<p>I will be attending the University of Michigan next year as a freshman and will major in molecular biology. I had a few questions regarding courses in college in terms of med school admissions.</p>
<p>1) Do med schools care about the difficulty of the courses you take in college?</p>
<p>2) Will med schools think negatively about me if I graduate earlier than the traditional 4 year route?</p>
<p>3) Finally, if I decide to take less classes this first semester of college just to ease the transition from high school to college and decide to take classes in the summer quarter also, will med schools think negatively of me?</p>
<p>1) Somewhat. They aren’t necessarily looking to see if you took the most difficult course load possible, but if your schedule is made up entirely or mostly of all easy A or fluff classes, you’ll get dinged for it.</p>
<p>2) Graduating early will not positively or negatively affect your chances at med school. However, if you apply to medical school after just 2 years of college, realize you will be competing against individuals who have had more time to develop significant ECs. You will be judged against them and their accomplishments.</p>
<p>3) First of it, it’s FEWER classes. Classes are a count noun not a mass noun. </p>
<p>Adcomms will note that you underloaded your coursework. It’s a ding, but not a fatal one. How much it might damage your application will depend on how what the rest of your application looks like. </p>
<p>Playing the ‘protect the GPA at all costs’ game can backfire on you. (See also #1.)</p>
<p>RE: summer coursework. Don’t take your pre-reqs during the summer, but aside from that summer classes are OK. Consider, though, that summers should be used to do productive EC activities–clinical volunteering, shadowing, research, even working a public contact minimum wage job (develops your interpersonal communication skills)</p>
<p>Only if you have not already submitted your AP scores to the university and received credit for the class. If you’ve already received credit, it will show as a repeated class (retake) on your AMCAS transcript. (New rule this year.)</p>
<p>WayOutWestMom some schools suggest that you take the class in college again. For example Tufts wants you to take chemistry again even if you have an AP credit. In addition they only allow 5 AP credits to be used so you have to retake some classes. My son took honors chemistry 1 and 2nd semester and said that they covered AP chem material in 1st few weeks. S how will that look on his AMCAS transcript?</p>
<p>I realize that. D2’s school did not (and still does not) allow pre meds to skip gen chem or intro bio even if they had the AP credits to do so. </p>
<p>However, the new AMCAS rule this year specifically says that if you have received AP credit for a specific class and you (re)take the same exact class at college for college credits, the the second instance (the actual college class) is considered a retake. </p>
<p>e.g. your AP Bio score of 5 appears on your transcript as “AP Bio = 4 credits Bio 101”, and you then take Bio 101 and earn a grade of A, then Bio 101 with the A is marked as a retake by AMCAS. </p>
<p>However, if your AP credit that does not appear on your transcript as a specific course equivalent, then it’s not considered a retake. </p>
<p>e.g. your AP Bio score of 5 appears on your transcript as “4 credits biology” and you then take Bio 101, Bio 101 will not be considered a retake.</p>
<p>So it will depend on how the AP credit appear on your son’s transcript.</p>
<p>Remember I don’t make the rules—AMCAS does and they can do anything they want. AMCAS has decided that any instance where you receive course credit for the same course more than once, that the second and subsequent instances will be considered retakes.</p>
<p>“skip out”?? You are starting college, there is so much out there to learn. Why would you want to waste any time retaking a high school level class? Make the most of your time in college. Take as many advanced classes as you can. </p>
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<p>This varies by school. What are your plans? Do you plan to apply to top schools? Do your plans include research and/or academic medicine? The more ambitious your goals, the more important the content of your transcript will be. </p>
<p>I am definitely committed and willing to put in the effort and time necessary to get into med school so I will be aiming for the top med schools. Does that mean I should care more about the difficulty of my coursework?</p>
<p>Yes. If you are aiming for top research oriented schools, they will care a great deal about the scope and difficulty of your coursework. As well as your MCAT score and whether you have significant research experience.</p>
<p>There’s a perception that summer classes are easier. Both because the students in summer classes are thought to be less competitive and because you’re only taking one class at a time. (IOW, you don’t need to demonstrate the same time management skills to do well as may need to when you’re taking 3 or 4 other classes.)</p>
<p>There’s also a secondary consideration–in some cases the material taught in summer classes gets truncated and abridged.</p>