<p>I will most likely take neuroscience as my major at UTD and I was wondering if I should enroll in the Honors program. I understand that med schools look at GPAs when considering admission so will enrolling in Collegium V affect my chances of getting a higher GPA?</p>
<p>What are the pros and cons of a pre-med student taking the Honors program route?</p>
<p>Are you an admitted as a freshman? Contact HPAC [HPAC</a> Contact - Health Professions Advising Center (HPAC) - The University of Texas at Dallas](<a href=“http://www.utdallas.edu/pre-health/contact]HPAC”>Contacting HPAC - The University of Texas at Dallas)</p>
<p>GUIDELINES FOR APPLYING TO TEXAS MEDICAL SCHOOLS </p>
<p>Medical schools will usually assess six basic factors to judge performance in college and other qualifications for admission. These factors are residence status (preference given to Texas residents), cumulative grade point average (GPA), Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT) scores, a completed application form, the evaluation(s) submitted by the health professions advisor or advisory committee, and a personal interview. </p>
<p>State Residence: By Texas State law, the enrollment of non-Texas resident applicants is limited to 10% of the entering class of Medical and Dental schools which receive state funding. Consequently, Texas residents are given preference in admissions and pay the more favorable resident tuition. The Residency Status Rules and Regulation for determining residency published by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board may be found at [Texas</a> Residency | Be a Longhorn](<a href=“http://www.utexas.edu/student/giac/residency.html]Texas”>http://www.utexas.edu/student/giac/residency.html) . </p>
<p>Academic Performance: The GPA is the major factor in evaluating academic performance. Also considered are consistency of grades, performance in required courses, course load per semester, number and academic rigor of colleges attended, discrepancies between GPA and MCAT scores, and social, economic, and/or educational background. Transcripts of all coursework and grades must be submitted to TMDSAS directly from each academic institution attended. In addition, a complete set of official transcripts must be provided, prior to enrollment, to the medical school to which you were accepted. The GPA will be a composite of all college work at all colleges attended and will be calculated by year, overall courses, and science courses. All grades will be used in the calculations, regardless of whether courses were repeated. The grades will be converted to a simple A, B, C, D, and F-system for purposes of calculating the GPA. </p>
<p>Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT): The MCAT is given more than 20 times during the year. Most test dates are available from April through July throughout the United States and in many other countries. The MCAT is a standardized, largely multiple-choice examination designed to assist admission committees in predicting which of their applicants will perform adequately in the medical school curriculum. Candidates should register electronically through the American Association of Medical Colleges web site: <a href=“http://www.aamc.org/students/mcat/start.htm[/url]”>www.aamc.org/students/mcat/start.htm</a>. The MCAT is a five-hour, computer-based test that assesses problem solving, critical thinking, and writing skills, in addition to the knowledge of science concepts and principles. It is administered in four sections: Physical Sciences, Verbal Reasoning, Writing Samples (two), and Biological Sciences.</p>
<p>Yes, I am an admitted freshman. My main concern is that taking these honors courses through Collegium V will hurt my chances of attaining a higher GPA. Can you please speak to this?</p>
<p>Hi, I’m a CV honors student at UTD as well as a pre-med and a neuroscience major (although I am switching to biology as I want to pursue a degree with more electives to put in some liberal arts and writing classes). Although I am only a freshman CV hasn’t been very detrimental to my GPA. Participation in the CV events/extracurricular activities is completely optional. In my case I wasn’t very involved in the CV program my 1st semester as I was still adjusting to the college workload. CV classes are mainly liberal arts classes and readings classes, at least for the past two semesters I registered for although there are science classes as well! This upcoming spring semester they offered neurobiology which can satisfy an upper level elective for the degree plan. Last semester they offered intro to psychology honors which is a good class to take considering you will be taking the new mcat. I took the honors psychology class last semester and it wasn’t too different from the normal psychology class and it was actually pretty easy especially since my class was only a size of 15-20 (compared to my other classes of 200). My next semester im taking honors local/state govt. to finish off my core requirements. CV offers a lot of core requirement classes that you can take just to be done with them as well as get your honors credit. It hasn’t been detrimental to my GPA at all and if you study hard you can do it. I would definitely give it a shot, anything that can help your med-school chances would be worthwhile trying right? Just because you get into the program doesn’t mean you have to continue it all the way through. Some pre-meds decide to start the program and quit it because they don’t want to add on a CV class to there already hard schedule in their later years. As far as I know, there is no penalty for not finishing the CV program. Even if you’re not sure how you will be able to handle it try it out. You get early registration (same day as seniors) and get to be in small classes as a freshman!</p>
<p>My gpa would have been a 4.0 instead of 3.99 thanks to the CV govt class haha. Med schools wont care if you are in the honors program or not. I agree with everything naokuvi mentioned above. Some CV classes are easier than the regular classes (humanities, psyc) and some are harder (govt). In the end, I chose not to graduate with CV honors.</p>
<p>My daughter is a freshman in CV. She started off as a neuroscience major, but switched to speech pathology at fall break.</p>
<p>She has only had one CV class, but it was literature of science fiction and fantasy and the topic was anime. She absolutely loved it.</p>
<p>The CV class she has for spring semester is going to be a LOT more difficult, Crises of Constitution. She is looking forward to it because she finds government fascinating even though she isn’t interested in it as a major. </p>
<p>She doesn’t think she is going to end up finishing the whole CV program because she doesn’t want to do the research project that is required for junior and senior years. Right now she is enjoying the perks of being in CV: the honors lounge, small classes with lots of discussion, and early registration.</p>
<p>I don’t think CV will necessarily affect your GPA. Some CV classes are more difficult than others.</p>
<p>Link to list of CV courses for spring semester (different from what was offered in fall semester):
<a href=“http://honors.utdallas.edu/cv/classes[/url]”>http://honors.utdallas.edu/cv/classes</a></p>
<p>WOW. Lots of folks switching out of neuroscience. Don’t mean to TC but Neuroscience at UTD is good right ?</p>
<p>UTD has a pretty good neuroscience program. Lots of the professors in the department are praised by previous students and there are a lot of research programs/activities that you can take part of, although I admit the BBS advising is kind of subpar compared to NSM advising, least in my experience. I didn’t switch out because the program was bad. My primary reasons were 1) I figured that I liked biology better than neuroscience topics 2) The biology degree, with the AP credits I brought in, gave me more flexibility to take classes outside of the sciences that I wanted to take (I wanted to pursue a creative writing/english/humanities type of minor and the biology degree plan gave me more flexibility to do this without having to load on a lot of credit hours).</p>
<p>^^ haha. I graduated as a neuro major. Would have chose something else if I did it over again. But yes, neuro at utd is good and the profs are good. BBS advising does blow though</p>
<p>Throughout high school my ECs have been focused towards engineering since I originally planned to study engineering. I have changed my mind and now I want to become a doctor. Therefore, I plan to major in neuroscience. </p>
<p>Since this is a big change in majors how difficult will it be attaining research positions, clinical experience, and leadership positions during my undergraduate years, especially since I can’t attest to doing anything med related in high school. I have done research in engineering, but not science-related research.</p>
<p>sat2012 you’re fine. College is a complete fresh start in high school. Sure some people from your high school and maybe even your close friends might attend the same college but rarely are they going to ask you what you did in high school. As a freshman you might want to include some activities that you did in high school on resumes to some things (a few high school/early college programs ask for this) but they dont have to be medically related. They can show your other values like leadership and teamwork, things very important to the health care field. Join some pre-med organizations on campus and get involved in those. Talk to your advisors about any research or internship programs available to you as a freshman. Volunteer at hospitals and email professors doing research requesting a position if you are interested in what they are doing. Most people understand that high school and college is a time to find out what you want to do in life and they won’t judge you just because you did engineering related things in high school…those wont even matter in the med application process. If you want to get some clinical experience in before you actually hit undergrad consider volunteering at a hospital over the summer before your freshman year and shadow a doctor to see if you really like medicine. You can also look for high school/early college internship and research programs around your area. Hope this helped.</p>
It was nice getting to know about CV program. I will be entering as a freshman to CV and don’t want to repeat same mistake what I did at high school. I was highly accelerated student at high school and always stressed. In spite of very high SAT and ACT score as well as all leadership experience I was not selected to any direct med program but short listed in one because of my 3.8 GPA.
I would like to take courses which prepare me for the Med school and for MCAT and would like to maintain my GPA to 4.0. Could you please advise me the classes which I have to take freshman year as a PreMed student. I will be majoring in Biology.
Any input will be appreciated.