<p>Hello,
I'm an incoming freshman for college this year, and plan on continuing on to med school. my goal is harvard or johns hopkins for med, and i took the placement test that'd allow me to take some honors classes this fall. now i've heard that honors classes are significantly harder than regular classes in college (an even greater disparity than the honors/regular classes in high school). so the question is, will taking honors clases, at the risk of screwing my gpa over, be preferred over a 4.0 with pretty much regular classes? im also considering transferring after 1 year, so this dilemma is particularly relevant.</p>
<p>Acceptance to Harvard and Johns Hopkins Med School is roughly 5%. Do not focus on certain schools to get into. Because in all likelihood you will just be let down. I would say take the easy classes and make an A though. And show the schools you really know your stuff on the MCAT. A 4.0 looks better than a 3.7 no matter what classes you took in college.</p>
<p>oh yeah i know it's pretty tough, but i just want ot have ot most competitive application i can get, and harvard and hopkins, while pretty lofty goals, is something worhtwhile to work towards. but for transfer purposes, does the principle still stand as well? im at UCI now, and im hoping to transfer to northwestern, washu, or maybe even Penn.</p>
<p>My honors classes were actually easier than concurrent non-honors sections of the same class...</p>
<p>as for actually taking them, the numbers are going to stand out. Admissions committees may or may not look very closely at your actual courses, but they will look at your GPA, so getting that as high as possible is important. </p>
<p>However, that said...GPA is only part of the equation, and admissions is made on the whole person. I've had friends that got rejected from various places for completely ridiculous reasons, so if you are lacking in one spot (without making up for it somewhere else) then you will be SOL.</p>
<p>astrife is correct about not focusing on one particular school. Med school admissions are absolutely screwy.</p>
<p>thanks a lot. are honors classes deemed tougher because of a greater courseload, harder tests/quizzes, or what? haha reading stuff on this forum scares me that i wont get into med school, which would not be nice.</p>
<p>The heck? We still have honors classes in college?</p>
<p>Some of us don't go to special colleges like Duke...I'm sure that every class at Duke is an Honors course. (at least that's what they probably tell you guys)</p>
<p>Us commoners do have things like Honors Programs at our school. Some of us here have even been kicked out of an honors program <raises hand=""> (however not b/c of the honors classes)</raises></p>
<p>Like I said, at my school and in my experience with honors courses there, honors courses were easier. My honors cell structure/function course was much easier (probably b/c of a better teacher). My honors comp II course was easier b/c the students taking the class with me were actually decent writers themselves and made productive critiques. My freshman honors seminar was a joke, but had a killer attendance policy which resulted in my poor grade in the class (but it did teach me not to schedule classes with attendance policies at 8:30 MWF...b/c I wasn't going to make that friday class most weeks)</p>
<p>In any case (any class with lacrosse players was a "special" course), BRM does get at one of the fundamental dilemmas of premedical course selection: sometimes more advanced/"harder" classes are actually graded easier because curves are better.</p>
<p>that's pretty interesting. would you guys recommend that i get hte textbooks in advance and study ahead? that is, does it actually pay off?</p>
<p>For me, it hasn't been worth it. I took honors gen chem at Cornell instead of the typical gen chem sequence most premeds take. First semester of the honors class was essentially the typical ChemAP topics condensed into one semester (thermo, acid/base equilibria, etc.). Second semester was pure hell (using calculus to derive and normalize wave functions, quantum mechanics, transition metal complexes, memorizing the order of MO orbitals and how they shift, SALCs-Symmetry adapted Linear Combinations, etc.). None of the second semester topics were ever used again.</p>
<p>that sounds....terrible. well i have it worked out that i have no classes on tuesday and thursday, leaving me those days to presumably study (ha...ha) but i guess having 4 days out of a week to study for classes would give me enough time to dedicate for honors chem, wouldn't it?</p>
<p>If you have a strong interest in the subject taught in the honors class then by all means take it. But don't take honors classes simply to try to impress med school adcoms. It's not worth it. They simply do not value honors classes that much. This isn't like high school where you try to take the hardest schedule possible.</p>
<p>um, yea the curves in honors classes do tend to be higher but I still would not do them. Everyone in honors gen chem had a 5 on the Chem AP test and was a chem major (approx. 100 top chem students) as opposed to the 1000 person regular gen chem class (mostly bio majors and other premes). I'd much rather be in the normal class even if the mean is curved to half a grade lower.</p>
<p>DON'T TAKE HONORS COURSES IN COLLEGE. They are only for the majors that require them. I'm a chemE and saw plenty of pre-meds jaws drop after receiving their grades first semester in my accelerated chem course (my classes size went from 351 to 146 in one semester). I know a few pre-meds still taking but they were always the first to go. It's too much work. Save your energy for med school.</p>
<p>And norcalguy is right. The ones in the adv courses are there for their major. The ones in the regular are there for major requirements (engineering, bio, pre-med) a BIG difference. Also the curve may be higher but that's because the grades are lower. It has nothing to do with getting the honors kids better grades. The regular classes aren't curved as much because they're easier and people do better. If I had taken the regular sequence, I would have easily gotten A's</p>
<p>So I repeat: unless you're a genius (there are a couple pre-meds I know doing just fine taking really hard classes but again I can count them on one hand) DO NOT TAKE HONORS AT COLLEGE. I don't think I can state it strongly enough.</p>
<p>Goodness.</p>
<p>It is impossible to make a general statement - and yes, that does mean I'm disagreeing with IJBE - about this. Some honors classes really, genuinely, are easier. Some are much harder. It varies from institution to institution and a general statement is inappropriate.</p>
<p>thanks a lot for your input guys. the general consensus i've heard of the honors chem class at UCI is that it's really really tough, so i really doubt im going ot take it. though the high school kid in me is saying "take the harder class , it looks better to adcoms" lol.</p>
<p>haha but really a good decision, imran. Although I forgot about honors courses like the campus honors program classes at my school and they are easier. But when it comes to honors courses like Accelerated Chem and Acc Calc type stuff, leave it for the kids in the major and the geniuses. Not worth the time or the effort. I really think that overall for the most part when it comes down to that type of stuff I'm right.</p>
<p><em>sighs</em></p>
<p>A bunch of ques....</p>
<p>Therefore,...Med school adcoms just use GPA/MCAT as a preliminary cut...Right? Therefore, maximizing this part of the equation is all that really matters... correct? And..is it true that the fact that one tries to take a very heavy course load and works really really hard spawns nothing more than a yawn on the adcoms part? On the other hand...what if one takes a heavy course load,...and does manage to do really well...would the adcoms still remain indifferent and JUST look at the GPA/MCAT nums...? </p>
<p>And finally all things said and done...is the MCAT score used as a measure to compare two students' academic prowess/intellect?</p>
<p>Correction...last sentence..</p>
<p>is the MCAT/GPA stat used as the ONLY measure to compare two students' academic prowess/intellect?</p>
<p>and the ability to succeed in med school??</p>