<p>My daughter will be entering the College of Arts and Letters (possible Psych major) as a freshman with 25 credit hours from AP tests. Given that 120 hours are required for graduation from this College, she is currently planning to graduate after three years, after which she plans to attend med school.</p>
<p>Have many students done this? Are there any drawbacks to this, other than the assumed "You're missing out on all of the fun!" perspectives?</p>
<p>Congrats on the AP tests. That's a lot of credits. To begin, Med schools focus on performance in Biology, Intro to Chem, Organic Chem, Calc, and Physics. Those are the big five and its is possible that your daughter might have AP credit for most of those courses. However, Notre Dame (and I believe Med schools) suggests that if the course is in your major and you have AP credit, they suggest you take the courses again at the college level. This seems contradictory to the purpose of the AP program, but the understated beauty of the AP is its ability to allow you to focus study in your major. In other words, it allows you to bypass some of the requirements (be they a History or English requirement) that are not directly linked to the major. </p>
<p>Without knowing any specifics I cannot offer much help but I would strongly suggest looking at the Arts and Letters Pre-Professional program at ND. It caters to students with an Arts and Letters major in mind (Psych) and offers students the range of classes needed for entry into med school (classes listed above). </p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>I have the option of graduating early but I decided to pass it up. Given what she wants to do with medical school, having a good base is critical and having taken the classes very well may look better to medical schools than just having AP scores. Something to look at (plus it can help with GPA as well, another important factor). Also, doing it in four years is nice because you can spread things out a bit more and you don't have to max your credits every single semester. </p>
<p>Lastly and most importantly, I very much doubt that she could do both Pre-Med and Psychology in three years. It is possible to do one major, but like for me, I would not be able to complete my second major if I graduated early. With all of the college and university requirements as well as the requirements for two majors, it is basically impossible to graduate early. There just aren't enough hours, you can't do it in 120 oftentimes. You can try, but I just think it is going to literally be impossible.</p>
<p>don't have anything to add, but i'm from cincinnati too. have u been attending the ND cincinnati club events?</p>
<p>My daughter has attended one event so far (an April pre-decision recruiting session, I think), but was unable to attend the more recent ones (including the August picnic) due to other conflicts.</p>
<p>But she really enjoyed the event she attended, so I'm sure she plans on attending future events.</p>
<p>People tell me at the end of four years that they wish they had more to spend there. Maybe that's how you'll feel too at the end of three.</p>