<p>At orientation we had meetings with faculty about taking classes, and my professor liked my test scores and wanted me to take AP credit for both bio, chemistry, statistics, and calculus. I think it would be fine to do that for statistics and calculus, but I'm wary about skipping bio and chem (and taking higher level classes). Were any of you in this situation? I want to just disregard what he said and sign up for the normal, but he is the head of the biology department and he was quite emphatic about me taking the specific foundations biochemistry course.</p>
<p>Bio is fine to skip. I’d take at least one semester of calculus of some kind; I really love multivariable and I think it’s a very valuable course, so I’d recommend you take the credit and then take Calc III.</p>
<p>I think you’re right to focus on chemistry as the main issue. Most schools will allow you to use biochemistry to fill your general chemistry requirement, but not all. You might have to investigate this more closely – in particular, focus on your state schools. Check out their admissions requirements (usually available on their websites) and see what they say.</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure he was advising me with the state school requirements in mind (OHSU), so I should meet the requirements for application there. However, I was thinking more along the lines of being prepared for the MCAT/not being overwhelmed. I had thought biochem isn’t on the MCAT, so it wouldn’t make much sense taking it so early, however, I’m thinking I might major in biochemistry… I think I will just opt for genchem instead and assume/hope he doesn’t remember the advising session.</p>
<p>heh - yeh, why not take it first/2nd semester to allow yourself to adjust?</p>
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<p>I wish I had known this a few years ago.</p>
<p>Some potential problems with taking biochemistry instead of two semesters of general chemistry:</p>
<p>It is sometimes not easy to tell whether a medical school would accept biochemistry as general chemistry. For example, some TX state medical schools (e.g. Texas Tech) seem to think that Biochemistry is a biology course, not a chemistry course. Some medical schools in the mid-west considers biochemistry as a replacement for organic chemistry II, not for general chemistry.</p>
<p>Also, some medical schools (e.g., UT, San Antonio) requires a semester of biochemistry. You can not use biochemistry to satisfy the general chemistry requirement, as you can not double-dip. For a UC medical school, I believe that they insist that a student should take first-year science and math classes. (But, is there still any OOS student who applies to any medical school there?! Maybe with the exception of some private ones like USC?)</p>
<p>At some schools, a biochemistry class does not include the lab. Then, the student does not have two semesters of general chemistry labs. A typical biochemistry class is one semester only, instead of two semesters – unless you take the more extensive, year-long, version of biochemistry.</p>
<p>I notice that some departments at most schools prefer that a student coming with good AP scores skip the first-year science or calculus classes. This may be especially true for some department like biochemistry, which prefers that a student satisfy the department’s pre-reqs (which are usually overlapped heavily with the medical school’s pre-reqs, actually exactly the same at some schools) as soon as possible so that the student can take more upper division/graduate classes offered by the biochemistry department. Not many professors enjoy teaching any medical school pre-req classes. They enjoy teaching the science classes beyond these medical school pre-reqs.</p>
<p>Be very careful about skipping courses using APs for a couple of reasons.</p>
<p>First off, assume your state school accepts that, well, you still have to apply other places. If you in OR you will have to stretch far across the country to find other schools as options, I would hate to limit those options further by skipping 4 classes that may or may not be okay with some of the schools.</p>
<p>That being said, my DD did skip Bio 1A & bio 1B as a bio major and used her upper div classes on the forms, things like anatomy & genetics. For her in that case it seems fine- though I guess there is no way to tell for sure when one gets rejected!</p>
<p>But she did not skip the calc as she could not get into the class right away and felt she would have too long a math gap to be comfortable dropping in at a more advanced level and she was glad. </p>
<p>Many will assert that an AP class is really not equal to a college level course and if you skip the lower level course you may find yourself over-faced and getting poor marks in the upper division course. </p>
<p>If you are a Wiley Coyote Super Genius, maybe it all works out fine :)</p>
<p>It does seem that taking higher level rather than intro courses is generally acceptable, but you’d better hope you get As in those upper div courses</p>
<p>somemom: It is indeed true that more students skip intro bio, especially for a bio major. The only concern is whether the upper division bio includes a lab component or not.</p>
<p>It seems to me that many upper division bio lecture courses do not include a lab component, and some upper-division bio lab is a standalone course, with a course name which is completely unrelated to any lecture course. If this happens, I wonder whether it will become a problem when we need to fill out the application form on line in the future.</p>
<p>As it is often said, the devil is in the details.</p>
<p>My DD really did what was right for her. She felt prepared by AP bio and did not want to waste time with a year of that- she was able to take things like anatomy & lab and other upper div bios with labs. She took more than was required because she wanted to do that.</p>
<p>I don’t think it would be too difficult for a bio major to get the labs they need. I guess if you were a math major you might go with skipping calc I and head to the nitty gritty ‘fun’ stuff. It’s all about doing what is right for you and no5t just trying to follow some generic list some office tech made up.</p>
<p>It depends on school. D’s Gen Chem was one of her easiest classes, but first semester bio was weed out killer, that made good number of honors students change their major. D commented that it would not be possible to take next bio classes without first semester. She had both Honors and AP Bio in HS (5 on exam), and in addition her Honors HS Bio used the same book as first semester bio in college.</p>
<p>now you see the big problem of APs and why many schools do not like them.</p>
<p>On the other hand, I would listen to the Chair’s advice.</p>
<p>One of my DDs friends was required by her university to use her AP credits for placement and those 2nd year classes were tough going for her.</p>
<p>Whether to use AP units for placement should vary by the student’s gift in the subject and the difficulty of the courses at that particular school.</p>
<p>I had 5’s on calc ab and bc, but just took a semester of calc 2 in college. It was easy because it was review and I didn’t have to worry about my ap calc credit not counting as credit at some med schools. Why take an upper level math class if you don’t have to? That is of course, unless you do have to. Then you may as well just take calc 3 or whatever upper level math course is required for the major.</p>