<p>Is taking summer science classes recommended for pre-med students? Do medical schools genearlly look down on summer classes?</p>
<p>The common wisdom is to not take any pre med requirements during summer school. If you must take summer courses, take gen ed classes. </p>
<p>(The one except to the common wisdom is calculus–which is generally considered to be acceptable to take during a summer session.)</p>
<p>Generally, however, it’s recommended that summers be spent doing medical shadowing, hospital volunteering and/or garnering research lab experience.</p>
<p>What if its at our home university? (as opposed to a community college)</p>
<p>Doesn’t matter. Still don’t take pre-reqs in the summer.</p>
<p>Why? because often in summer courses the material covered is a truncated version of the same material that would be covered during the regular semester. This provides a weaker preparation for the next course in the sequence.</p>
<p>Also summer classes have a reputation for having easier grading/ weaker students (i.e. students who are repeating a course they did poorly or who are trying to avoid the more challenging competition they’d find during the regular semester course.) And med schools know that.</p>
<p>Well I’m not too concerned about the first part since our summer classes are only 4 weeks shorter than regular classes (yay quarter system). And the preparation part hasn’t really been an issue. </p>
<p>But now I’m kinda worried about the second part (easier grading/weaker students) putting me at a disadvantage. I took pre-reqs in the summer because I needed to catch up on them, and also because it would work better with my MCAT prep schedule. I’m hoping that med schools can understand that. But wow…I was under the impression that the weaker students would be slackers who didn’t take classes during the summer (they just stayed at home and did nothing) while the people that did take summer classes would be hardcore gunners who are fine with not having a break from studying.</p>