<p>since I'm looking for a college with an okay/excellent medical program (at least, I believe it's a medical "program") for undergraduates, I was wondering if Washington University would be a good place for a future medical-major to apply to.</p>
<p>The reason why is because they sent me a few letters in the past, and after looking around on the website and other websites, it seems to be a good college. However, I'd just like some feedback from people who are actually attending Washing university.</p>
<p>I’m a sophomore at Wash U majoring in PNP (Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology interdisciplinary program). We don’t have a “pre-med major” so to speak but there are many majors, including my own, that complement the med school requirements very well. The general biology/chemistry classes are very challenging, and you can expect to dedicate a much higher proportion of your time to those classes compared to non-science/math classes you take. It pays off though, because the education is excellent, and I can’t imagine a school having a substantially more rigorous and academically challenging science program. </p>
<p>Also, regarding the resources available to you - there are tons of them. You take a mandatory recitation class alongside the gen chem lecture that reviews the week’s material, but you can also enroll in programs like PLTL (peer-led team learning) (this is offered for some other classes too). Cornerstone also offers free tutoring, there are multiple TAs with excellent notes you can borrow, and the professors themselves have office hours as well as open review sessions. Some freshmen residence halls also have undergraduate tutors but they’re still available to help you even if you don’t live there. Basically, your success is virtually entirely dependent upon how much you put into the class.</p>
<p>Hope this helped you out, and if you have any other questions feel free to ask.</p>
<p>I’m not premed, so somebody please correct me if necessary, but the basic mandatory classes for premeds are probably going to be:</p>
<p>general chemistry
organic chemistry
biology
general physics
Calculus (1,2, or 3, it depends)
Writing 1</p>
<p>That’s the gist of the mandatory classes, at least for your first two years. Writing 1 takes one semester, the others are generally “paired” classes that take two semesters total. I don’t think your APs will allow you to skip either of those classes - that’s a general rule for major-coursework at any college, really… if it’s part of your major, you can’t skip out of it with AP credit. And even if you could, it wouldn’t look so great for your med school applications I don’t imagine.</p>
<p>Other than that, along with any premed courses at higher levels, I don’t think there are really any mandatory classes. No mandatory general requirements, anyway. You’ll still have to flesh your schedule out with some social sciences, textual/historical studies, etc., but with the cluster system out of the picture you should find things pretty manageable, all things considered.</p>
<p>EDIT: Glad you like your first impressions of the school though! If you have time and want to get more official answers on things, I’d definitely recommend trying to make it to St. Louis for a visit. Academically it definitely is a very solid school, especially in pre-med oriented fields. </p>
<p>So I was totally about to paste in a link to one of the wustl college life threads, but apparently our threads disappear after 3-4 weeks of disuse? That’s kind of sad…
Well yeah fire away if you had any other questions though :)</p>
<p>I’d come for a visit during the summer, but it’s actually quite a hassle, seeing as how I would be coming over from California, and I’d get lost everywhere.</p>
<p>D:
Seeing the life thread would have been awesome, I was sent some information about the school. I guess the only thing I won’t be used to the amount of each ethnicity ^____^ (In my school of around 3700, ~75-85% are Asian, which isn’t always good…)</p>
<p>Also, in college, how many courses are you “supposed” to take at a time?</p>
<p>A “typical” undergrad degrees requires 120 or so credits. That works out to typically 15 credits a semester.<br>
You can take a minimum of 12, and a maximum of 21.</p>
<p>I’m insane, and the lowest I’ll ever take is 17. But yeah.</p>
<p>As to AP credits, Don_Quixote is right. You cannot use AP credit towards gen chem and gen bio at washu if you want to take an advanced class (you can get elective credits for bio 101,102 or something like that, but I’m not sure it’s worth anything, especially if you’re premed).</p>
<p>during your first year, you’re probably going to do genchem, physics, calculus, and writing 1. Then biology and organic chemistry the year after that. So especially after your first two years, you have a lot of freedom as to what you take - after all there’s no one “pre-med major.” You’ll have to decide what you do want to major in though, and that’ll probably add some requirements, or at least narrow down the list of classes you have to choose from, although it’s certainly possible to fit in classes totally unrelated to your major if you want to.</p>
<p>just to make sure this was clear, yes there are ~12 semester-long classes that are required if you’re premed, mainly because the school knows your med school application will suffer if you don’t have them. Of course you can’t just stretch those 12 classes out over your four years though, not taking any other classes, and still graduate - just to make sure i didn’t come across wrong ;)</p>
<p>Another clarification- 1 class is typically 3-4 credits. So if you take 15 credits, you’re taking somewhere around 4-5 classes per semester (so more like 40 classes in four years).</p>
<p>Classes like gen chem, physics, and bio are year long, but are grouped by semester. So your grade one semester doesn’t affect the others. For example, physics is 4 credits. However, you take either 117 AND 118 or 197 AND 198, so physics is 8 credits total.</p>
<p>the pre-med sequence is: two semesters of Gen Chem (with lab), two semesters of Organic Chem (one sem with lab), two semesters of physics, three semesters of bio (with lab), and math until Calculus 3. Although I think only Calc 2 is required, it is strongly strongly encouraged to take Calc 3 or above and most people i know are doing that. </p>
<p>the unique thing about Wash U’s premed program is the 3 semester bio sequence, and the encouragement of Calc 3+. I don’t believe there are many other (if any) universities that require the three semester bio sequence. Otherwise, you’ll encounter roughly the same pre med curriculum at other colleges. </p>
<p>There are a couple reasons why you can’t place out of Bio or Chem with APs. First, is because most people find them really difficult, and Wash U kind of views the AP classes in high school as a good preparation. Also, there are many med schools who don’t allow AP credit in lieu of the required Bio/Chem courses in a premed curriculum, or they strongly discourage that. </p>
<p>The sheer amount of research opportunities for undergrads is really amazing. There’s a whole dedicated office at wash u for undergrad research.</p>
