Hello there! I just had a question on the biology requirements for the TMDSAS medical schools.
First things first, I am a California resident, and I understand that the acceptance rates for out-of-state applicants are pretty low. However, Texas is still an option for me and I do have time before I apply (1 year or 2), so I just want to prepare.
Anyways, I just got into UCSD and will be transferring from CSUSM to UCSD in Fall 2020. Since I’m changing from a semester system to a quarter system, my question lies in not knowing how this affects my TMDSAS med school application since it requires 2 years of biology. I have seen the course listing for UCSD on the TMDSAS website and I know which biology courses will count. I know the TMDSAS website lists how many semester/ quarter hours it requires for biology, but I am a little confused about calculating that since now I will have both semester and quarter hours.
Also, can a class count for both the biology requirement and the biochemistry requirement?
I would love to hear any thoughts anyone has! Thank you so much in advance!
Quarter credits translate as 2/3rd for semester. There should be no issue that you have both semester and quarter credits because when you enter them in the app, they automatically get converted to semester.
Since they dont offer 4.5 credit classes normally, you might have to do a little more. Most quarter schools offer 5 credit Biology classes. if you have 2 of those, and 2 4 credit classes in biology/biochem, you can meet the 12 hour requirement (18 hours). It is not as easy for lab but if you can get a 3 hour lab, you can meet the 2 hr requirement.
@texaspg Oh okay I see. Yeah, that does change some things for me then. I have been in two gen bio labs already, but they both have counted as 0 units…
If I understand correctly, are my calculations right here? For the Biology requirement, I have 8 semester credits so far and I plan to take two more biology courses at UCSD, which would be 8 quarter units in total. All together would equal 12.33 semester units.
What if I don’t reach the credit eligibility?
For example, I see that Biochemistry requires 5 quarter units each. However, at UCSD, all of the courses that would qualify are only worth 4 quarter units and there isn’t 1 quarter unit class I could add-in. Would it just be something where I can’t do anything about it?
Could you take multiple courses that add up to the required number (or more) of semester credits listed at https://www.tmdsas.com/PLAN/medical/before-you-apply/education-requirements.html (after conversion of quarter credit = 2/3 semester credit)?
@ucbalumnus I don’t know. Every biochem lecture class and biochem lab class is 4 units each. If I can take two biochem courses to satisfy the requirement, I would. It would just be a timing thing.
Does one need to have all prescribed courses for a particular university on the transcript ? Can they be substituted by some other courses from same department - e.g Ecology by Genetics or Cellular Biology.
I think if you take 8 hours of biochemistry and only 4 more biology, you might get there.
I was checking UTSouthwestern and it said if you take 2 biochemistry classes, one can count for biology requirements.
@texaspg Ah okay gotcha. Yeah, I think I have to do that. I’ll definitely take it into consideration now. Thank you!