Lol…that will probably soon be an annual cost
A few premed students that I know “audit” (not officially enrolled) courses for a semester/summer session at other universities and then take the actual courses at their university. There is no need to take the course twice and risk being caught intentionally omitting a courses when applying to medical schools.
Very few schools will allow unregistered students to informally sit in on an entire semester of a class.
I have known premeds who have AP bio or chem credits choose to audit the class at their own college to refresh their memories w/o possibly hurting their GPAs in a weeder class. Then they move on to the next level to fulfil premed req’ts.
“Very few schools will allow unregistered students to informally sit in on an entire semester of a class.”
At least for the state universities that I am familiar with, there is no such restriction at the school level. It is up to the instructor to decide. Over years, I have some “audit” or simply sit in my classes without registering for it. There was no problem at all so long as the class was not full.
So the Quest Scholars info letter above is interesting. It suggests you may want to take your premed classes “elsewhere” (other than your home college - in this case Stanford), if you want to get A’s. There’s some strategy being suggested here.
@preppedparent <<<<there’s some="" strategy="" being="" suggested="" here.="">>></there’s>
Nothing wrong with legit strategy being employed. Of course, Stanford didn’t mention taking the class elsewhere and then not reporting that you did on your med school apps.
Thing is, that clearinghouse blurb isn’t saying they hunt down who took an occasional summer class. It’s saying, ‘enrollment, degrees and eligibility’ and these classes can be non-matriculated. Participating institutions get various services through the clearinghouse, it serves other data exchange purposes.
Just saying. For UG, it seems most applicants include summer or other courses, wanting to show the class, experience, and maybe the will. But I’ve never seen an AO say, oops, he didn’t report that addl class or yes, we want her, but let’s get her clearance, first. Certainly, if it were standard, Harvard wouldn’t have had its issues with outright fakery.
Granted, med school has different standards. But I don’t see trickery in doing what it takes to prep for a difficult weeder class. Audit, if you can (some colleges charge a fee for this,) go online, or prep in other ways.
I’m curious what more some of you know abut the real relationships between colleges and the NSC. It’snot the subject of this thread, but some are saying not to take an addl class, out of fear of being “caught.”
Of course, if it is a large class in a not-overflowing auditorium, no one will know if someone sitting quietly in the back taking notes is an officially registered student. (Pre-med courses are commonly large, since pre-med is popular, as are biological science majors whose courses overlap with the pre-med courses.)
Just throwing this out as a general observation. If you have to work your way through the kinds of contortions being discussed here, just to get through pre-med requirements, you might want to rethink whether medicine (as in becoming a physician) is the best professional path for you.
Premed classes are just the first of many, increasingly difficult, classes and years of training. You can’t do the same kinds of maneuvering in medical school, during residency, or in passing the many, many tests required to become board certified.
Just wanted to follow up and let everyone know that son did well on the final and received an A- in the class. I think it was curved. He is back on track and looking forward to sophomore year. Thank you for all of the suggestions.
That is so awesome to hear! Always love hearing successful stories after not giving up easily after a horrible test. Does your son have to take organic 2? I’m retaking Organic 1 this coming semester.
Not really, once you get into medical school, very few people drop out. And a lot of people enter medical school with pretty poor academic preparation.