My major is one of the ones with the most required credits. Between my major requirements and GEs, I only have enough room to take one year of bio with lab, one year of chem with lab, one year of ochem with lab, one year of writing and one year of physics with lab. I know a lot of medical schools also require biostats, biochem, psych, socio, and calc but I have no room for these. Would it be better to take these courses over ther summer at my T20 home instituion or do a post bacc program?
It raises questions if you take hard science classes at a community college but there is no stigma attached to taking classes during summer at your own University.
It’s not just that some med schools that require these courses. All of them are tested quite heavily on the MCAT. In fact, biochem is probably the single most important class you need to take before the MCAT. 40% of the questions in the bio subtest come from biochemistry. Psych and soc topics have their own sub-test and comprise 1/4 of your MCAT score. And statistics questions are included in all 4 MCAT subtests.
While it’s non-ideal to take these courses in the summer at your own college, it’s not a deal breaker for med school admission.
My only caveat is to make sure that any summer biochem class covers the identical material as the regular semester class. Often summer classes are constrained by the shortened time period and don’t cover all the same material and don’t cover the material with same depth and rigor.
What major at what school? You may have more places where you can use pre-med courses on your major and GE courses than you think.
Some schools don’t offer FA (or offer reduced FA, loans etc.) for summer courses, so keep that in mind. Generally, what I’ve read is that it’s fine to take CC courses before you start at a 4-year university, but med schools expect you to take the majority (not all) of your pre-requisites at your university b/c want to see how you handle the difficulty at your school (unless you’re doing a post-bacc as a career-changer etc. which is different.) Some med schools won’t accept CC courses or have restrictions on which courses they’ll accept (in-person vs. online etc,) so make sure to check the admissions websites of the schools you’re interested in. The AAMC’s Medical School Admissions Requirements links to school admissions websites, and I found it helpful when applying to BS/MD programs this past year: Mec-Msar-rw
Most, if not all T20s have strong pre-med advising offices, so you could also ask your advising office/read the advising website if they have any advice.
Hope that helps!
3 posts were split to a new thread: Pre-med Classes over the Summer