<p>As a rising freshman, my advisor is recommending taking at least 15 credits first semester to graduate on time. However, full time at my school is 12 credits at my school.</p>
<p>Taking the advice of playing it safe while I transition into college and knowing the importance of earning As, would 12 credits be too easy during the first semester/ possibly year? Other than taking more credits later on to compensate for the less credits freshman year, is there any cons to taking this 12 credit route during my first year?</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/1331981-new-pre-med-students.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/1331981-new-pre-med-students.html</a></p>
<p>The only issue might be that you would have to delay your graduation by a semester or a year if your major has a lock-step curriculum of requirements. (Meaning it would be difficult to catch-up by overloading/taking summer coursework.)</p>
<p>It’s important when planning your 4 year schedule that you build-in a light courseload your senior year since you may miss significant amount of class time attending med school interviews. (IOW, you will need to catch-up during your sophomore and junior years–which may or may not be a good idea. Sophomore year is usually a heavy year course-wise with OChem. Junior year will the last set of grades you have before filing your med school application.)</p>
<p>It’s more likely OP has to delay med school than graduating so that senior year can be used for real classes. If you have to choose for some reason, it’s definitely better to graduate in 4 years and take a gap year than graduate in 5 and go straight to med school.</p>