I’m an incoming premed freshman at Columbia Engineering (chem eng.). My course schedule will be very packed, but does not require biology. Will it be frowned upon in med school admissions if I register to take my bio course at Barnard? I’m not looking for an easy way out, but at the same time, I need to make sure I have enough time to study for all my other major requirements.
Columbia has pre-med advising and they would be better to ask. There should be room within your electives to take Biology though but possibly not until the 3rd year depending on your math placement. My engineer kid had room for 1 elective all 1st year but elected to take the required CS course early to have those skills for other classes. Assuming you will be taking Chem 1st year, Bio might not be horrible with it. If you took AP Chem in HS the course wasn’t terribly challenging or time intensive. Lots put off the lab until later years (it’s totally disconnected from the course). You just would not want to take Bio with Orgo. Advising is key though that’s how we figured out about that lab. The advisors are good about making sure you don’t get into an overwhelming combination of courses or too many hours. The required Art of Engineering class you take first year is really a seminar series with a project so very little week to week work. If you are really solid on math and physics I think Bio at Columbia (hard!) would be fine. On math take whatever level your AP test score dictates. Dropping down to repeat a level was a bad choice.