<p>I'm having a little trouble figuring out my course schedule for the fall semester. I'm a current freshman and a Neuroscience major. As it stands now, if I was to take nothing over summer, I would be taking biochem, orgo I, and a neuroscience course next fall. My academic advisor as well as the Neuroscience department has told me to avoid this trifecta because it is too much science for one semester. </p>
<p>My question is, would it look bad for med school if I took Orgo I over the summer at Rutgers (my state school) to lighten my fall load? I would take it at Hopkins(my undergrad school) but my parents want to save the additional tuition and living costs. </p>
<p>Also, I was planning to take Orgo II at Hopkins since I don't have a course-overload problem that semester(spring 2007). Would it be better if I just finished Orgo I and II at the same time over the summer?</p>
<p>Why don't you take one of the other courses in the summer at Rutgers instead. Also are you sure you are 100% in gen. chem? You do need a year of it and med schools do not like AP credit. If you are extremely confident in it, dont take it but realize you will need to take more then just ochem to make up for you taking in high school. Or you can take it over again, get a really good grade easily if you do know it, and show med schools just how good you are and pad your GPA a little.</p>
[quote]
"Will med schools think poorly of me if I take a required class at another institution?</p>
<p>The answer to this will depend to some extent upon your record at Duke and your reasons for doing so. If you have chosen to take the bare minimum of science courses required to make application to medical school and then have taken some of those at a less demanding institution, the medical schools might question either your self-confidence, your abilities, or both. However, if you take most of your required courses as a part of a challenging curriculum at Duke, but choose to take a required course at another solid institution for financial, scheduling, etc. reasons, they are not likely to be too concerned. If the course is one that is tested on the MCAT, they may look to your MCAT score to be sure you were well prepared."
<p>I thought Ochem would be my best bet because the syllabus at Rutgers matches pretty well with the syllabus at Hopkins, which isn't true for the Biochem course or the neuroscience course.</p>
<p>bluedevilmike, that's what my reasoning has basically been. That's why I want to take Orgo II at Hopkins, just to show that I can handle the workload and difficulty.</p>
<p>bigndude, I'm pretty confident about my gen. chem abilties, and yes, I did AP out of it. Do you think I would need to take some upper-level course like Pchem or Inorganic chem to satisfy med schools? I'm not sure I could take gen. chem over again and still be able to fit all my other major/distrbution requirements within 4 years.</p>
<p>These requirements are giving me such a headache....</p>
<p>Is biochem cross-listed between the biology and chemistry departments at Duke? It's only offered under the bio department here as far as I know, but I'm going to check with the pre-professional office about whether or not it can be used to satisfy chemistry requirements. </p>
<p>I would make sure that before you AP out of any required class, that you check with the schools that you are considering applying to. I know that a friend of mine had to take Gen Chem as a junior because he found out that his AP credit would not count for many medical schools. At my school (Nebraska Coll of Med) they encourage taking an upper level course to "cover" the course you credited out of.</p>
<p>You should be able to find most school's stance on AP on their website (although I couldn't find any on Iowa or KU right off the bat).</p>
<p>I would strongly encourage you to take something other than ochem over the summer; I'd think biochem would be your best bet to lighten the load, as neuroscience courses aren't always the toughest (this isn't a slight, it's my major too) and you'd be able to juggle that and orgo better. My advisors have always said that taking premed reqs of any sort over the summer, even at your home school (UPenn in my case) isn't looked favorably upon if you do it for multiple courses, and have treated taking orgo over the summer as some sort of cardinal sin that will be greatly frowned upon.</p>
<p>Like bluedevilmike, I'm using biochem as an upper-level course that will count towards my gen chem requirement since I AP'd out of it. With that in mind, do you still think i should take it over the summer, phillySASer08</p>
<p>yes, if only because orgo's covered on the MCAT, and whatever biochem you're in won't be, and you'll probably retain less if you take a class in a shortened summer session.</p>
<p>At least the way biochem was taught to us, it was the sequel to organic chemistry - that is, OC was a prereq for BC. If you try to take them out of order, you may find yourself in trouble with the material. Check to make sure that this won't be the case.</p>
<p>I really don't think you're talking about a really heavy load. If you only have this for one semester, it couldn't be that bad. I'm taking Orgo and advanced mechanics in conjunction with an intro neuroscience class and it's not totally unnerving. I don't know how hard these classes are at The JHU or how hard biochemistry is juxtaposed against physics, but it cannot be too different. Of course, I would agree with some of the earlier posts that if you were to choose a class to take over the summer, I would go with biochem. I would want to take all the premed requirements at my primary institution.</p>
<p>Also, if you buttress your load with social sciences or something less-challenging, it shouldn't be that bad. For example, I'm taking political science and economics.</p>
<p>JHU is odd in that biochem is usually taken sophomore year by students in biology and biology-related majors in conjunction with orgo I. At most other places, biochem is taken junior or even senior year.</p>
<p>Dores, both academic advising and the neuro department advise students against the trifecta based on experience with previous students who did take the combination. The juniors and seniors I've talked to also say it's pretty much academic suicide, especially if you take the related labs as well (orgo and biochem lab). </p>
<p>But I think I have the problem solved. My faculty advisor has suggested I just shift biochem by a year and take it as a junior in the fall instead of next semester. It would basically take the place of physics since I took that this year.</p>
<p>Biochem at least at my school is usually take 2nd year or above. Its not rare for people to take it with orgo. What is rare is for a freshmen to take such courses since you are NOT used to the workloads and tests you will have.</p>