<p>somemom’s D is UCB graduate. If she pops in, maybe she can answer. </p>
<p>According to rumor Berkeley has more than it’s fair share of gunners.</p>
<p>SF State has a post-bac progaram…Mills College has an excellent one.</p>
<p>And yes, earning A’s in the premed sciences at Cal is extremely difficult. IMO, Cal is easily the most competitive top public college, period. You will not find the strict Chem curves as generour as those in the English dept. :)</p>
<p>Berkeley was difficult in that one could be a responsible, intelligent student who attends every class, does all the homework and still not get an A. DDs first B+ in her life was Berkeley chem and I still recall the phone calls, from shock and self doubt, the transition to being proud of that hard earned B+ was memorable.</p>
<p>One caveat, an occasional A-/B+ can leave you feeling pretty good about yourself as you go through premed, yet can easily drag your GPA down below 3.5. A truly successful premed needs to be diligent every day of every term in order to have that strong transcript.</p>
<p>Yes, it’s hard, but no it’s not impossible. I would say that there is no benefit from trying to impress an Adcom by overloading your units or taking the hardest phsyics/calc/etc. Take the classes that work well for you. (Jacobson, I think, was the physics teacher she liked)</p>
<p>Do break up the schedule so you have a mix of some science and some humanities. The premed prereqs are challenging because all the students are smart and most are organised and serious. The Ds come from people who are having personal crisis, not ‘into’ school, etc. The As/Bs/Cs are all still good students, you cannot ace every test, you cannot always master every concept in every class every term. Be diligent.</p>
<p>Your challenge will be to connect with science profs to get LORs. As I said above , DDs ochem prof (something like Frechet) was teaching 3 sections with a total of 1200 students in the curve. His rules are extremely strict, she had to have knee surgery and would not have been allowed to make up a mid term or miss and make up anything, even due to surgery. And there would have been no way to connect with that prof to get an LOR. My DD chose to apply to med school AFTER she graduated so that those profs in her senior year, in her upper division science classes were available for LORs. That gave her smaller class sizes and she took 2 profs in both fall & spring so they could connect better. If you only take prereqs that will be tougher. If you decide to take any upper div science PM me later and I can tell you who she liked as profs.</p>
<p>^ Thats exactly why I went to a small LAC with success in getting students into med school instead of a big name (not saying anything is wrong w/ big names). I already know 3 people I am getting my LORs from and I am a sophmore; one from the head of the biology department, the head of the chem dept., and the other from my pre-med advisor who is the chairman of the biochem dept. I don’t worry about curves to much, I just make sure I get 95+ % and I know that will be an A.</p>
<p>@OP, I think there is essentially no chance that you will be allowed to stay at UC Berkeley for three years after you transfer there. Berkeley is very strict about its two year limit on transfer students to finish their degree programs and your enrollment will be terminated after two years whether you have earned your degree or not. The only exceptions are Engineering majors and double majors who can stay for a fifth semester with permission from the dean. Since Pre-med is not a major and an English major would have to petition the Dean for another semester after you have finished your two years and such petitions are very rarely granted.</p>
<p>Also, while you could apply for a post-bac program at a CSU I very much doubt you would be able to take pre-med courses by themselves at a CSU. You would already have a degree from a four year school and the lower division pre-med courses such as Biology, Chemistry. Physics and Math are heavily impacted at all CSU campuses making it virtually impossible for anyone but a CSU student who has been at a CSU for a minimum of two years and is still working on their first four year degree to take any of these courses. It may be expensive but I think the UC Berkeley Extension is only route you can take to finish your pre-med requirements.</p>
<p>^^Lemaitre:</p>
<p>The formal post-back programs are big money makers for the colleges (they charge more per unit). The formal program at SF State, for example, has “guaranteed entrance” to classes. Of course, the informal program puts one at the back of the registration line.</p>
<p>[Formal</a> PB Benefits - Health Professions at SFSU](<a href=“http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~brothman/formal_program/benefits.html]Formal”>http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~brothman/formal_program/benefits.html)</p>
<p>How about doing 2 or 3 summer sessions at Berkeley?</p>
<p>Just got back from CalSO. Signed up for my first two English courses, and now just waiting until phase two to take sign up for a chem course. appreciate all your guys’ help. I talked to many college advisors and financial aid, who all said I CAN stay three years since I took 36 units at my cc BEFORE I graduated high school, which means those units DO NOT go into my unit ceiling but they DO work towards my major still. (Ps: my mom talked with financial aid for a while and found out that they will cover my third year too!). </p>
<p>I honestly don’t know if I will stay three years or not, and I really am worried about the competition and grade curves with the premed classes, but we’ll see how it goes! I have tons of options ahead of me, and I am looking at post-bacc programs too and keeping an open mind about them. I also spoke with a few advisors and other premed students who agreed that going back to a cc after I graduate, just to finish my premed coursework wouldn’t be THE worst thing ever, or even bad at all necessarily. If you have a good reason for going back to a cc instead of a post-bacc program, (like for me it’d be for the sole purpose that I get GREAT f.a. at my cc), then I don’t see why med schools will look down on it soooooo bad! plus, I really really really would love to get that one on one connection with my premed professors, and get plenty of letters of rec as well. So, all I have to say is I’m keeping my options open. Going to Berkeley as an English major doesn’t make it harder on me. It’s just a different way at going about it. I love English and I’d rather major in English at my DREAM school than go anywhere else for a traditional science premed path.</p>
<p>Thank you guys all for your wonderful help!!!</p>
<p>One caveat regarding the advice you have received at Cal. In my DDs experience, she got a fair amount of conflicting advice from person to person and was very frustrated. I did a great deal of CC & SDN research and was able to give her much better advice which worked for her personal desires as to which classes she wanted to take and when as well as it all coming together to get into med school. </p>
<p>That does not mean there are not good advisers there, she just did not happen to meet them.</p>
<p>good point, somemom. In general, advising at the UC’s is worse than bad. When speaking to a counselor there, it is always good to ask for a reference as in, ‘on what page of the Catalog is this [transfer issue] described?’ Or, ‘where could I find out more about it, in writing?’ “Do you have any written materials describing the process/issue”?</p>
<p>The point is to find something in writing which you can then save and use for a later appeal if need-be.</p>