I was wondering, how determinate is it that a med school would disregard your application given taking a pre-req P/F in this situation. The reason I ask is because the Calc I class at my university has undergone what I can only describe as a perfect (or rather, imperfect) storm; it’s been restructured all of a sudden this semester to be taught from an engineering standpoint, had its curriculum reversed to be taught with harder topics first as opposed to the way it’s been taught in past years, it’s being taught by making us watch a series of free videos on YouTube made by one of our professors instead of actually lecturing to us, and on top of all of that, this being in the midst of forced remote learning. (I guess I should note that the course is supposedly a weed-out course, but that’s not confirmed, and also, the course was advertised as a Calc I course, when we were immediately put into Calc II topics). Would it be wrong to take this course P/F this semester as it could possibly diminish chances of getting into med school, or could I do so? Thanks in advance!
I go to Brown, and our Health Careers Advising department (brown.edu/go/healthcareers) states the following:
“If you do decide to take a pre-health/pre-medical requirement course during the fall through Brown, plan to take it for a grade. Mandatory S/NC [Pass/Fail] courses are OK.”
As Calculus is a requirement for some medical schools, I wouldn’t recommend (based on the above text,) to take it Pass/Fail. If your school has an advising department, I strongly suggest contacting them regarding next steps. If your school doesn’t, the NAAHP (NACAC but for med school admissions,) offers free advisors to students at schools w/o one.
NAAHP Find An Advisor: https://www.naahp.org/student-resources/find-an-advisor
Hope that helps!
If your calc class is only offered P/F due to Covid, med school may make an exception and allow it to be used to fulfill a pre-reqs.
However, if the college is offering the course as a graded class and you opt to take it P/F-- not only does that looks bad (basically it signals that you are doing very poorly/barely passing in the class), but it also means that course cannot be used to fulfill any admission requirements.
BTW, any explanation as to why you elected to take this class P/F will only comes as excuse-making. Don’t even think of trying to do that.
A suggestion–if you truly believe that you cannot succeed in this calc class, withdraw. A W is better than a P/F in a graded core class.
Most med school will count your Pass grade in an otherwise graded course as a “C”. Do not take a course like that.