Freshman Year Classes

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
1

Hello everyone,

I’ve posted on this site before but that was well over a year ago, so this is a new account. Anyway, I have some pretty general questions about how I should go about planning my schedule for my freshman year in college as a pre-med. Hope some people here can give me some advice.

I want to know what math and chem class I should start with this year. I go to a quarter system school. For some reason, people here don’t mention the name of their school so I won’t either I guess.

  1. Should I take the 2-quarter, tougher gen chem sequence for those students with AP credit? I had a 4 on the AP exam. Or should I take the easier, 3-quarter gen chem sequence? I’ve heard from some that the 3 quarter sequence is easier, and some say that it is just the same. Both sequences will fulfill my genchem requirement.

  2. Should I take Calc 1, 2, or 3? I had a 5 on the AP calc BC test, so I would use the credit, but my concern is over whether med schools would prefer to take students who took a full year of calc in college rather than high school. And hey, maybe I’d score a few A’s if I took calc 1 and 2 before jumping straight to 3, even if it would be unnecessary work.

Thanks for any responses in advance.

2

  1. Doesn’t matter. Personal preference. Med school adcomms aren’t going to care which sequence you take.

  2. If you scored a 5 and the Calc BC exam, there’s absolutely no reason to retake Calc 1 or Calc 2. Take Calc 3. This will allow you to free up some space in your future class schedule to take electives or other classes you need/want to take. (BTW, both of my kids said Calc 3 was a lot easier than Calc 2.)

3

If unfamiliar with quarter system my advice would be to stay on top of material from day one as 10 weeks goes by in a blur.

4

While med school adcoms won’t care which sequence you take, I’d strongly recommend that you take the 3 quarter chem sequence. There is lots of adjusting going on the first year at college and you definitely don’t want to be overloaded with a tough class moving 50% faster than it has to. The fact that you got a 4 on AP exam suggests that you hadn’t necessarily mastered the material in any case, but even if you had, I’d suggest giving yourself a break here.You want breathing room so you can sleep, have a social life, figure out the ground rules, etc…And this is even more so at a quarter system school where the midterms and finals come fast and furious - if you are sick for even a week, you may find that you’re behind and there is very little opportunity to catch up.