmatriculant/157998/mcat-gpa-grid-by-selected-race-ethnicity.html[/url]”>https://www.aamc.org/data/facts/applicantmatriculant/157998/mcat-gpa-grid-by-selected-race-ethnicity.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>DO averages: [Schools</a> and their avg. MCAT | Pre-Medical Osteopathic [ DO ] | Student Doctor Network](<a href=“Schools and their avg. MCAT | Student Doctor Network”>Schools and their avg. MCAT | Student Doctor Network)</p>

<p>2) EC’s make up for bad GPA/MCAT? Will med schools know?
Short answer, no and no. As some of my seniors said, EC’s are just sugar coating on top of the GPA/MCAT cake. It can make a good cake better, but it can’t fix a bad cake. But to answer your other question, med schools will never know why you did certain EC’s. It will show through your secondaries and primaries though if you did something “just for the app”. I ALWAYS tell my students never to do EC’s just for resume reasons. Do it because you like it, not because you have to, and you’ll thank yourself later for not dragging yourself through half your education doing what you never loved.</p>

<p>3) Community College?
Always has been an issue of debate. It boosts your GPA by taking classes 10x easier than Berkeley’s classes, but at the same time it’s at a CC. I think rule of thumb is to avoid CC’s if possible and that state schools are the lowest you should go in terms of post-bacc. Of course you can argue that you don’t have the $$ to support a state program, but I don’t know how far you can run with that excuse in the long-run.</p>

<p>On a final note, Student Doctor Network forums (<a href=“http://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■%5B/url%5D”>www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■</a>) are your BEST friend for these Q’s. The Q’s you’ve asked here have been hashed out ad nauseam and there are likely a lot more resources for you to check out there. Be sure to check out the Post-Bacc, Osteopathic, and Allopathic forums to get more info on stuff you’d need.</p>

<p>Good luck and hopefully you killed this semester :)</p>

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<p>Re: Math 10A-10B</p>

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<p>Math 10A-10B is designed to include a selection of calculus, statistics, and combinatorics topics of use to biology majors (and probably physicians). The web page for the prototype course is here:</p>

<p>[Methods</a> of Mathematics: Calculus, Statistics, and Combinatorics](<a href=“http://mcb.berkeley.edu/undergrad/courses/courses/math91/]Methods”>http://mcb.berkeley.edu/undergrad/courses/courses/math91/)</p>

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