<p>I don’t know if she can avoid the classes, but taking them at a less selective school might help with grades. Also, before taking any community college classes, check if grad programs will accept those for their requirements–many will not accept any community college credits.
Since your D is still in high school she should take AP biology and AP chemistry in order to prepare herself for those weedout classes. Most of the students who pass those weedout classes have had the material before. (I’ve seen some top students who got 5’s in AP biology struggle to get B’s in the pre-med intro biology. I think colleges like to brag that “85% of our med school applicants get into their top choice med school”–That may be true, but it is only about 5-10% of the folks who started out in pre-med who actually get to the point of applying to med school. . .)</p>
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No, I was TA for both Fall Gen Phys 1 and Spring Gen Phys 1. The TA’s take the exams as well, because we have to proctor and then grade them (your tax dollars at work: 11 TA’s spend 8 hours locked in a room grading 580 physics exams). The primary instructors for the F/S course had much more difficult exams, a fact upon which all 11 graders agreed. Heartily, as most of us had difficulty with at least some of the problems, and we were all graduate students. Trust me, the professor can make it as difficult as he/she wants to.</p>
<p>sylvan, that is an interesting point and similar to what the TA for my D’s chem II said (he’s in a PhD program). Their “weeding” strategy seems to begin with the first day of class, with bio/chem profs letting them know that typically half the room will drop the course and that there will be no curve applied. I’ve wondered if taking classes on the department’s recommended schedule is also an easy way for them to compare apples to apples when it comes time to select their undergrads. </p>
<p>Was this calc-based physics or PHY101? At most schools, the engineers, pre-pharms, physics majors, etc. are required to take a higher level physics sequence than the OT’s (not sure which version PT schools normally require). The intro class for the OT’s is the one that kids who are taking it to fulfill a gen-ed requirement would typically enroll in. Not easy by any means, but not as difficult as the calc-based version.</p>
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I’m pretty sure this is not the case everywhere.</p>
<p>At UCSD they had (and have) three separate Freshman Physics sequences. Physics 4 for Physics majors, Physics 2 for Engineering majors and other science majors that care to take it, and Physics 1 for Biology majors. Biology makors (most of the pre-health science people) can take any one they want. I assure you very few opt for anything other than Physics 1.</p>
<p>I can’t speak for now, but when I took it (and TA’d 1 and 2) the order of difficulty was from1 (the easiest) to 4 (the hardest). Just my expeerience.</p>
<p>Edit-
I looked up the sequence descripyions, and it sort of matches my observation (esp. vis a vis the level of math necessary)-</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.ucsd.edu/catalog/courses/PHYS.html[/url]”>http://www.ucsd.edu/catalog/courses/PHYS.html</a></p>
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This was calculus based. bovertine - the U offers at least 2 levels of physics, non-calc based and calculus based. The pre-pharm and the engineers and physicists were all required to take a calc-based sequence.</p>
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<p>That is indeed an option we’ll look into, but it does seem to be limited to larger schools that do offer multiple tracks.</p>
<p>In NJ, for example, there are two top public schools - Rutgers and TCNJ. Rutgers is much larger, and offers multiple bio tracks. TCNJ appears to limit its second bio track ONLY to nursing students, so there isn’t a generally available second track.</p>
<p>Some people have mentioned taking AP science classes before taking the college classes. There will only be room in her schedule to take one AP science class, and I imagine she will pick Bio.</p>
<p>I am a pre-OT student and one of the schools I am applying to require a physics course designed for science majors. This is just one school and there aren’t many which require it, but make sure just in case.</p>
<p>Just something you might want to note…I know for PA school admissions, anyway, classes marked as “for nursing majors” or anything similar didn’t really count toward the requirements we needed; they wanted to see pre-med level classes. I don’t know if OT/PT admissions work similarly or not, but it may be worth looking into (I know it’s a long, long way off for her still, but it’s better than planning out a bunch of courses that would end up not counting).</p>
<p>Check out Student Doctor Network. It is aimed more at pre-med/med, but there are subforums for other health related majors/careers.</p>
<p>[Rehabilitation</a> Sciences - Student Doctor Network Forums](<a href=“http://■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/forumdisplay.php?f=208]Rehabilitation”>http://■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/forumdisplay.php?f=208)</p>
<p>As far as someone who needed to take pre-health science classes, that site recommends that you take them not at a community college as some places won’t accept them. They recommend taking them at a 4 year college/university and not on-line…but it doesn’t have to be the toughest university out there. Getting the high GPA is the most important thing (at least for med school). So takign them at State U and getting an A is better than taking them at Private U and getting a B.</p>
<p>The other thing to think about is why would it be advantagious to try to avoid a " pre-med flunk out course" which I assume to mean a rigorous course? When you get to the next level of health education you will assumed to know that information and will be competing against others who have that knowledge.</p>
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<p>sacchi, if she’s going to have to take chem as a pre-req see if she’ll agree to AP Chem instead. Depending on how strong your HS bio dept is, it may not help much with her bio pre-reqs . Getting an early look at chem and learning that material is probably more beneficial (and chem is usually harder than bio at the college level). It’s unlikely that she’ll actually be able to substitute AP credit for taking the class in college anyway, so probably not necessary to take the AP exam in either if she doesn’t want to.</p>