<p>Hi! I started a bit late on the pre-health track and will only finish my requirement if I take a fifth year of Physics I, Physics II, and Bio Chem. I can do it within 4 years but that's crazy since I would have to put Organic Chemistry with it too.</p>
<p>If I take Organic Chemistry over the Summer though, will medical schools not accept it? Will it really diminish my chances of getting accepted into one?</p>
<p>My advisor strongly said that medical schools don't like it if you take required pre-health courses over the summer, but I really have no option if I want to do it in 4 years.</p>
<p>Do not take Ochem over the summer unless there is absolutely no other possible option.</p>
<p>Med schools will accept it, but summer classes for key pre-reqs (and Ochem is one) sends a negative signal to adcomms and could potentially red flag your application.</p>
<p>Remember there are ~3-10 applicants for each med school seat available. Adcomms are looking for reasons to eliminate applicants. Don’t give them a reason.</p>
<p>Could you take physics during the summer instead? Or take biochem post-graduation?</p>
<p>I can take Physics over the Summer instead, but that would mean taking Biochem and Orgo I the same semester. Is that okay or too severe a workload?</p>
It depends on where you take the summer courses and how many you take, according the my son’s pre-health advisor. If you take Orgo at your own school over summer (as opposed to at a community college or a less challenging college than your own), or you make it a habit of taking many pre-requisites over summer, it may not look good.</p>
<p>My son took summer Orgo at his own school (JHU) and is doing pretty well with his admissions. Quite a few kids at various schools in Boston area (Dartmouth, BU, BC and Harvard) take the Harvard summer Orgo sequence without too many negative effects. </p>
<p>I’ve never heard that taking a class over the summer was bad? WOWmom, I’m curious is taking biochem over the summer at your own school a bad thing? (At my school biochem is used as the 2nd semester of genchem for med school admissions) I mean, our summer classes are just as many hours as our fall/spring classes, so shouldn’t it be the same thing?</p>
<p>I don’t know if the rule of thumb says don’t take them in summer or don’t take them in what might be considered an easier school than yours in summer.</p>
<p>Stanford has a series of summer classes for each subject so one can finish many required classes in a summer quarter. The problem is that they are a different series of classes which can’t be taken any other time so one can’t pick and choose one class in the series.</p>
<p>Summer classes can be problematic in several ways:</p>
<p>–shorter duration sometimes means that the course content gets truncated</p>
<p>–student population taking summer classes at most schools is less competitive than that taking the same course during the regular school year</p>
<p>–you’re only taking one course at a time</p>
<p>The first is problematic no matter what. The latter two devalue the “worth” of your grade. </p>
<p>Summer classes are not the kiss of death, but they are less than optimal and should be a last resort. A strong student who takes summer pre-reqs so s/he can take higher level coursework the following fall will be fine. </p>
<p>Also summers are usually more profitably spent doing other things than taking summer classes: summer research programs, volunteering, working at paying jobs, physician shadowing, etc…</p>
<p>D took a math course over the summer to finish the math requirement for some medical schools. That also had the benefit of keeping her near campus where her research is ongoing and where she volunteers. </p>
<p>I think taking summer courses is frowned upon if it looks like you are trying to take the easy way out on the hard medical school requirements. That is, you put off O Chem until summer so you could just take O Chem, couldn’t handle it with a full course load during the regular school year.</p>
I can’t comment on point #2 definitively. However, the other two points are most definitely not true in case of the summer Orgo sequences at JHU and Harvard. My son looked into both, before deciding to taken them at his own school (JHU). Both at JHU and Harvard, they offer Orgo as a full sequence - Orgo 1, Orgo 2 and Orgo Lab, all in one summer. The problem was not truncated content, it was more of too much in such a short time. At both JHU and Harvard, its Orgo 1 in the first month followed by Orgo 2 in the second. The lab can be taken in either month. The Orgo 1 & 2 classes met for 4-5 hours every single day and there was a test every week followed by a final. The lab met for 4-5 hours 4 times a week with the same number of tests and labs as there are during the regular course. They recommend not to register for any other courses along with summer Orgo sequence. </p>
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According to my son’s pre-health advisor, med schools may look down upon those applicants who took summer courses at some other (less competitive) school, and/or those who habitually took summer science courses. </p>
<p>I suspect, a lot of this is conjecture. Based on my son’s experience in this cycle, its hard read how medical schools look at anything, let alone summer science courses.</p>
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I would say Biochem is the most harmless course to take in summer. At many med schools, Biochem is the one course they explicitly say is OK to take online because it doesn’t have to be taken with a lab. Given that, I would say a summer course looks much better than an online course.</p>
<p>I’d be interested in seeing anywhere “they” explicitly say it is OK to take a required course online. Much less “many med schools”. I would not do this.</p>
<p>If I still had MSAR access, I would have given you “many” specific examples. The one that comes to my mind right away is CCLCM. There are at least 4 or 5 that I remember explicitly saying that Biochemistry is the only online course they accept because they don’t have a lab requirement for it.</p>
<p>Kal - don’t take it personally. I was going to ask for some links too if Curm didn’t. It is possible rules are being updated since people went through this 4-5 years ago and no one has been paying attention to them.</p>
<p>I went into Stanford forum earlier this year and said authoritatively Stanford does not care for both SAT and ACT and they don’t require you to submit both. Someone showed me a link from this year’s instructions that says if you took a test, submit all and this was clearly different from two years ago when my kid was applying.</p>
<p>Huh. Thought I was clear. Sorry for your confusion . I will help. </p>
<p>Your statement could leave a dangerous impression in the minds of pre-meds that online courses for pre- requisites are “alright” or even "just as good ". </p>
<p>They are not looked at the same. They should be avoided. </p>
<p>Summer courses should be avoided. Summer courses at lesser institutions should be strictly avoided. </p>
<p>I thought your post was dangerous so I said so. I told them I wouldn’t do it . Sue me. </p>
<p>Might there be applicants strong enough to survive such choices ?</p>
<p>Sure. Still doesn’t make it a smart choice for an applicant. </p>
<p>And as to how long I might be here…Hell. I had no idea I’d be here this long . ;)</p>
<p>Curm - It is CC wisdom that summer classes are bad and are not treated the same but have there been stories/books written about it by adcoms that have been discussed here in that past?</p>
<p>I do not claim to have a definitive treatise on the med school application process. Just my experiences and common sense . </p>
<p>“Accepted” in admissions vernacular does not mean “OK” as in “just as good as” for pre -requisite courses. Whether we are talking online courses, summer courses, or junior college courses. My advice? Avoid them. Maybe that 's conservative…but it is safe. To suggest otherwise is somewhere between “less safe” and "suicidal " depending on the applicant and the circumstances.</p>
<p>^I haven’t got a beef with you, if you stick to giving your $0.02, like we all try to do. You challenged what I said about online courses and I backed up what I said verbatim. Now you are insinuating that what I said about summer courses is dangerous because I said summer courses are “just as good”. I am not sure where and when I said that. The way you dance around, suing you is the least remunerative way to invest my spare time ;)</p>
<p>i think the most important thing to remember when thinking about this or reading admissions pages is what curm said: “acceptable” in public admissions talk can be very different from “acceptable” in the actual adcom meetings about an applicant.</p>
<p>For example, to use mayo. All that means is that they wouldn’t reject someone who cured cancer but took biochem online. It does not necessarily mean that biochem online is viewed the same as biochem at the host school.</p>
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