<p>Hello,
This question is for current UChicago students, doing the premed track, especially those majoring in Biology. I would like to know what your schedule is for the 4 years (or at least a tentative schedule), and any advice you have on how I should take my classes.
thx</p>
<p>could someone please answer? I just want to see some schedules, so I can plan my courses.</p>
<p>Parent of an ex-pre-med here.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>It’s fun to think about planning your courses in advance, but this is really something that you wait and talk to your advisor and the pre-med advisor about during O-week.</p></li>
<li><p>There’s not a lot of mystery, though. In your first three years (32-36 courses), you need to take:</p></li>
</ol>
<ul>
<li>5 quarters of bio (3 if you got a 5 on the AP)</li>
<li>3 quarters of math</li>
<li>3 quarters of general chemistry</li>
<li>3 quarters of organic chemistry</li>
<li>3 quarters of physics</li>
<li>3 quarters of Sosc</li>
<li>3 quarters of Hum/arts</li>
<li>3 quarters of Civ/arts</li>
<li>2 quarters of language (unless you test out)
= 26-28 courses</li>
<li>some of your upper-level Bio requirements, say 5-6 more courses
= 31-34 courses</li>
</ul>
<p>So there’s not a whole lot of leeway.</p>
<p>You have to do at least two quarters of Hum your first year, and I suspect everyone does the math first year, since it’s a prerequisite for lots of other things. If you know you want to be a Bio major, you probably want to start Bio first year. So then your choice for a 4th course is (a) get Sosc out of the way now, (b) gen chem (because most people want to take it before organic), (c) physics (because you really want to take physics, and you’ll do gen chem-organic 2nd and 3rd years), or (d) language (if you need to take that). Second year, you’ll continue with Bio (and probably do a further Bio course third quarter), two of the choices you didn’t pick for your fourth course the previous year (or one of those plus organic chemistry if you did gen chem already), and (if you can still breathe) maybe some Civ or actual electives. </p>
<p>That would give you 19-24 of your 26-28 Core/basic courses in your first two years. Your third year, you do the rest of those (hopefully it’s 2-4, not 9), and a big chunk of the Bio major requirements.</p>
<p>And, if you think about it, you will understand why lots of people don’t actually do that, because it’s a killer. Doing something like taking Physics (or one of the other basic sciences) over a summer is very popular, if you can afford the extra tuition/earnings loss.</p>
<p>JHS:thanks for the details. When we were at prospie meetings, the Biological Sciences prof didn’t provide a compelling argument on whether pre-med is preferred/better over bio major. What metric did your S/D use to choose pre-med over bio?</p>
<p>There is no pre-med major. “Pre-med” really only means that you intend to meet the medical school admission requirement, which is essentially a full academic year each of calculus, biology, general chemistry, organic chemistry, and physics. Every pre-med is majoring in some actual academic field.</p>
<p>In theory, you can meet the med school admission requirement and major in English, or Economics. (One of my college friends who went directly to med school after college was actually a Fine Arts (Painting) major in college.) In practice, at Chicago, where the Core takes up a lot of time, too, it’s much easier if you major in a hard science so that your major requirements count for the admissions requirement and vice versa. Also, involvement in scientific research seems to be a de facto requirement for applying to medical school, and if you are spending that much time in the lab you probably want it to help you along with your BA thesis. So I think the vast majority of pre-meds at Chicago are majoring in biology, biochemistry, chemistry, or some other variant, and the rest are doing something else entirely. Also, lots of pre-meds essentially give up on the notion that they are going to meet the pre-med requirements in time to take their MCATs after their third year so as to apply to medical school before they leave college.</p>
<p>My son is no longer a pre-med because he really didn’t want to major in chemistry or biology, and he wanted to stop taking introductory science course after introductory science course and start taking courses that seemed interesting.</p>
<p>Hmm, RelaxedParent, what do you mean by premed vs bio? There is, in fact, no premed major at UChicago. If you were asking a more general question about whether to go to medical school or major in Biology, that is certainly a very person-specific question.</p>
<p>What JHS was outlining is the requirements from Medical schools on what their applicants must have taken in order to be considered for admission. To answer part of your question, the Biology major is very doable as a premed and likely would only take 2 or 3 other courses to fulfill the major requirements (which can be found in the course catalog). However it is not uncommon for premeds to major in Math or even in the Humanities in order to pursue other interests or diversify themselves from other premeds. Of course they still have to take the courses that JHS noted (which are required for application to med schools) but they can take all of their elective credits as Math courses (or Humanities courses) and end up getting a major in Math or Humanities versus Biology.</p>
<p>just to echo and clarify, from a recent uchicago grad in bio (not in med school)</p>
<p>there is no “pre-med” at uchicago. whether or not you decide to go to med school is largely irrelevant to your coursework (though you might take an mcat prep class on the side)</p>
<p>you can major in bio or a related field (chem, biochem) and go to med school with that</p>
<p>or you can major in something completely unrelated, take the required med school classes (ochem, biochem, bio core, 1 year of “english” or humanities as we call it), and apply to med school that way</p>
<p>windslicer, acidsting: thanks for clarifying the pre-med vs. bio confusion (on my part). I was under the assumption UC had pre-meds too.</p>
<p>sure. and just further clarification, there are u of c students that will say they are “pre-med” (though it means nothing as a practical matter), and the bio department has advisors that will help with med school applications (open to students of any major), its just that there’s no program for it. </p>
<p>there’s a pre-med student association which is a half-way decent source of info (though students mainly try to get involved in leadership positions for the resume bullet)</p>
<p>here’s the link: [The</a> Pre-Medical Students Association - PMSA](<a href=“http://pre-med.uchicago.edu/]The”>http://pre-med.uchicago.edu/)</p>
<p>There can be a bit of flexibility on top of what JHS outlined:</p>
<ul>
<li>about 8% of students place out of all math, so some don’t need to take calc first year.</li>
<li>there is some disagreement about whether AP physics credit, as awarded by Chicago, counts towards the physics requirement for med school admissions. </li>
</ul>
<p>So some kids can avoid physics and math…</p>
<p>I never paid enough attention to the AP effect, which was irrelevant to my kid. It looks like most medical schools will take AP credit for math (or don’t require math at all), and a much shorter list will take AP credit for some or all of physics. So, with the right AP scores, you might be able to knock out 3-5 of those classes. (I don’t think you have to place out of all three quarters of calculus. The bio major only requires two, which corresponds to Chicago’s AP Calc BC credit, and it looks like most medical schools will take a 5 on the BC AP as full satisfaction of their math requirement.)</p>
<p>JHS,</p>
<p>What is odd is that UofC says they will award credit for PHYS 12100-12200-12300 for a 4 or 5 on the Physics C AP exam. Does this mean course completion credit? I don’t know. </p>
<p>I guess we’ll get some idea when my D applies to med school in another year or two, since she did not take physics.</p>
<p>There is Pre-Med program in UChicago, it is called CCIM.</p>
<p>To clarify, CCIM is not a major, it is more of a club where you get advice about applying to medical school.</p>