I am interested in taking premed courses but my history with science courses is poor. I can’t risk lowerring my GPA. If i take premed classes as pass/fail and I pass them all, can I still apply to med school?
You cannot take the pre-med requirements pass/fail and expect them to count for med school. If you can’t excel at the required core science courses then you probably pick another career path.
You need to take all Pre-Med course requirements for a letter grade. Concur with above poster, that this is only the beginning so if you cannot do well in your science courses now, the future does not bode well in getting a Medical school acceptance.
medicine is all about science and human interaction. If you are not good at science, you cannot be a physician.
A pass grade will be counted as D in AMCAS. Do you think a medical school will take some one with all Ds in the prerequisite?
A Pass is NOT counted as a D by AMCAS. It’s not counted at all when calculating GPA.
And because it’s not counted at all, the course requirement has not been fulfilled.
Pre-req classes must be taken for a grade and you must pass with a C or better. (Medical schools do not consider a C- grade as passing.)
@happy1 Why doesn’t pass/fail count for med schools?
@Gumbymom if you take pass/fail course later on for a grade, does that help? Will it show/hurt your record if you initially take a course pass/fail?
@WayOutWestMom would be a more reliable source for an answer to the question. I know if you repeat any Med school course requirement that both grades have to be submitted so I am not sure how the pass/fail would be considered in this case.
Medical schools require all pre-reqs to be taken for a grade. It’s their rules. Therefore no pass/ fail class will fulfill admission requirements.
If one takes a class p/f and later retaks the class for a grade, the retake will fulfill admission requirements, but will be recorded by AMCAS as a repeated class, meaning you’ve taken the Same class more than once. This is a negative thing because it devalues the grade of the second course. ( Sure, Reddydaughter got an A in ochem, but it took her two tries to do so.) It also suggests to whoever reads her file that she probably was doing poorly the first time she took the classs and chose the p/f option to avoid having a C or D on her transcript. So while retaking a class p/f does affect one’s GPA, it does make one less competitive in the eyes of the Adcomms.
More later as my flight is boarding…
Here is what I told my kids - anything college allows for pass/fail and allows you to change midway (not doing well in the class) do it only if it is not part of premed requirements. GPA has no impact. However, AMCAS requirements have to be met with a grade class.
OTOH, if you need 1 year of Physics but taking extra classes as a Physics major, as long as the dept allows it, you can switch some extra classes to pass/fail since you have already fulfilled the requirements for Physics for AMCAS.
The short answer is that med school is extremely competitive and they look for students who can excel at the required pre-med classes, not just pass them.
You seem to be very scattered with posts on CC looking at careers ranging from engineering, accounting, and patent law. You need to think about where your interests and aptitudes lie. If it is not in the sciences, then pre-med is probably not the right path for you.
@WayOutWestMom why did you you refer to me as your example?
That would look very odd and would hurt your chances. You had to take the course twice to get whatever grade you received.
Med school prereqs cannot be pass/fail.
Premed pre-reqs cannot be taken pass/fail. Basically you need to rank top 10-20% in eaxh premed pre-req and that can only be seen through the grade.
@Reddyparent3 Because you’re the one who asked
and
I was giving you an example using your child’s hypothetical situation.
If you’re not excellent at Science, forget premed. If you are good at Science (took all three of bio/Chem/physics with an A, took AP Chem or AP Bio), you can try to be premed.
Premed is not a major but an intention. In order to make med school possible you need to rank top 10-20% in every premed class you take and the only way to indicate that is through a grade. (note: to make med school possible, not a sure thing - 50% of those who achieve this nevertheless don’t get into med school).
How do med schools view pass/fail courses? If you take a course pass/fail then later on for a grade, does that help you?
Medicine is science. If you are not good at science you cannot be a doctor.
Your posting history shows that you are an accounting major. You also mention engineering and law school.
@TomSrOfBoston if OP is not necessarily good at science but has a mediocre gpa and excels elsewhere, I don’t think it’s the end for him to be a doctor.
@WayOutWestMom well it just depends on the admissions committee. A few doesn’t hurt. Each med school view the pass/fail thing differently.