Does anyone have any experience being pre med at UA? What opportunities are there? For some background info, I will be a Chem major and I have been accepted into the honors college. I’m a high school senior right now. I applied for UFE and CBH because both interest me…
I have done some research and found the following:
UA writes committee letters. How is this beneficial over regular LORs? How often/do they ever refuse to write letters for applicants?
The Medicine and Community Program. I search this on CC as well as read it’s page on the UA website. I haven’t come up with that much information. Any first hand experiences would be great!
I think CBHP and Emerging Scholars would also be good opportunities for Pre meds. What other research opportunities are there outside of these?
Also, I would like to become an EMT in college. Is this common at UA? Has anyone else done it? I am OOS and I will not have a car. I’m not sure if it will still be possible to pursue this without transportation. I am probably going to get a bike. Does UA offer an EMT basic class? If not, is there a local CC that has one? Where is the nearest place that I could work?
One of our most active posters, mom2collegekids, has a son with a UA undergrad degree who’s now in med school. She’ll probably be along soon to answer some of your questions. In the meantime, you might try a search of the UA forum. I believe some of these questions have been answered earlier. Best of luck…Roll Tide!
Hi @55al00m ! I’m a sophomore pre-med here at Alabama and I’m in CBH as well. I don’t know the answers to all your questions but I’ll answer what I can.
Medicine and Community: I don’t know anything about this, but the College of Community Health Sciences has a shadowing program in family medicine and pediatrics at the University of Alabama Med School clinics right near campus. You will get information about the application in the pre-med advising newsletter. I did the family med one last semester and it’s a great program.
Research: Emerging Scholars and CBH are definitely your best bets for getting the best research opportunities and being prepared to do well with them, but you can also find research positions just by contacting professors within your department. Since you’re a chem major, make sure to talk with your first chemistry professor and they’ll either have opportunities within their lab or know a colleague who needs undergrads. Networking is key!
EMT: I’m actually working on this right now! I’m starting a little late, but I’m hoping to work or volunteer with the ambulance company that contracts with the city of Tuscaloosa. It might be more difficult to do without a car. Alabama Fire College in Tuscaloosa offers EMT-B classes but there aren’t any through UA or Shelton State (the local community college). If your state has license reciprocity with Alabama it might be easiest to do the licensing over the summer but obviously only if that will meet the requirements.
Best of luck! Message me if there’s anything else you’d like to ask! And Roll Tide!
My advice: Get as many of your intro science classes out of the way as possible with APs, CLEP, or College in High School. Avoiding weeders will make your life easier and your GPA higher.
EMT program is available, a fair amount of kids do it, they get to work at Football games.
I don’t know anything about the research programs you talked about, my advice would be just to talk to professors and see if they have anything in their department you could work on.
Additionally, there really is no “Pre-med” degree at UA. The pre-med track is not binding either. As long as you get the medical school pre-reqs done you can go to medical school. There may be differences between what UA requires for the pre-med track and what med schools (especially OOS) actually require.
@springy179
Thanks!! I just looked at a few ambulance services in the area after reading your post. It seems that many of them are relatively close and probably within biking distance! The Alabama Fire College is a little further, but hopefully still manageable. I would most likely take the class spring of my freshman year and start working fall of sophomore year. I would rather adjust to college in the fall without that additional commitment. I just looked at the AL fire college page and it seems that the class (this spring) starts January 7. I think that is before dorms reopen and students return. If this is the case, should I take the class fall of freshman year? How are you planning on doing it?
Many medical schools will not accept some or all AP credits, especially science credits. In addition, schools normally suggest or require that students taking a lot of bio coursework take Bio 101 rather than skipping ahead. There’s not really a way to avoid weeders.
You probably shouldn’t apply AP humanities credits either, unless you’ve called every medical school you could possibly consider applying to and made sure they’re fine accepting those credits.
@55al00m I am hoping to take the class this coming semester but will postpone if I need to. I live off-campus so it’s not an issue, but I would assume that the schedule changes semester to semester. I wouldn’t try to juggle adjusting to college, getting involved, football season, AND EMT training all in one semester. There’s no rush. As a pre-med your priority is your GPA, and especially if you’re planning to start research as well, that’s plenty to keep you busy. After a couple of semesters, you can learn how to focus your priorities and you can add in the EMT stuff then. I feel like the hands-on experience of being an EMT will help your medical experience and your applications whether you do it for two, three, or four years.
Many people don’t understand the AP credits and med school issue. Nearly all med schools will let you use AP credits to skip the lower science classes, BUT YOU MUST then take higher level science classes with labs.
My son (a MS3) skipped Bio I and II and Chem I and II with AP credits, and that was no problem for med schools BECAUSE he took higher level Bio and Chem classes with labs to make up for it. My son was a ChemEng’g major with Bio, Chem and Math minors, so he had plenty of higher level science courses.
What people confuse is that, for instance, if you were a music major, you couldn’t just use your AP credits, then take Orgo I and II and call it a day.
Since there are some undergrads that will not allow a student to retake classes that he/she has AP credits, med schools have this work around…taking higher level courses with labs to demonstrate proficiency.
My son also used his AP English credits to fulfill the Frosh Comp req’ts. Med schools were totally fine with that because Bama requires 6 credits of Writing Intensive upper division classes. On the AMCAS app, there are fields that deal EXACTLY with these issues.
<<< UA writes committee letters. How is this beneficial over regular LORs? How often/do they ever refuse to write letters for applicants? >>>
Committee Letters are a huge plus. The school is essentially vouching for this student. I have never heard of anyone being denied a CL, but I imagine that if someone were truly an inadequate applicant that student would have long been discouraged from applying.
Since the humanities courses are new optional req’ts, I have not heard that you can’t use AP credits for them. A student could take the CLEP test for them. I will look into this, but I doubt this will be an issue.
@mom2collegekids I love all your feedback on CC. My oldest DD is starting UA this fall (2017). I know this is an older blog post, but I was reading up about pre-med and CBH at UA. She will be a ChemE major like your son. She is excited to be part of the CBH program because she is hoping to do research in biomedical or something around that area of interest since UA doesn’t exactly have biomedical engineering. My main question is around AP credits. You mentioned that your son tested out of Bio I and II and Chem I and II and that isn’t a problem with med schools as long as they take higher level courses with labs. She is wondering whether she should retake these foundational science classes even if she tests out with AP so that she has a good basis for the harder/higher level classes. Do you think that is a good idea or not necessary? She feels the same way about Calculus which she took as a junior and tested out, but she is worried she will be rusty and should retake it since she is an engineering major.
Sorry to ramble. Any insights you have would be appreciated. Thanks so much!
My feelings are this…those courses are weeder courses and I think they can potentially hurt an earnest premed’s GPA. If a student feels strong enough to skip, then skip. If a student feels the need to refresh, then self-study.
@geauxsanders I would recommend retaking Bio 1 and skipping Bio 2 with the AP credits. Bio 1 was a nice review and an easy A (some had trouble with honors section, I took regular one) and I’m glad I skipped Bio 2. My friends are currently going through Bio 2 and it is just straight memorization. The amount of information they go through is absurd and you likely won’t use it in the future. You’d have to take an upper level Bio course (with lab) though.
As for Chem, I would retake both 1 and 2 for review and to protect GPA. It might not be such a good idea to jump straight into Organic Chemistry as a freshman… but that’s just my opinion.
I agree with skipping Bio 2 if you intend on taking Bio 1.
As for taking Ochem as a frosh if you use your Chem credits…not necessary to take as a frosh.
As for protecting the GPA, I’ve seen a number of A students who were strong in high school chem and AP Chem, but ended up with B’s or worse in Gen Chem because of weeding.