<p>I was looking at my hypothetical 4 year plan for a Psychobiology major with an LGBT Studies minor... I would be a very squished and chaotic four years. And it's not like I'll be able to get into all these classes in the quarters I want. A 5 year plan sounds very tempting right now.</p>
<p>Do medical schools frown upon fifth year applicants? I would much rather take my time and do well than mash all my classes into four years and do poorly. Sure, it would be an extra year, but I really want to minor and the time spacing would allow more flexible research/volunteering/extracurricular times.</p>
These things alone could very well be the tipping factors about whether you get in or not. I doubt med schools are going to notice it took 5 years to finish college or even ask; and if they did, answering that you wanted to do these activities would be a more than acceptable answer. After all they accept plenty of people that do post-bac work to improve their science grades, fill a missing course, etc., and these people have spent 1-3 years after undergrad.</p>
<p>Thanks for the responses. All my intense pre-med friends are gung-ho about graduating in 4 years, and they’re already stacking classes like crazy, adding labs like they’re easy courses. I’d much rather take my time.</p>
<p>I’m sure mikemac and others can offer more insight, but my understanding is that it doesn’t matter. Plenty of my friends who were/are at top med schools did more than 4 years.</p>
<p>OP, you should visit the pre med forum here on CC. I am just a mom of a pre med, but from what I have gathered from the med school students on this forum, a 5th year would be frowned upon. Schools want to see that you can handle extreme courseloads and graduate on time. The other thing I have learned is that a minor (or a double major) doesn’t matter.</p>
<p>Really? Because my acquaintance did a 5th year and is at Yale. </p>
<p>GA2012MOM,</p>
<p>If it is frowned upon, it’s not a big deal. The fact is, most adcoms at med schools don’t even have time to look at specific coursework or timelines. </p>
<p>mikemac is an actual honest to goodness med student (or doctor now?), and I think his opinions are always reliable. My wife is a med student, and she said the same thing: it doesn’t matter.</p>
<p>In the case of top med schools I tend to say: don’t worry. The truth is, all med school admission is, to a degree, a crap shoot. And in terms of career opportunities, it’s not so much going to Harvard that determines your career as it is the Step 1 and your general performance in med school.</p>
<p>While it’s true that some schools have more of a “pedigree” in certain fields (Harvard sends a lot more to derm than my wife’s school, for instance), as long as you end up at a good school with a good name, you’ll be fine.</p>
<p>Also, and this is 100% serious, consider cost. While my wife will be a physician (not a surgeon!) soon, we will enter our post-school lives with over a quarter of a million in debt thanks to private med school tuition and fees.</p>
<p>Between going to Harvard for med at full price and UCI for med at in-state price, I think UCI may be the better choice in many, many cases. Trust me that when the loan bills start hitting, you start wondering if you really do make a lot of money.</p>
Unfortunately I’m not… Although I did start in the premed track and then took that fun O-chem course (“here’s a 500 page book; memorize every page”). So I ended up in something else. But I do have friends who are doctors ;)</p>
<p>I suggest you ask your question in the premed forum. There is a poster, bigredmed, who has been on the forum for years and is now a 2nd year resident after finishing med school. Here’s what he wrote in a recent post, BTW
All my intense pre-med friends are gung-ho about graduating in 4 years, and they’re already stacking classes like crazy, adding labs like they’re easy courses. I’d much rather take my time.</p>