<p>for example if i take regular calc intead of honors and consistely take regular over honors while getting very good grades b+,a-, will colleges look down on that or do they not care much about class rigor.</p>
<p>Will colleges? yeah they likely do in COLLEGE admissions. Medical school? not so much. The assumption (one that I find true from personal experience) is that the difference between a regular college course and an honors one is not that big. In fact, in my experiences, the difficult of most REGULAR courses was greater than the corresponding honors section. Couple that with the relatively sparse honors offerings at most colleges - especially when you get into upper level course work - and Honors in college doesn't carry much weigh, thus medical schools don't care.</p>
<p>so it wont matter if i take reg bio,reg org/inorg instead of honors sequences?</p>
<p>That's pretty much what Bigredmed said, but look at the courses at your school. BRM had to generalize based on his experiences, and it could be different for you. Look at what the Honors Sequences offer, and see if you feel you could get anything extra out of them.</p>
<p>I say it depends on what kind of school you go to. If you go to Harvard then obviously no one cares about honors. If you go to a smaller lower ranked school, maybe being in the honors program can boost your status and help you get in.</p>
<p>When I went to the interview, they asked me if I was in the honors program and the asked me to explain what kind of classes I've taken in honors and what things we do that are so different from the regular version of the same class. </p>
<p>Don't do hon just for the hell of it and in really difficult classes. If you do decide to do honors, take them in those classes that you feel you are comfortable handling and can still do a good job in them.</p>
<p>Fortunately or unfortunately, they don't. And from what I've seen, there's a pretty significant difference between various offerings of the same course. Sometimes profs compensate for the extra difficulty of the course by making the grading slightly more forgiving (realizing that only really good students opt to take the more difficult offerings), but this is generally the exception rather than the rule. If you're trying to get the best education you can and prepare for graduate study in a particular field, then you definitely want to take the most challenging courses in that area. </p>
<p>But if college is just another pitstop on the road to med school, then you probably want to be careful about your course selection. Even if the average person who gets a B in the difficult version of the course would have gotten an A in the easier section, med schools will never know nor will they even care. All they'll see is the B. Doesn't matter if it's in real analysis or introductory basketweaving... an A's an A, a B's a B, and that's usually the end of the story. </p>
<p>There are some other benefits of taking the more challenging courses, though (apart from intellectual stimulation). For one, it makes you more attractive to faculty that you might consider working with. It'll only help your ability to contribute to research. And it can give you an edge provided that your grades do not drop due to it.</p>