<p>Many of the schools to which I'm applying require or recommend at least 3 years of a "lab science." During high school, I've taken Biology, Chemistry, and Physics--but the Biology class didn't have another class period dedicated to labs the way Chem and Physics did. I got 1.4 credits for Chem, 1.4 credits for Physics, and 1 credit for Bio. Does this mean I've only taken two years of lab science?</p>
<p>Am I right in thinking that at your school “1” credit means 2 (typically consecutive) semesters of a course measured based on the number of periods (per day?).</p>
<p>Lab science means core science courses. These are biology, chemistry and physics. However your school counts the “lab” period doesn’t change the notion that these are lab science courses. So if you’ve taken 2 semesters of each, you have 3 years of lab science.</p>
<p>In that Biology class did you do any laboratory activities, or did you just read a book? Lab activities = Lab science.</p>
<p>They will probably count bio as a lab science. Does you school offer a different biology class that has a separate lab?</p>
<p>Don’t worry - especially if that is all your school offered. </p>
<p>BTW, we homeschool, my son took AP Physics C, AP Chem and Biology all at home. Only the Chem class had a real lab component. He got accepted EA at Caltech and MIT. Also at three UCs.</p>
<p>It doesn’t really matter whether or not you had lab components in your biology class (although I find it strange that you didn’t). Biology is considered to be a lab-based science.</p>
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<p>This is wrong. “Lab science” goes not just to the subject, but to how it’s taught, and specifically whether lab work by the students is a regular part of the course. Colleges and universities define what they consider to be “lab science” in slightly different ways, but bottom line they want incoming freshman to have actual hands-on lab experience in formulating scientific hypotheses and making predictions, conducting experiments to test those hypotheses, carefully observing and recording their observations, analyzing data, and drawing and writing up conclusions. Some biology courses include a lab component, others don’t. If your biology course didn’t include that kind of lab experience, you should NOT list it as a lab science, because it won’t be considered one in the eyes of the colleges you’re applying to, and you’ll be providing them false or misleading information by mislabeling it.</p>
<p>Here, for example, is some of what the University of California system says IT means by “lab science”:</p>
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<p>The expectations of other colleges are similar.</p>
<p>I had two consecutive semesters of each science class, but Chem and Physics had two periods a day, two days a week of class, whereas Bio had only one period a day. We did do labs, but within that single period of class.</p>
<p>at my school they offer a one-year introduction to chemistry and physics combo. would that count as a lab science?</p>
<p>Since you had lab experience within your bio class, it’ll be considered a lab science.</p>