<p>So I am a prospective pre med student, and I have a few questions about the course requirements. I have been looking at different medical schools to see the requirements (I am aware that they are all nearly identical), but I am confused on the amount of each class required. Some say 8 credits, some say 1 year, some say 1 academic year, some say 2 semesters/3 quarters, some say 8 semester hours, etc. Im confused as my school is on the quarter system, and as some of these schools only require 8 credits, then 2 quarters will suffice, but then the other ones I'm not so sure on. Is every school just doing it differently, or would 2 quarters satisfy a 1 year requirement as you will still receive 8 credits, and from my understanding, the amount of material covered should be about the same, just at a faster pace. Maybe I am missing something, but any help would be great.</p>
<p>If your school uses a quarter system, then generally for each course (intro bio, gen chem, ochem, etc) you’ll need 3 quarters of that course.</p>
<p>Rule of thumb:</p>
<p>1 year = 2 semesters = 3 quarters</p>
<p>Don’t go by credits since this is highly variable from college to college. (For example, I’ve seen 1 semester of OChem weighted as anywhere from 1 credit to 5 credits.)</p>
<p>See that’s what I was thinking, but for my school, all of the intro science classes are 4 credits and labs are 2 credits. So I’m confused because if I went to a semester school, a year there (in terms of credits) is 2 quarters at my school, and some medical schools base the requirements off of credits, and not academic years. Is there something I’m missing?</p>
<p>The medical schools that use credits to describe requirements generally are looking at the how credits are structured at their own undergraduate college. </p>
<p>Typically—</p>
<p>4 credits = 1 semester (16 weeks) of a class that meets for a minimum of 3 lecture hours + 1 hour of recitation each week. (64 hours)</p>
<p>A quarter (12 weeks) class that meets 3 lecture hours + 1 recitation hours would not be considered equivalent to 4 credits because it doesn’t meet for same total number of hours. (64 hours vs. 48 hours)</p>
<p>When D1 transferred from college that ran on quarters to one that ran on semesters, each of her quarter classes were pro-rated as worth 3 credits at school where 1 semester course = 4 credits.</p>
<p>As I said above, it’s safer to ignore credit equivalencies since this varies so much from college to college.</p>
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<p>Expanding it:</p>
<p>1 year (of a particular course, e.g. general chemistry) = 2 semesters = 3 quarters ≅ 1/15 or 1/16 of the credits needed to graduate.</p>
<p>So if 120 credits are needed to graduate at your bachelor’s degree school (common for semester system schools – this is the “semester hour” credit counting system), then 1 year of general chemistry would mean approximately 8 credits of general chemistry.</p>
<p>At a quarter system school where 180 credits are needed to graduate, then 1 year of general chemistry would mean approximately 12 credits of general chemistry. If the student transferred to the semester system school in the previous example, the 12 quarter system credits would be equivalent to 8 semester system credits. If the student transferred after taking only two quarters for 8 quarter system credits, s/he would have 5.3 semester system credits (and, in practice, would have to take a course that partially repeats his/her second quarter course to complete the sequence, since the “boundaries” between courses do not line up the same way).</p>
<p>I’m about to go to UofM Ann Arbor, and they are on the quarter system, but you still only need 120 credits to graduate. Does this affect/change anything at all?</p>
<p>Michigan is on semesters, not a quarters:</p>
<p><a href=“https://umich.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1450/~/semester-dates”>https://umich.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1450/~/semester-dates</a></p>
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<p>My bad, for some reason I was under the impression that it was on the quarter system. Why, I honestly can remember, but this helps a lot, thanks</p>