<p>Hey. Exactly how hard is it to get into medical school? I am a licensed EMT and have decent grades and take AP Bio, but i have never taken an honors science til this year. Should I even bother with pre-med?</p>
<p>Pre med is a series of courses that a student has to take before taking the MCAT and applying to medical school. They are:</p>
<p>A year of Freshman Chemistry along with the appropriate laboratory courses.
A year of Organic Chemistry along with laboratory courses
A year of Biology along with laboratory courses
A year of Physics along with laboratory courses
A year of English
A year of Calculus or other advanced math classes, including Statistics </p>
<p>Most med schools will not accept AP credit, so you can either "retake" the intro level course, or use your AP credit to skip the intro course, and take a higher level.</p>
<p>Ultimately your goal is to get the highest GPA and MCAT possible (so it might be better to take those intro courses, and avoid majoring in engineering). You'll also need ECs and letters of recommendation.</p>
<p>Currently, I believe only about 50% (or less) of all pre-med students in the US are accepted into any medical school; there are far more qualified applicants than there are seat in med school, forcing many to look into other options.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.bestpremed.com/index.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.bestpremed.com/index.htm</a> This is a website that I'd recommend; it has a lot of useful information regarding pre-med, the application process, etc.</p>
<p>CDN_dancer, do you happen to know what the chances of an applicant with a GPA of about a 2.5 would have to pharmacy school? (She is in college and is currently undertaking pre-pharm, but as you can see, her GPA is not very good at all. Would even the BEST PCAT scores help her?)</p>
<p>P.S.- What are the ranges for MCAT and PCAT scores?</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>Sorry, I'm not familiar with the requirements for pharmacy school.</p>
<p>I think the national average combined score on the MCAT is around 28-30. The perfect score is 45.</p>
<p>CDN_dancer, wouldn't you suspect a 2.5 GPA is still too low to be competitive at pharmacy school? I assumed that average GPAs for pharmacy school would be similar for med school. I believe they take the similar if not the exact same courses.</p>
<p>Yes, I think 2.5 is still too low. I'm guessing that pre-pharmacy students should be aiming for around 3.5 (roughly the same as med students).</p>
<p>The scale used for the PCAT is 200 to 600.
You/your friend might find this link useful: <a href="http://www.aacp.org/site/page.asp?TrackID=&VID=1&CID=29&DID=3022%5B/url%5D">http://www.aacp.org/site/page.asp?TrackID=&VID=1&CID=29&DID=3022</a></p>
<p>Thank you for the link CDN_dancer.</p>
<p>It's a shame that my friend is studying to go to pharmacy, however all she does is complain about the workload. I don't want to discourage her from trying, but all of her science grades are C's and D's (she has re-taken most of the classes where she received a D). I don't understand how she can do so poorly, when she claims that she is studying all the time. Is it really that tough? I would figure she would at least get C's and B's and perhaps a few A's. A good portion of her classes work on curves, where about a 55 to 60% would be a C. Any opinions?</p>
<p>I can't say how tough it is to get good grades in college (only a high school student myself), but since the classes are graded on a curve, and her science courses are the same courses the pre-med students are taking, I imagine it's going to take a lot of work. Good luck to her!</p>
<p>By the way, this forum is specifically for pre-pharmacy/current pharmacy students. She can probably get some better advice there. <a href="http://forums.studentdoctor.net/forumdisplay.php?s=&daysprune=30&f=121%5B/url%5D">http://forums.studentdoctor.net/forumdisplay.php?s=&daysprune=30&f=121</a></p>
<p>I'm concerned about her GPA, since stats show that the average GPA for most med schools is about 3.5 or higher.</p>
<p>Thanks for the link by the way.</p>