<p>Is it acceptable to take easy science classes to boost your science gpa?</p>
<p>I am pre-med, but I am majoring in Economics. As a result, I am only taking the basic science classes that are required for med schools. These intro science classes at my college have some grade deflation. For example, on our first assessment the class average came out to an 80, so the professor goes that the average is too high, and on the next assessment she will make the average a 65. (I did a lot better than the class average, but I will probably do worse once the course goes on)....If my grades do become anywhere near the class average, should I take easy science classes to boost my gpa (ie Intro to Astronomy)...or will medical schools see right through it?</p>
<p>Since adcoms are perfectly capable of reading your course transcript, they’ll see right through “blatantly” easy science courses.</p>
<p>A dirty little secret that not many non-science majors know is that some upper-level science courses are actually much easier than intro-level courses. P-chem III at my school, when I took the course, was much easier than P-chem I or II - the material was less difficult, the professor much more lenient on grading, and the class had 4 students. Getting that easy A definitely boosted my GPA, but I doubt any adcom knew how easy it was to get.</p>
<p>How you can say easy or not easy? At D’s school the very first Bio is a killer weed out that make good number to change their desire to go to Med. school. D (junior) still saying that it was her hardest class. Would the first Bio (no skipping for AP) be EASY? Not in my books.</p>
<p>From what I’ve found so far, the bio course majors here take after intro bio (Evolution) is less work than intro bio, and is curved to a B instead of a B-.</p>
<p>I know what classes are considered easy classes here, and which ones aren’t (according to upperclassmen)…my question was would a higher science gpa be worth it, if adcoms can see right through the reasons I chose to take a class…For example, if I had a low gpa in my science classes that are required by medical schools, but a high gpa in my science classes that are not required by medical schools, and my overall science gpa was “high”, then would it look bad?</p>
<p>Is a class in which most students are graduate students hard in general? I heard that my child is taking a class called biology of immune system, which is team-taught by staff (most of them are likely MD rather than PhD) from the department of immunobiology. </p>
<p>The workload is expected to be greater than most uper-division biology classes. I wonder whether it is usually very difficult to get a grade that is not too bad in this kind of class. I heard he is prepared to get a grade that is average at best for this particular class. Even though he thinks this may not be a “good move” for a premed, he still decided to take it. I only hope it is not the immuno class which is usually taken by most MS2 students. (I had the impression that typical classes designed for medical school students are mostly accelerated ones rather than semester-long classes. But what would I know?!)</p>
<p>It is somewhat strange to me that every biology major at his school is required to take at least one of these kinds of graduate-school-like classes. There is an “easier” one, in which the students just read some landmark papers before class and discuss it in class. But he does not enjoy that kind of class – a science class which is similar to a humanity class (like a seminar).</p>
<p>It’s hard to say. Graduate courses are usually grade inflated but cover more advanced material. I took a 600-level graduate biophysics course at Cornell and we had take home open-book exams. The material was still challenging (fourier transformations and what not) but there was not the same stress over testing since the tests were take home exams.</p>
<p>We just got done with immunology. 2 weeks. I doubt any medical school would spend an entire semester on immunology.</p>
<p>Wow, just 2 weeks for immunology. Life as a medical school student must be tough!</p>
<p>I took a quick look at what the past students had to say about this class. It appears to be a required class for all students in the immuno department (I guess this is a department at the graduate school level only, as I do not remember I have seen an undergraduate department like that.) It appears that the grade is determined by two exams like most science classes. Some students like it very much (reasons: very relevant to medicine, taught by experts) but some others complained that it is like alphabet soups of all abbreviations - a lot of items to remember. Well, it is his decision. Hopefully it turns out fine, or at least not too bad.</p>
<p>mmmcdoww, you must be an outlier among the premed crowd. I thought mostly those engineering or physics students like this kind of stuff norcalguy, I do not think ANY bio majors at my kid’s school will take biophysics as an elective. (The professor for that class is not particularly good.) Even those biochemistry majors try to take quantum chemistry (the 2nd semester of p-chem) instead of biophysics as a substitute. Your biophysics professor must be good. I heard that biophysics is a class that is not easy to teach as it requires some background from engineering’s discipline and covers a lot of ground.</p>
Yes, but these are both bad options. Fortunately they are not the only two options.</p>
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<p>Yes, under the scenario you’re describing. Taking easier classes that LOOK hard is one thing. Taking transparently easy classes is not a good idea.</p>
<p>But why you would not get high GPA in reguired classes? What is a problem? Some of them are very easy, there are harder ones also, but by no means there are obstacles that absolutely prevent you from getting “A” in every one of them. Just work harder in some, and in some others you will not need to work so hard. Why to plan all kind of strategies instead of having very simple, straight forward approach?</p>
<p>^^^^ Well, I got a 95 on my first college test in an intro science class, the average in the class was a 78…I know that as the semester goes on, the material will become more and more challenging…</p>
<p>I will take classes that sound hard (course name) but are easy, if I mess up…</p>
<p>take as many “easy” science classes as you want, including intro to astronomy. It’s an interesting class, and don’t try to base every course decision on how an adcom may or may not view something. Plus the net benefit of having a (significantly) higher science GPA will easily outweigh the potential repercussions of having adcoms think your taking easy classes.</p>
<p>I never took a class to boost my GPA and I never avoided a class because I feared it would hurt my GPA (I did withdraw from one class, to be fair though). Take classes that interest you, do things that interest you, because your interests are what you are going to be talking about at the interviews. I had several interviews founded almost entirely on what I gained from one class that I took for fun.</p>
norcalguy, I do not think ANY bio majors at my kid’s school will take biophysics as an elective. (The professor for that class is not particularly good.) Even those biochemistry majors try to take quantum chemistry (the 2nd semester of p-chem) instead of biophysics as a substitute. Your biophysics professor must be good. I heard that biophysics is a class that is not easy to teach as it requires some background from engineering’s discipline and covers a lot of ground.</p>