Hi, I’m a 2nd year chemistry major, and am interested in going to med school after college. I received AP credit in high school for chemistry (and some other courses), so I decided to skip first year general chemistry.
Instead of gen chem, I took organic chemistry last year. I ended with an A+ in both OChem courses and their labs (the class average was a C-).
However, I recently read some requirements for med schools, and they stated that you cannot use AP credit to skip requirements.
Does this mean that I should have taken first-year chemistry? Or does the fact that I’m a chemistry major and will have to take many upper level chemistry courses “excuse” the first year course I skipped?
If it does not, should I take take general chemistry (maybe over summer)? I sure hope not, and hopefully the fact that I did well in organic chemistry (and currently have an A in biochemistry) will show them that I understand chemistry…
Presumably, a chemistry major degree program will include plenty of upper level chemistry course work in chemistry subjects other than organic chemistry.
Oh, okay! That’s awesome. I also like physics (and got AP credit, so I have no major requirement), but I’m not a physics major. So for med school applications, I guess it’s fine if I take an upper level astrophysics course?
Medical schools may specify lab requirements for science subjects. For chemistry, you will presumably have to take upper level chemistry labs for your major, but for physics, you may have to specifically include upper level physics lab if you choose to skip the introductory level physics courses (that normally have labs) with upper level physics courses (many of which do not necessarily have labs).
Before you skip ANY med school requirements, you must speak to your college’s Healthcare advisor to find out in your situation, what has to be done. Since it might be school specific.
D had 5s in her AP Bio, but she has to take the premed intro bio for those who got AP 5 in her college for a year and it turned out to be the most difficult science courses for her. Each college may have different levels of courses for premed.
Medical schools strongly recommend (read: require) that students with AP credits supplement those AP credits with an equivalent number of additional UL electives in the same dept. if they want to have a competitive application. So since you skipped gen chem, you should probably plan on need taking a year of inorganic or analytic chemistry with labs in addition to ochem & biochem (which has no lab at most colleges).
Don’t take astrophysics unless you have lots & lots of math. Thru differential eq at the very least. (NOTE: Astro–or any science-- classes intended for non-science majors will not fulfill med school admission requirements.) Also astro doesn’t have a lab. You will need lab credits unless your college specifically granted lab credits as part of the AP physics credit.
@billyjones Meet your pre-med adviser and/or check their web site. Most colleges, have a doc which will clearly spell out exact courses numbers you need to take. Also will have a doc which spells out what is that college course number for any AP credit. So it is important to note which specific Physics or any other courses you should do to meet the pre-med reqs.
In addition if you are so specific about any MD college, their web site will spell out whether AP credit is accepted or not. But things change every year and hard to predict where you will end up doing MD. So follow the guardrail rules as stated by above posts. Complete your college pre-med reqs + do some higher level courses if you are skipping any course due to AP credit.