<p>What colleges have good summer Org Chem clasees, what are the prices, etc.
Thanks for the ideas/suggestions.</p>
<p>If you are taking it as Med. School requirement, my suggestion is NOT taking it in the summer, take Orgo during school year.</p>
<p>General wisdom is…</p>
<p>Take your pre-med pre-reqs at your regular university, and take them during the regular school year.</p>
<p>Supposedly med schools do not like students taking pre-reqs over the summer and at schools that are not the student’s “regular school”. </p>
<p>However, if the goal is to take Orgo during a time with less distractions, then take a non-pre-req class over the summer (like Art History or some other Gen Ed class) to lighten the load for next fall’s classes.</p>
<p>A lot of schools offer it during the summer. Northwestern & Harvard offer crash courses. The UCs offer organic over the summer as well. btw: UC does not charge OOS feee for summer coursework.</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>But…are pre-meds taking those summer courses…or are those non-pre-med students who just need to fulfill an orgo req’t??</p>
<p>^^both. UC advising is not great, so no one tells students that they should refrain from taking premed prereqs during the summer.</p>
<p>btw: UC also offers two tracks of Organic: a) for Life Science majors (prehealth et al); and, 2) for Chem majors. Those in the latter category just take Organic Soph year as part of their major track.</p>
<p>both. UC advising is not great, so no one tells students that they should refrain from taking premed prereqs during the summer.</p>
<p>Ahh…so the advice for the OP should be…don’t do it.</p>
<p>*btw: UC also offers two tracks of Organic: a) for Life Science majors (prehealth et al); and, 2) for Chem majors. Those in the latter category just take Organic Soph year as part of their major track. *</p>
<p>I’m not sure if it’s unusual for there to be 2 tracks. However, I’ve seen the tracks a bit different…one track for Chem, ChemE, and Pre-health majors…and one track for nurses and other majors.</p>
<p>Thanks. It is for premed requirement. Mostly trying to do it the summer since Sophomore year she may be abroad. Never thought about the other coast. Originally from Mass, but live down south. Not sure how UF would be rated…</p>
<p>A whole YEAR abroad? Lucky girl. If she’d be satisfied with a semester, it would be easier to make it work.</p>
<p>If med school is the end goal, taking a year off might mean postponing med school too in order to get everything done in a reasonable way.</p>
<p>Is there any other time she could study abroad? Many of my premed friends (myself included) studied abroad during the summer so we could get all our academic stuff done. There are tons of programs available in the summer, including university-sponsored ones (meaning her university would design the program, which is great because then she wouldn’t have to worry about credits transferring).</p>
<p>If it were me, I’d mess around with the timing of the trip, and not with the academics. That’s exactly what I did too–and while it would’ve been nice to spend more time abroad, I don’t feel like I was slighted in the least!</p>
<p>they are quarter system, so probably 2 quarters, it is specific programs for language for maybe a 2nd major/minor in language. The programs are only offered specific times.</p>
<p>OP</p>
<p>Whatever the reason, don’t have her take orgo or any premed requirement in the summer. Med school admission is tough enough, why would you want to give the admissions people a tie breaker or make it even harder by creating a negative in her resume?</p>
<p>I don’t think it would be a negative in her resume, per se, eadad. It seems like the negative would come in her transcript–in that she elected not to take an important premed prereq at her regular school (assuming she decides to go). Perhaps you meant resume as in, all “paper” parts of her primary?</p>
<p>From a resume perspective, a language immersion program leading to near-fluency would probably help. I’ve been asked about how fluent I am in Spanish (which I took in high school and test out of in college) at each of my 4 interviews, and I would imagine that being able to say “yes, I’m fluent” would do nothing but help.</p>
<p>Is a year learning a language (or 2 quarters) a hook? Probably not. Unless that language is Swahili and you learned it while setting up free birthing clinics in rural Kenya with only an African doctor and a midwife to help out.</p>
<p>But would it help her application? I can’t imagine how it would possibly hurt (the fluency in the language), but I could see how she would be at a disadvantage for taking a prereq like orgo at a school that isn’t hers. </p>
<p>(I know you didn’t ask about whether it would help, and I am not insinuating that the reason she’s going is to be a stronger candidate–just tossing around some thoughts about how something like this might affect one’s application)</p>
<p>Unfortunately, this might be an instance of prioritizing for her–which is more important: graduating after 4 years and going on to medical school? Or taking a year off to learn a language and perhaps postponing medical school dreams for a year?</p>
<p>Personally, if this were a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity (sounds like it may be), I’d go for broke, spend an entire year abroad, and resume the premed thing afterward. In the grand scheme of things, what’s one more year? What’s the rush to “hurry up and work?”</p>
<p>MCK:</p>
<p>some Stanford premeds take physics over the summer at Santa Clara University so they can study abroad. (S is also on the quarter system.)</p>
<p>Physics isn’t Orgo…</p>
<p>eadad, I responding to your post #11 with an example of (successful) students at Stanford who take premed prereqs over the summer. Your post #11 was generic; it said “any” prereqs. </p>
<p>For study abroad participants at Stanford at least, taking a summer premed prereq is not uncommon. I know some Stanford premeds who have take SCU’s condensed physics course. (Perhaps physics is less important to adcoms than organic – I have no idea.) But, if I was searching like the OP, I might pull up SCU’s summer link – if they offer condensed physics, they just might offer condensed organic (which they do, btw). However I do not know any Stanford kids who have taken Organic at SCU.</p>
<p>blue</p>
<p>Orgo is the “litmus test” course in pre-med, for many it’s the make or break class. Physics isn’t which is why I said what I said. While the accepted opinion is that prerequisite courses should not be taken over the summer, of all science classes, physics is probably the one that would least hurt a transcript if done so. </p>
<p>I know of a student who attended his physics class three times…first day of class, mid term and final and got an A…the prof’s syllabus and notes were online and his lectures were notoriously boring…can’t do that with Orgo.</p>
<p>Kristin</p>
<p>I meant to say transcript but got lazy and used resume as an all inclusive overview…being out in the business world for as long as I have been, transcripts are not in the lexicon these days…CV or resume are my terms for it all. Thanks for the correction though it was actually more semantics on my part. Glad to hear that things are going well for you.</p>
<p>eadad…did they do physics at Harvard? Physics for med (vs. engineering).</p>
<p>bluebayou… thanks. Not familiar with SCU. Maybe we will look into Physics. the big reason with taking org. chem, is to go abroad. She will probably have to take 5-6 quarters of chem classes/biology, making it hard to go abroad part of sophomore/junior yr. I may try to find it on the east coast though…</p>
<p>eadad:</p>
<p>I don’t doubt that organic can be difficult for many premeds, i.e., make or break their individual gpa, but the question is 'whether adcoms care more about organic grades than other science grades? Is a A in organic ‘worth more’ than say, an A in calc, bio or physics? Conversely, would low grades (C’s/) in organic result in an auto reject even if the applicant had A’s in every other premed science?</p>