<p>Hey!</p>
<p>I'm trying to plan out what my schedule will be as a pre-med, and I'm stuck on whether or not I should double up bio/chem during freshman year or bio/orgo sophomore year. I will be attending Northwestern University, and I'm pretty worried that orgo will be killer and I'll have to devote all my time to it. However, I'm also worried that freshman year will be hard to adjust to, and it'll be tough to double up on sciences. Also, I'm a non-science major. </p>
<p>Thoughts?</p>
<p>Bio/Chem 1st year is the way to go. That’s a normal schedule btw. If you can’t handle that, no offense, you will probably be weeded out later in the process. #premedtruth</p>
<p>1st year: Bio/Chem
2nd Year: Orgo/Physics</p>
<p>MCAT</p>
<p>Later: Calc.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/1331981-new-pre-med-students.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/1331981-new-pre-med-students.html</a></p>
<p>Six of one, half dozen of the other. What will your other courses be fr year? Anytime you double up on lab sciences, you want to try and have your other classes be less time consuming if possible.</p>
<p>Physics with Orgo sophomore year? Oh. I thought I was ‘supposed’ to take Physics junior year. And I’m in Human Communication Sciences major at Northwestern, so it’ll probably be some Comm classes. I want to get a math in too.</p>
<p>My son took Bio/Chem and Calculus freshman year. He plans to take Orgo/Physics and Stats next year.</p>
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</p>
<p>If you take AP Physics in high school and you understand it, your plan is probably alright. But the MCAT, which most people take junior year of college, tests physics.</p>
<p>I took it in high school, but it’s a pretty weak subject at our school and I wasn’t very good at it. So should I take it junior or sophomore year?</p>
<p>You should take it before you take the MCAT for sure, but why don’t you go talk to your pre-med advisor?</p>
<p>I woudl not advice taking MCAT after 2nd year. Most are taking it at the end of junior year after plenty of higher level Bio’s as the first Bio is not on MCAT.</p>
<p>If you are a incoming college freshman (class of 2016), you will want to hold off --at least for a little while–on planning to take your MCAT after your sophomore year. </p>
<p>AMCAS and AAMC may require that all med school applicants who will be entering medical school in 2016 or later to take the new 2015 version MCAT. A binding policy decision will be issued in July, 2012.</p>
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</p>
<p>As a non-science major, you will take fewer science courses, and thus each individual grade assumes more importance for your bcpm. (A couple C’s in your first year is extremely difficult from which to recover.)</p>
<p>Consider the four year plan, and apply after you graduate:</p>
<p>Frosh - Calc and Gen Chem
Soph - Bio (and perhaps Organic, or Physics)
Jr - Organic (if didn’t take earlier) & Physics/Upper division bio
Sn - Physics/Biochem/Microcellular</p>
<p>I’d like to try and apply after my 3rd year. I also have to take some Communication courses every year in order to satisfy my major requirement. </p>
<p>Could I take Bio, Chem, Comm class, Calc (?), and something else all together? Or is that a bit overwhelming my first year? I’m pretty nervous about the workload so I don’t want to overdo anything.</p>
<p>Considering both Bio and Chem will have labs and they are VERY time consuming, I would advise against too many classes. I think the four you mention would be fine but would not take any more than that and definitely not a foreign language.</p>
<p>At my college, the majority of premeds take Biology, Chemistry, and Calculus first year. Second year is typically upper level Biology and OChem (and quite a few also take Physics with those). Third year is when students can get Biochem, Stats, and English requirements out of the way if they want to do that.</p>
<p>If I were in your shoes, I’d do whatever the Northwestern premed advisors suggest. They know Northwestern’s curriculum infinitely better than the folks here do (unless I’m forgetting someone who went to undergrad at Northwestern…). </p>
<p>If there’s some freedom in the schedule, and they tell you you can take either this class or that class, it probably doesn’t matter when you take them. If one sequence was certainly better than the others, they would probably know and would advise you to take the better sequence.</p>
<p>But just for fun, at my (state flagship) school, the sequence is something like this:
Fr: gen bio, gen chem (with labs) / gen chem 2 (with lab)
So: upper bio, orgo / upper bio, orgo (with lab)
Jr: physiology, physics (with lab) / biochem, physics (with lab)
Sr: whatever you want</p>
<p>
Here you go.</p>
<p>[url=<a href=“http://www.weinberg.northwestern.edu/advising/freshmen/premed.html]premed[/url”>http://www.weinberg.northwestern.edu/advising/freshmen/premed.html]premed[/url</a>]</p>
<p>My sis went to NU and she said taking 2 science courses together is pretty hard.</p>
<p>Also, since I won’t be a science major, but I want to take MCAT by junior year, she recommended this schedule: freshman - chem, sophomore - orgo, summer before junior - bio, junior - physics/biochem.</p>
<p>Would this be ok? Or should I spend that summer after sophomore year researching or something? I mean hopefully I can do most of my research in the summer, but would taking that bio (which I would take at NU) be ok or looked down on?</p>
<p><strong>or could I take bio in the summer after sophomore year AND do research?</strong></p>
<p>MDreams and Kristin,</p>
<p>When would or did you take the MCAT course and the test? Taking MCAT course during regular semester is not very practical.</p>
<p>DS1 will complete prereq courses by the end of his sophomore year. He will need to do research and take MCAT course next summer. Since he will take some upper level bio courses, it would be better for him to take MCAT after winter in his junior year. Any thought on this plan?</p>
<p>I was thinkin bout taking it spring of jr year</p>