<p>Basically, all I heard during Preview Days was "I WAS a premed, but now..." Are most people who give up on premed forced out by bad grades? Or do they really just discover something else? Is it something where if you get down and study you'll do well? I'm probably like most people here where I didn't really study much, and got decent grades- though I'm not counting on that next year. But really all I've heard about premed at Penn is how impossible it is. I'm debating Michigan and Penn, and I feel like I'd have an easier time at Michigan, whereas I'd kill myself for a not-so-great GPA at Penn.</p>
<p>Probably a combination of both; some people, like myself, find other interests and/or realize that clinical medicine isn’t for them, while others may not have the grades. The thing about college is that you’re exposed to so many areas you might not have known about or really considered in high school, so you might discover another calling.</p>
<p>The science courses here are tough in the terms of the curve, but I don’t know if it’s as bad as people say…the profs here are good about holding office hours and review sessions before exams, so if you go to those and study and work hard you should be okay I think…don’t be afraid to ask for help, because there’s lots of help available if you’re willing to seek it out.</p>
<p>So I’m assuming most kids come in with ap credit? Do they have any advantage or is everything a huge step up? And Is it mainly how well your high school prepared you or how hard you work? Sorry, about all the questions, but any responses would really help me out</p>
<p>i’d say the ap credit means less, it’s really how hard you’re prepared to work</p>
<p>and that helps to test how devoted you truly are to medicine - not that people necessarily flake from being interested, but they realize their core interests lie elsewhere; they just weren’t aware of the possibilities before</p>
<p>(basically, ditto to cdn_dancer)</p>
<p>i am also an ex-premed (so much for doing extensive clinical research, but it was fun)</p>
<p>Oh okay, that’s kind of the vibe I got when I visited…
One other thing though - does Penn “screen” premeds applying to med school? like not let some apply…?</p>
<p>Penn doesn’t necessarily formally “screen” out applicants-but there are those people at the bottom of every curve that Penn is informally screening. </p>
<p>TBH, science classes here are a beast. Chem 101 is 8 hours of class, while a lot of other intro courses are only 3-4 hours and requires less midterms, less studying, and just LESS WORK to do well. If you are not 100% interested and 100% dedicated to being a premed, you will become an ex-premed. If you do survive, you have great opportunities.</p>
<p>Having a background in AP courses can help with the intro courses, as more of the material will be review to you (for instance, Chem 102 was pretty much all review of IB HL Chem for me - which I imagine is not that much different than AP Chem - with only a few new topics covered, so that made studying for that class a lot easier)</p>
<p>Just to clarify, Chem 101 is only 4 hours of class including lecture and recitation; adding lab does increase the time (1 hr lab lecture and 3 hr lab) but that’s true of any science lab course (physics is something like 6-7 hours a week if you factor in lab) Although apparently chem lab has gotten a lot more intense since I took it freshman year, and even then lab reports took a while to write up so either way it will take up a good chunk of your time…</p>
<p>SO wuts the science curve looking like? How many % people get As for, say Chem101 for an average professor?</p>
<p>hm about 20-30%? it’s been awhile since i took chem 101</p>
<p>20-30% sounds about right. Biol121 is rumored to have the toughest curve with only 10% As.</p>
<p>The curve is usually +1 SD for an A, so ~15%, and then another 10-15% A- for a total of 25-30% A/A-.</p>
<p>And I’d think twice about the AP credits…many medical schools will not accept them in lieu of a college course unless you take more advanced courses in the subject (i.e., essentially if you’re not planning on majoring in biol or chem/biochem, then you’ll have to take the intro courses regardless of your AP scores). In keeping with this, it may be wiser to take, say, Biol 121/122 even if you have a 5 in AP Biol (if Penn even still takes AP credit as equivalent, which they did when I was there but I remember something about them thinking of not doing it anymore) because Biol 121/122 emphasize a basic science approach that AP Biol doesn’t, and so it’s not merely a retread.</p>