<p>
</p>
<p>A. It suggests that you should take classes that are fun and where you are likely to do well so you can take the credit to boost your overall GPA and add a touch of color to your transcript. A non-music major competing with music majors for top marks in a class that music majors commonly take is not a “likely to do well” scenario in my book. If a singing class for non-music majors was an option for your DD, she probably should’ve gone for that course instead.</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>Q. So, the logic is…if you’re certain that the desired class will get you an A…then take the grade. But, if you might be competing with majors who will super-excel, then perhaps do pass/fail so that an A- (or lower) won’t ding the GPA?</p>
<p>My son is taking Italian this semester - just for fun (he’s loving it…his older bro is taking it with him.) He doesn’t need the Foreign Language credits; he already has a bunch of Spanish credits. I wonder if he should have taken the class as Pass/Fail, since he’ll certainly Pass, but somehow could end up with an A- (since there ARE some fluent Italian speakers in the class…unusual, but true! )</p>
<p>"So, then, does this suggest that if you’re taking a class just for fun, maybe you should take it credit/NC so it doesn’t affect GPA (if possible). "</p>
<p>-Well, it depends on a goal. My D’s goal was Music minor, singing in duets from music sheets (sight singing) was part of her Music Minor requiremnts. She also took Paper Making class supposedly just for fun. It was one of the most time consuming classes (as all visual art classes) and thank goodness that she had an “A” in it. What can you do? She loves art also, and it was the only art class she could afford taking time-wise. Yes, be carefull what you are taking “for fun”, but again if you start calculating, you will miss out whole tons of new learning experiences that you should get engaged in your UG years.</p>
<p>My DD had several classes P/NP, some were only offered that way, sort of Berkeley hippie breadth classes when she needed one more unit for something, others were just exploratory and not pre-reqs for med school. No problem with P/NP in our story</p>
<p>For some reason, DS learned from one of his premed advisors that he should not take any class (even not a pre-req one) P/NP in college. My intuition is this advice is overly strict, especially at a school where they sort of encourage students to take at most one class per year P/NP. (All students at his college are required to take 4 more classes before graduation than the students at most other colleges. So, the college allows the students to take these 4 extra required classes N/NP IMO. – There is a historical reason also.) However, he followed his advice in order to be on the side side, even though I had raised some doubt the soundness of this advice. He could have a little bit easier life if he did take up to 4 classes P/NP in four years.</p>
<p>I know there is a magic date, Oct. 15, at the beginning of the medical school acceptance cycle. But what is the significance about the magic date, May 15, toward the end of the medical school acceptance cycle? Is it the first day that a medical school may pull an applicant from the waiting list?</p>
<p>The only P/NP class D. took was her senior filler class “Personal Exercise” - lots of running, not much more else.</p>
<p>mcat2,
As far as I know, they have to let Med. Schools know which one they choose to attend and withdraw from others by May 15. For one of my D’s Med. Schools it is a week earlier. If Med. School starts earlier in a summer, they are allowed an earlier date (May 7-8?).</p>
<p>Q. If students are placed on a waiting list, when are they notified?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>May 15 is the last date that acceptees may officially declare which school they’ll be attending and withdraw all other acceptances. Up until that date, an applicant can (and often will) hold multiple acceptances and place multiple deposits.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Students are taken off the waiting list starting May 16th up to the week (day?) before classes actually start or the school has filled its entering class–whichever comes first. </p>
<p>(My dentist’s kid got called off a waitlist 8 days before the start of classes. Lots of scrambling to get him there and settled before classes started. And since he had already accepted a place at another school, I’m sure that school was making calls that week too. )</p>
<p>Maybe even later. I have heard stories of being pulled off the wait-list within a day or two of classes starting. And then there are kids like mine who jettisoned every wait-list school immediately. She needed closure. And an apartment. ;)</p>
<p>Not a WL for med, but a friend’s kid was pulled off a WL for Harvard Law by phone call on a Friday when classes started the following Monday/Tuesday. He had deposited at Stanford Law and was literally driving up to SLS with his dad when he got the call from H. Dad dropped him at San Francisco airport, where he flew to Boston wearing shorts and flip flops. </p>
<p>Dad disentagled his arrangements in Palo Alto and had to overnight his stuff to Boston. Mom emptied the cold weather clothes from the closet and shipped from SoCal.</p>
<p>He stayed in a Cambridge B&B for a couple of weeks until he could find a place.</p>
<p>Moral: Don’t give up…</p>
<p>Q. I know the prevailing opinion on Caribbean med schools (just don’t do it!), but D and her BF are talking about a European option if both of them fail to gain entry to a US allopathic school. Specifically, they’re talking about applying to Poznan University of Medical Sciences in Poland. ([USA</a> Office Welcome Page - Poznan University of Medical Sciences, Poland](<a href=“http://www.mdprogram.com/]USA”>http://www.mdprogram.com/)) It is an English language program for American and Canadian college grads and is fully accredited (whatever that means!). Its students take the USMLE and it supposedly has about 97% placement rate into US residency programs. (Students are also eligible for US Stafford loans to finance it.) Any thoughts?</p>
<p>BTW, the BF is fluent in Polish. It’s his first language and he has family in Poland.</p>
<p>WOWM- I don’t know about the school in Poland, but I know at least a dozen kids who attended med school in the UK, which means no UG, they go right into med school out of HS and whilst no one is old enough to have come back to North America yet, they seem to not be worried about that. From what I know they are doing residency in the UK, I will be watching to see how it works as some of DDs HS friends are over there now.</p>
<p>^I heard about Med. School in Ireland being popular with American kids. I know the story, when americans (both from USA) even got married while attending over there.</p>
<p>Oops! Not Poznan, it’s Jagiellonian in Krackow. </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.medschool.cm-uj.krakow.pl/[/url]”>http://www.medschool.cm-uj.krakow.pl/</a></p>
<p>It’s where the BF’s family is from. And it’s supposed to have a cooperative program with some of the UC med schools and URochester for clinicals.</p>
<p>WOWM…are your D and her BF trying to get accepted to the same US med school?</p>
<p>Yes, they both applied to a same jointly acceptable list of schools. But they’ve also agreed that if they both don’t get accepted into the same school(s), each of them will go to wherever each has the best offer. Poland is fall-back position only if neither of them gets into any US schools.</p>
<p>Complicated and likely only to get more so if they manage to stay together thru medical school and end up trying to do a couple’s match for residency. (She’s interested in radiation oncology/radiology; he’ll likely go into surgery.)</p>
<p>Wow…totally complicated.</p>
<p>My son’s GF is a pre-pharm major, so they also have had this discussion.</p>
<p>Yeah, I’m just glad that D2 (who’s taking her MCAT this Sept and will be applying for fall 2013) has a BF who is not at all interested in any medical field.</p>