<p>Below is a schedule that I have created. I wanted to know if it is a good schedule for someone who wants to be competitive for top medical schools. I have four concerns: (1) I may not have enough advanced classes; (2) I may be too science oriented and not sufficiently liberal in selection; (3) comparative literature may not fulfill requirements for english at some schools; (4) I may not have enough courses. So please look through my schedule and make any suggestions.</p>
<p>KEY: 100's= introductory, 200's= intermediate, 300's= advanced, 400's= most advanced, 500's = research level</p>
<p>MAJOR: NEUROSCIENCE
MINOR: BIOLOGY</p>
<p>FRESHMAN YEAR</p>
<p>Semester 1
• Biology: (100’s) Advanced Introduction to General Biology
• Physics: (100’s) Mechanical Physics
• Chemistry: (100’s) Principles of Chemistry
• Mathematics: (100’s) Calculus II
• Philosophy: (100’s) Introduction to Philosophy</p>
<p>Semester 2
• Physics: (100’s) Waves and Fields
• Chemistry: (200’s) Inorganic Chemistry and Materials
• Mathematics: (200’s) Vector Calculus
• Chemistry: (100’s) Organic Chemistry I
• Biology: (200’s) Genes and Genomes</p>
<p>SOPHOMORE YEAR</p>
<p>Semester 1
• Classics/Latin: (100’s) Elementary Latin I
• Psychology : (100’s) Introductory Psychology
• Chemistry: (200’s) Organic Chemistry II
• Biology: (300’s) Cell Biology</p>
<p>Semester 2
• Classics/Latin: (100’s) Elementary Latin II
• Psychology/Neuroscience: (200’s) Introduction to Brain and Behavior
• Biology: (300’s) Vertebrate Physiology
• Psychology/Neuroscience: (200’s) Human Neuropsychology</p>
<p>JUNIOR YEAR</p>
<p>Semester 1
• Classics/Latin: (200’s) Intermediate Latin: Ancient Rome
• Psychology: (200’s) Statistics and Research Methods in Psychology
• Biology: (300’s) Biochemistry
• Neuroscience/Biology: (357F) Cellular Neurobiology</p>
<p>Semester 1
• Classics/Latin: (300’s) Roman Society and Culture
• Comparative Literature: (100’s) Literature and Ethics
• Neuroscience/Psychology: (300’s) Research Approaches in Cognitive Neuroscience
• Neuroscience: (500’s) Senior Research</p>
<p>Semester 2
• Neuroscience: (500’s) Senior Research
• Neuroscience/Biology/Psychology: (300’s) Neural Plasticity
• Comparative Literature: (200’s) Readings in World Literature II</p>
<p>unless you are superhuman, I really don't see you making out of freshman year in one piece, nor do I see the need for you to condense those courses as much as you are planning</p>
<p>take some of those classics/latin or lit courses freshman year and space out the intro sciences a little more</p>
<p>Echoing rd31 and philly: you will not survive freshman year.</p>
<p>Echoing philly: your schedule will change over the next several years; don't bother with detailed 4-year plans (it's good to have a general idea what you'd like to take, but such a specific list of courses is not realistic).</p>
<p>I know, I know, it's totally crazy that I dd this planning, but I guess I'm a nervous wreck if I don't have some sort of a detailed plan. After all, I am going into the most competitive track of study.</p>
<p>The reason I condensed a lot of science into the first two years was so that I can get the necessary training for the MCAT earlier, so that I basically know most of the stuff by the end of sophomore year so that I can have a better review for the MCAT.</p>
<p>And I saved the Lit and Classics/Latin classes for later on since I figured the more advanced classes are harder, and thus since I need to take at least 4 classes each semester anyway, I could use those easier classes to dilute the tension from the more advanced classes later on. Why doesn't this work?</p>
<p>Last question, considering the extremely low percentage of students that are admitted to the top ten medical schools, and considering that I'm aiming for those schools, is it at all worth it to take the risk with my freshman courseload and work my buttocks off? (I don't party or drink and I'm a pretty serious student, so perhaps that should help me?)</p>
<p>Oh and GoldShadow, thanks for the link, but I read that sticky before I made my list of courses, and I thought I was indeed following bluedevilmike's advice. I am so confused now.</p>
<p>i don't party or drink and i DEFINITELY wouldn't have tackled your freshman course schedule. don't forget, you want time to do valuable extracurriculars too (especially if you're looking at the top 10 Research Schools).</p>
<p>1) getting all of your stuff in time for an early MCAT will means zilch if you're GPA is so torched there will be no point in your taking for gaining admission to ANY med school, much less the top 10.</p>
<p>2) There is no point, none, in cramming all of your prereqs into a year and a half. This makes less than no sense. </p>
<p>3) generally speaking, higher level courses tend to be easier at least in terms of grading than lower level ones; this varies from course to course and school to school, but in general your reasoning is backwards.</p>
<p>4) to your last question: no, it is not worth the risk. When you say 'work my buttocks off' you simply have no idea what you're talking about. Unless you are a truly exceptional student, and I say that within the context of my own experience of going to a high-falutin, premed-heavy undergrad, you will not make it out of freshman year with your hopes of getting into a top med school intact. The work is too much for ANY semester in college, much less your first two when you are adjusting. If your school has any measure of decent premed advising, I would be utterly shocked if anyone recommended you take this course of action.</p>
<p>Actually, I encourage you to go ahead with that schedule. I'm an incoming freshmen too, and with that schedule, your GPA will surely be torched. So when our class applies to medical schools in 2012, there will be less competition for me to gain admission to top med schools.</p>
<p>Okay, so one last question before I head back to the drawing boards: does it help if I have taken AP Physics, AP Biology, AP Chemistry, AP Calculus AB, and AP Calculus BC, and have gotten a 5 on all of them (except for Calc BC, for which I am still waiting for the grade which I will receive in July, though I am expecting a 5)? Will my freshman courseload, which is largely filled with introductory science courses, still be too hard considering my results on the AP's (which are suppose to resemble introductory level college courses)?</p>
<p>learn the reps of the courses at your particular school before you think about placing out, as if you do you will need to find upper level classes that have the required labs to substitute for them (this can be challenging). If a class is known to be particularly brutal, then maybe think about it. By and large though, don't think of your APs as being worth anything. AP coursework is by and large not representative of college-level work most places, and if you're going to a competitive undergrad, everyone else got all 5s too.</p>
<p>My school gives me AP credit, but only if I take the actual introductory course; meaning I can't place out of the courses, but I can get double credit for taking those courses (I think it is a new policy). But I guess I figured that since I did well in those AP classes, I should be able to do well in the introductory college courses as well. But I trust phillySASer08 is correct, the AP courses are probably in no way represntative of the college introductory courses, since the AP exams are way, way too easy. </p>
<p>Alright, thanks for all the wonderful help. I suppose if nobody has any more suggestions to make, I'll go back to the drawing board.</p>
<p>Your doing those APs will make it slightly easier for you to do well in the college counterparts.</p>
<p>College courses, however, are much more difficult than their AP counterparts. I got fives on AP Bio and AP Chem; I still had to do a lot of studying for intro bio and (honors) general chem. I found that I had very little advantage, marginal at best, against other top students in the class that hadn't taken those APs.</p>
<p>You look like you've got a little wiggle room as well. Your senior year, it looks like you're not taking as many hours, so you can push some things back. You can also move things around. Personally, as much as I loved my science and math classes (and never considered majoring in anything but one of the sciences or math), I needed a humanities course each semester. Not as my "easy" course (in fact, it often ended up being the course that I worked hardest in), but it offered the human connection, I guess. Also, the reading for those courses was often more interesting than the reading for, say, my organic chemistry course.</p>
<p>I'm not exactly saying go easy your first semester (and of course most of us, myself included, took at least one pre-med requirement in the first semester), but realize that it's going to be an adjustment and that the workload might well be very different from what you've done in high school. Don't put half of your pre-med requirements in the first semester before you've gotten a chance to acclimate.</p>