<p>D.O. is Doctor of Osteopathy</p>
<p>A D.O. is education-wise lower than an M.D.; however, legally a DO is equivalent to an MD. DOs can have all the same types of jobs as MDs and can specialize in the same kinds of things, so at the end of the day, more or less, a DO is the same as an MD</p>
<p>How About if a person in berkeley who is pre-med graduates in three years instead of four? Is it possible for a person to do that?</p>
<p>i am doing just that^^ its fully possible</p>
<p>A whatever studies major with a 3.8 is not the same as an IB/MCB GPA.....your med school app requires BCMP- no matter what your major there is a section for just math & science grades. If you are an English major you still need to take those basic math/sci classes.</p>
<p>If you are a science major you may actually have a higher BCMP GPA as your upper div classes could raise it with strong grades, assuming you do well after the weeder classes</p>
<p>^The catch is that in MCB the standard system where UDs are easier than LDs is slightly inverted due to the excessive difficulty of MCB, meaning UD MCB courses are not known to bump up people's BCMP GPA. For IB, Public Health, BioE, and most other biology majors, it is true that their UD biology courses are easier than the lower division requirements and may bump up their BCMP GPA</p>
<p>So you take a measly 8 LD courses of math/science to appease medical schools versus a bunch of technical units (if you're in bioE). </p>
<p>Plus you can take math 16A/B instead of math 53/54 and physics 8A/B versus 7A/B.</p>
<p>
[quote]
A whatever studies major with a 3.8 is not the same as an IB/MCB GPA.....your med school app requires BCMP- no matter what your major there is a section for just math & science grades. If you are an English major you still need to take those basic math/sci classes.</p>
<p>If you are a science major you may actually have a higher BCMP GPA as your upper div classes could raise it with strong grades, assuming you do well after the weeder classes
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</p>
<p>Yeah, but as a creampuff major, you could take those math/science courses in a different school entirely, i.e. at an easy community college during the summer and/or after you graduate. {Note, I still don't see why Berkeley won't allow students to do that during the regular school year. Like I said, it's your free time, you should be allowed to do what you want with it, and if that means joint enrolling at a community college and taking all of your premed courses there, why should Berkeley prevent you from doing that?} </p>
<p>Now, I agree with other posters that it may not look good to med-schools to have taken all of your premed courses elsewhere while enrolled at Berkeley. But what really looks bad is taking those courses at Berkeley and doing poorly. Like I've always said, for the purposes of premed admissions, it's better to not take a difficult course at all than to take it and get a bad grade. Sad but true.</p>
<p>
[quote]
{Note, I still don't see why Berkeley won't allow students to do that during the regular school year. Like I said, it's your free time, you should be allowed to do what you want with it, and if that means joint enrolling at a community college and taking all of your premed courses there, why should Berkeley prevent you from doing that?}
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I can see <em>why</em> I guess, just the very intrinsic value to actually taking your classes where you are enrolled, though this isn't to say I think Berkeley is doing the best for its premed students -- unfortunately, having as many loopholes as is possible is just definitely a good thing for the ugly premed game.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I can see <em>why</em> I guess, just the very intrinsic value to actually taking your classes where you are enrolled,
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<p>As I said before, nobody would be stopping you from taking your classes where you enroll. If you want to take all of your premed courses at Berkeley, you are perfectly free to do that. </p>
<p>On the other hand, you should also have the option to take them elsewhere without restriction. The truth of the matter is that a lot of people who can't get into med-school because they performed poorly in Berkeley's premed courses would have done perfectly fine if they had taken those courses elsewhere and hence probably would have gotten in. </p>
<p>Obviously, if you can get top grades in the Berkeley premed courses, you should just do that, as clearly getting an A at Berkeley is more valuable than getting an A at a community college. But most people won't get A's. Many will in fact get quite bad grades. Berkeley's premed grading curves in fact dictate that this be so. Those people, frankly, would have been better off taking those courses at an easy community college.</p>
<p>^
yes im learning it the hard way.</p>
<p>The sad thing is that even getting an A- or B+ at Berkeley in premed prep courses, which feels like a major victory, actually serves to lower your GPA towards the lower end of the 3.0-4.0 spectrum. So even when one has actually done quite well the GPA can still be low for med school apps</p>