question about pre-med track

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
1

<p>this might be kind of a long post, so please bear with me. </p>

<p>okay, so i've been seriously considering the possibility of premed studies—yes, i know it's a crapshoot. (the only reason i'm thinking about this now is that i know it's something people usually go into college knowing they want to do.) problem is, i sometimes don't think that i can do it. junior year i'm taking three (out of five) honors classes, but none of them are science. i had the grades to take all five (including bio honors), but i didn't want to go from no honors classes to five, and i didn't think of biology as a priority then. i tested into honors math freshman year, but i floundered a bit (it was too fast for me, and i was coming from an easy grade school to a tough college prep school), so sophomore year i moved down to regular math and got straight A+s all year. i had physics freshman year, and it wallowed in the A-/B+ territory—I think I would've done better if I wasn't a freshman and if physics wasn't completely new to me. anyway, so now i can't take any honors science until senior year (also planning on taking anatomy & physiology and advanced topics in physics), nor can I ever go to honors math again because I quit after freshman year. so, now i won't even make it to calculus before i graduate (just precalc). also, the only AP classes my school offers are an AP art history class (i'm not sure about this), AP stats, and two APs related to calc (AB/IB? it's all a foreign language to me), and I don't think I can get into any of those because I'm pretty sure you need to be on the honors math track. </p>

<p>so, if you've made it this far, i wanna tell you that i talked about all that because i think that if i ever decided to pursue premed studies, i'd be at a huge disadvantage. no APs, not the max # of honors, etc. i don't know...i just feel like going from regular high school science to college science isn't realistic and i will fail miserably. would it just be a complete waste of time? i know that most people who go premed are the valedictorian, ivy type, etc., but that just can't be me—i'm not stupid; i am a straight A student, but i feel like it doesn't matter because i'm just not on par academically with the average future premed. </p>

<p>so i guess what i'm trying to ask is going premed when i enter college a complete waste of time due to my lack of an extensive list of APs and honors? i feel like making the transition without those will be a huge shock, making succeeding in college-level science impossible.</p>

2

<p>It’s certainly too early to rule yourself out. High school classes and college classes are very different and often require different skillsets. And BTW, neither med school nor med school pre-requisite courses require a genius IQ to succeed. In fact, some/many/most high-level geniuses would be really poor fits for medical school. You have to be smart and have people skills, dedication, and drive. It is a marathon, not a sprint.</p>

3

<p>How you do in high school does not matter for medical school admissions. I didn’t take all honors or APs, and I chose not to bust my butt in high school to get into an Ivy League college. I saw no point in paying $$$$ to go to an Ivy vs. taking a scholarship at a lesser-known school. I’ve had more success with my application cycle than many of my friends who went to Ivys.</p>

4

<p>AP and honors in high school may help you but are by no means required to do well in college. However, you will be required to put in perhaps more effort than students who have seen the material before in their AP classes.</p>

5

<p>If you are reasonably intelligent, then you can work very hard in college and get into medical school. For a person of less than average intelligence, I don’t see it happening.</p>