Questions from a pre-med hopeful!

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
1

<p>-First off, is it weird/hurting me that I will most likely not be taking any Chemistry at all during my freshman year? My freshman year will have a year of bio w/lab, STATS and cal, and a year of English. Has anyone here not taken chem during freshman year? How did that turn out and work out? I read that most pre-meds usually take bio and chem during freshman year, so yeah...worried about that.</p>

<p>-I have noticed people say that we should be taking "biochem" too, but when should we be taking this? Is this simply to prepare for the actual med school, to prepare for the MCAT's, or what?</p>

<p>-The biochem question is very important, because timing is everything! Since I will be taking gen chem during soph year, I will be taking organic chem during junior year, and since that is a very difficult course, I don't want to take biochem at the same time as organic chem.</p>

<p>-So I’m taking a year of bio during my freshman year, what kind of bio should I usually be taking next? Many people have suggested taking biochem before med school, but what year should we be taking biochem, and what bio courses usually come before it?</p>

<ul>
<li>I also want to be able to take the MCAT’s just two times, just in case I mess up the first. So will that even be possible, if I am taking organic chem. during junior year, and want to take the MCAT’s twice? How would that work out? Keep in mind finals are also in like April, so I need advice on this!</li>
</ul>

<p>Sorry for the very long post, but I just want to get the timing right...please suggest stuff, like taking a pre-req during summer, or stuff like that. If you could please answer my 5 very long questions separately lol, so I know which paragraph you are answering, I would appreciate it.</p>

<p>Thanks!!</p>

2

<p>All of your questions about classes should be answered in here:
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/214382-coursework.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/214382-coursework.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>As for MCAT, don't plan to take it twice. All the more experienced members here say that you should plan to take it once: when you are ready. See the MCAT thread:
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/80275-mcats.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/80275-mcats.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Also check the stickied FAQ for any other questions:
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/377780-premed-forum-faqs-read-first.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/377780-premed-forum-faqs-read-first.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

3

<p>i've found that taking chem your first year greatly helps with preparation for future courses, particularly biology. instead of taking stats your first year, could you take chem? if not, that's fine, as i know several people who have taken organic chem their third year. i also suppose you could take biochem your senior year, however, i personally think it'd be helpful if you took it right before mcat's -- it'd be a good review.</p>

<p>if you're taking intro bio your first year, technically that should be enough as far as mcat's go, however, that greatly depends on the syllabus of the course. you should also look into taking either genetics, physiology, cell biology, developmental biology, or a combination of these three + others subsequently. the higher up you go in bio, the more review it becomes, so you'll be fine with any of these courses.</p>

<p>you're not going to want to take the mcat's twice and you probably won't end up doing so. it's expensive, time consuming, a major headache, and something that looks better if you do well once than on the second attempt. do your best the first time and get it over with.</p>

<p>note, i learned a lot of this from my premed advisor, professors, and from BDM himself, so make use of the resources you have available to you. don't worry about when you take classes, because as long as you have everything done by the end of your junior year, you're going to be decently prepared for the mcat. the "do everything by your soph. year" is just a (helpful) guidline, but i think that for you, personally, you should be fine.</p>

<p>good luck!</p>

4

<p>I will read the last two posts in a bit, haven't really had time.</p>

<p>But this is also a bump to get more opinions and advice!</p>

5

<p>I agree with MolSysBio...</p>

<p>Chemistry sequencing is far more important than bio. The courses really do build on each other (which they don't necessarily do in bio), and you have to take more chem classes. If you can rearrange your schedule to take chemistry first year, you should. It will keep you "on schedule" better. </p>

<p>Further, assuming you're telling us everything you'll be taking, you need to be taking more than 3 classes in a semester. At my alma mater, you'd be at 12 credit hours the first semester (calc 5, Bio or chem w/lab 4, english 3), and below full-time status 2nd semester (stats 3, bio or chem w/lab 4, english 3)...neither of which are good places to be. It's fine if you want to start off easing into freshman year, but you absolutely must be at full time status. You should be closer to 15 credit hours anyways. Throw in one of your bio courses second semester...</p>