<p>Well, my grades are fairly decent, and I volunteer at the Thorton Hospital for 4 hour shifts. However, my biggest weaknesses are not enough EC's. Is it highly recommended to work in a lab or do research? They're really time-consuming when taking 16+ units a quarter. And how hard is it to matriculate into a med school from UCSD? My grades so far are:
Fall of last year:
CAT 1: B+
Math 20C: A
PSYC 2: A
Winter:
Chem 6A: A+
CSE 3: A
Physics 1A/1AL: A+/A+
COGS 1: A+
Spring:
Chem 6B: A+
Math 20F: A
Physics 1B/1BL: A+/A
PSYC 60: A+
The last quarter:
Chem 7L: A
Chem 6C: A+
Physics 1C/1CL: A+/A+
BIPN 100: A</p>
<p>How hard are upper div biology classes? While BIPN 100 took quite a lot of work and the material was a lot to memorize, the class itself was fairly easy.
Furthermore, writing classes are GPA killers. Would you guys not advice a premed student to take P/F for writing GE classes? Thanks.</p>
<p>In my honest opinion, you look like you are doing great. Keep up the good grades because those and the MCAT are what essentially ride you past the first major cut for med school. AFTER review of the numbers and cutting out the first batch, it comes down to the ECs. There is a common misconception especially for younger undergrads that if you have great EC’s, you can make up for lesser numbers, but basically they reject you if you don’t have the numbers in the first place, but when you are being compared to other people with the grades that you have, they will look at the EC’s and thus they can be a deciding factor.</p>
<p>I would recommend working in a lab for research and also shadowing. Make sure you are doing research and not stockholding or doing some technician work. Remember you don’t have to do the same EC’s all four years of undergrad. If it’s too much to handle, just drop an EC and do other ones. </p>
<p>Last time I visited CCC, they had a statistic that the average accepted GPA for undergrads to ANY US medical school is a 3.6 (meaning if they applied to 50 and got into 1 school, they count as getting into medical school). You are obviously well above that so you are doing fine. </p>
<p>If you want to take P/NP, it isn’t looked down upon. Seriously if you have the good science GPA, overall GPA, fulfill the premed requirement classes with letter grades, they won’t care about P/NP.</p>
<p>Sorry, forgot to add the upper div stuff. If you thought BIPN 100 was okay, you should have no problem with any other upper div bio classes. The ones with Ghiara are a joke, and honestly if you pick the easy professors for the notoriously hard ones, a lot of them can be smooth sailing (Price/Coleman for BIBC 102).</p>
<p>Purest, do you have any advice on getting a position where you actually do research and not end up in one where you wash test tubes? Are there some basic upperdiv bio classes one needs to take before even being considered for research? </p>
<p>Also on a somewhat related note, do you know if med schools want to see specific bio research? I’m a psychology major and only recently considered med school as an option, but I have quite a bit of psych lab experience >__< I’m not sure if I should continue working at my behavior lab or switch to something bio-related.</p>
<p>To the OP, I think the core writing sequence has to be taken for a letter grade (at least for Marshall) but I would definitely recommend taking P/NP for those GEs. I never found them worth the effort unless the prof is well known for handing out As. I took bicd100 last quarter and it was a cake walk there was very little memorization, however, so I’m guessing it’s not representative of the other bio classes…</p>
<p>momosky: Usually professors will want to see if you have taken BIMM 100: Molecular Biology, since that class encompasses quite a bit of techniques used in bio labs. The more upper division classes, the more likely they will give you your own project instead of washing things, setting up things, and even just doing PCRs for a grad student. </p>
<p>As for your psychology lab experience, if you are doing actual research and you are interested in it and can talk about it to interviewers etc, then I’m sure it won’t be looked down upon. Just because you are thinking of medical school doesn’t mean you are obliged to “Bio-up” your life, haha. Just remember what you need to take to be eligible for medical school and work from there.</p>
<p>Hey Purest, thanks for the replies. To add to BIMM 100, I think a lot of labs also like that you’ve taken Chem 7L before. I also think any of those upper-division bio classes that require O-Chem are highly valued by labs looking for research assistants (BIBC 102, BIMM 110). </p>
<p>premed1234, I don’t think you can take GE writing classes P/NP, I’m pretty sure all colleges require letter grade. Otherwise there would be many fewer complaints about writing GE… but you’re doing so well in your science classes that I seriously don’t think you need to worry about writing classes’ effects on your GPA, just as long as you get a B+ and up in your writing classes. I’m sure grad schools care much more about your science classes, so don’t worry too much about CAT.</p>
<p>I wasn’t aware the OP was referring to THE writing GE, CAT haha, my bad. Yes for that you NEED letter. For other GE’s that are required for the college to graduate, I believe you can take them for P/NP.</p>
<p>Well, I’m going to end up taking all my GE’s for letter grades. I saw a forum that said it was best to take as few P/F classes as possible. Hopefully, my GPA will take a hit and drop significantly lower. I guess I haven’t tried as hard as I should for my classes. And A’s really come to me naturally in science classes (not going to discussion or sometimes lecture). Humanities/social sciences/writing classes depend more on effort, so that’s I’ll put a little more time into those classes in the future…starting next quarter. Thanks for the input guys. Really appreciated it.</p>
<p>To each their own strategies. If you feel like your GPA can afford a hit (if you even think you’ll GET a hit haha) then go for the letter grade. Those more sensitive about their GPAs should consider P/NP.</p>
<p>Just a 4th year premed applying this June. Several of my best friends are in medical school already because they stayed on track. I didn’t do as well as I liked freshman year, which is why I decided to apply my 4th year instead of 3rd year.</p>
<p>There is a forum, which you may know already, studentdoctor.net, where tons of medical school/applying to medical school topics take place. Just beware because a lot of premeds on that site have no idea what they are talking about, however, it is a good site to see what your chances would be when actual doctors and advisors will tell you what really is important, just so you don’t make the wrong decisions here and there based on rumors and what not.</p>
<p>purest, do you know a qualifying mcat score, given a particular gpa. for example with 3.5 vs. 3.7 etc. </p>
<p>also do you know if undergraduate institution matters with med school admission, say mit or harvard, vs. montana state or lsu … just to pick some random schools. i suspect the gpas can be very different for the same students in these two sets of schools. how are they accounted for. do you have any reliable information on this?</p>
<p>If you poke around on the studentdoctor.net forums, there are lots of threads with lots more information on the questions you just asked. One popular formula is multiply gpa x 10 and add it to your MCAT. Do the same for a school’s avg gpa and avg mcat that you’re interested in. If you’re within 3 points it’s a good match. If the undergrad is known for grade inflation/deflation then I think they’ll take note of it. I suggest you go to the site Purest listed and look around yourself for information. That way you can personally determine the reliability of the source :)</p>
<p>Momosky: I love that site as well, however there are TONS of premeds that throw around rumors that aren’t even true, usually to boost themselves. Look for the answers that are posted by actual advisors on those threads. There are rumors such as AAMC not using +'s or -'s etc etc, you can just name it. </p>
<p>itsme: If you have over a 3.5 you should be ok with an MD school in the US, as long as you have a good MCAT. However, what you should really also look at is the Science GPA, as there are people that pad their GPAs to a 3.8 when their science GPAs are like a 3.2 and they get rejected. Momosky’s formula is a safe, quick indication but MCAT wise, lets just say you don’t want to get below a 9 in any category to go to some of the lowest tier MD schools in the US, which are still US MD schools at the end of the day haha. Typically to be competitive, shoot for over a 30-32, with none of your sections scores being below a 9, again. So a 15, 5, 15 is considered terrible. </p>
<p>I also want to add that the rumor about the undergrad not mattering is false. This can simply be proven by looking at any MD school’s list of matriculating student profiles. Ivy league alumni as well as quite a bit of UC alumni are pretty prevalent. I know a doctor now that went to SFSU for undergrad, received a 3.9 and got into the Medical school, the Dean called him into his office to talk and told him he was the first person to get into medical school in years. Schools that inflate, such as Ivy leagues aren’t really discriminated against because most Medical schools know the students are very bright there anyway and to get a GPA over a 3.5-3.7 is bright within itself. The undergrad name won’t matter if you got say a 3.1 at Berkeley versus a 3.1 at John Joseph College, both applicants would probably be rejected.</p>
<p>My post wasn’t very statistically helpful but I can throw out common stats.
UCSD/UCSF/UCLA medical schools average GPAs are like 3.7-3.8 both science and overall with avg MCAT scores of like 36-37.</p>
<p>Mid tier ones (BU/UCD/UCI) are usually 3.6-3.7 avg GPAs, with MCATs between 32-35.</p>
<p>Low tier ones are usually around 3.5-3.7 avg GPAs, with MCATs between usually lower around 30-32.</p>
From current MSAR:
Median Overall GPA Median Total MCAT
UCLA 3.81 34
UCSF 3.80 35
UCSD 3.86 35</p>
<p>These numbers are for accepted students, which means that the numbers for “average chances” to get accepted are lower; for instance, average GPA and MCAT for UCSD matriculants for 2010 are only 3.76 and 33.2 respectively. Nice try to be Washington U of the west.</p>
there was very little memorization, however, so I’m guessing it’s not representative of the other bio classes…</p>