Small LACs are the way to go for pre-med. Have her major in something else besides biology. Otherwise just find another faculty member to grade her exams/papers to avoid the conflict of interest. Save the money for med school.
Those general biology courses are also typical pre-med course requirements, even if she does not major in biology.
You are over-thinking it. Clear it with your administration. Enjoy having her in your classes. And donāt worry about the āopticsā
You wonāt be the first teacher or professor to have your own child in your class. And you wonāt be the last.
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She can take General Bio elsewhere, perhaps. Online if she needs to take freshman year or during summer between Freshman and sophomore year. The other required bio courses can worked out? Is General Bio the only issue? That first year course can be taken anywhere. But what about the advanced bio courses? Iād think that would be more the issue. If I remember correctly, cell, Molecular Bio, Biochemistry, genetics and advanced topics in the subject necessary. Usually, there are a number of profs and instructors teaching the General first year bio but then it narrows down with advanced courses. Colleges also get fussy about where the upper level courses are taken in a major; usually want them at their own school but donāt care where the first year 100 level course are taken.
I also donāt get the talk of dearth of jobs in the field. With a good Bio and chem background, one is primed for any number of health care type careers. Thatās usually the sticking point when kids later in life want to go into certAin medical or therapy type fields. They need the danged bio/chem/STEM courses.
I agree Pitt is a great choice. However, I suggest OP look at some of the threads on forum regarding the Tuition Exchange and the challenges in using it. I have a friend whose DD is going to USanFrancisco through it and one at Elizabethtown college. Neither school was first choiceāI think Pitt was. I do not know firsthand how it worksā though I had that privilege once upon a time many years ago in a universe far far away. But I get the distinct sense that it isnāt that easy.
If the only course youāre daughter would have to take with you is General Bio, I donāt see a problem - especially if she might be exempted from a semester from AP. Iām sure sheād have to take Bill as a med school pre-req, but maybe the option of another school would be viable. If itās just one semester, perhaps a summer course? I remember having to do this myself with a pre-req.
Like a previous poster, I too favor small LACs. I personally love Lafayette. It sounds like a great deal financially as an alternate plan.
Thank you to all the responses- I have been lurking and reading posts here at the forum. I have been following the posts on tuition exchange and I am aware that it is quite like a lottery with a very low probability of getting the scholarships at the schools that we have on our list. That is why I am hoping that my daughter will agree to just attend the SLAC that I am teaching in. At this point, Pitt is our first choice if she gets the scholarship. We plan to strategize where she would apply for Early Decision since she can apply to Pitt and our state school by rolling admission, and she can apply to my SLAC without needing to apply EA or ED. It is a toss-up between Lafayette and Case Western Reserve University. She will likely apply to Cornell just to appease her Dad, but she is not strongly invested in going there. She is my third child to go to college. I have learned a few lessons when our first two kids did their college applications. So we are keeping the college list to a minimum since she has good safety schools already.
Knowing my daughter, she really prefers Biology as a major- but I could try to sway her to Psychology or Neuroscience and minor in Art. I have asked my colleagues about this situation and for the most part they have been supportive of her being a student in our department.
My program wonāt even let me teach students Iāve worked with in my second job. I agree that itās college specific.
I donāt see the point of swaying her to psychology or something else. Most jobs in the health fields would require a grad degree and those require roughly the same classes anyway.
This is referencing biology 1 and 2. If this student plans to apply to medical school, she needs to know for sure that an online version of a required Pre-requisite course will be allowed for medical school applicants.
thatās a pretty broad sweep and is not altogether true.
Also this poster needs to check. Some colleges do not allow any courses to be transferred from elsewhere once a student has matriculated. One of my kids wanted to take one summer course one yearā¦the school saidā¦they never accepted transfer courses once a student had matriculated at their college. So check that too.
Sorry, but that makes absolutely no sense.
Sorry, but that makes absolutely no sense.
Taking premed requirements during summer is almost always a bad idea. (One of the few good reasons to do so is to participate in study abroad.)
I know more more doctors than I have fingers who did their premed requirements during the summer, or otherwise at schools other than where they got their degrees. Our local SUNY offers a great Premed package for those who want to take those courses outside of their degree awarding schools. Not to mention dozens who have to go back to school after getting degrees for pre med/healthcare courses before getting into programs that require those base courses. Itās done all of the time. Many of my dear friends did this years ago before schools had specific programs to easily provide those courses. And I went to a college most renown for premed.
However, OPās daughter appears to be interested in Bio as a major, not necessarily for premed or pre health care type prep. A natural sciences degree or just taking the requisite courses are not going to suffice for that.
Itās always the case that one must check with a school as to how it accepts credits from another school. Same with programs. I know a number of med schools that do not accept AP bio for their Bio requirement, for example. But most schools leave it up to departments as to how they count outside courses. Many will grant exceptions if they have certain rules. Given the OPās job, she can clarify any restrictions for her DD getting a Bio degree at her college if the student takes basic bio elsewhere. Likely she knows how itās handled being the lone basic Bio Instructor/prof.
My guess here is that OPās DD is going to apply ED at a highly selective school as well as a list of other selective, Match and safety choices. If fin aid works out with an early accept, then game over. Otherwise, itās a matter of getting a tuition exchange spot at a school that the student wants more than going to the school where mom teaches and gets free tuition. Since OP has gone through the college admissions process two times already, itās going to be a familiar path as to what can be expected. I think things will go just fine though not necessarily ideal.
Itās not done āall the timeā. Perhaps in the cases you knew, the medical schools allowed online courses. Perhaps those studentsā undergrad schools allowed transfer courses.
Please, donāt make this sound like it is uniformly true becauseā¦it is not.
Addingā¦post Bacc studies are different.
- medical schools do not generally accept online coursework as fulfilling pre-reqsāespecially for the lab portion of the class. (Exceptions typically require written permission from the medical school and are only typically granted due to exceptional circumstancesālike overseas military service.)
For traditional students, summer classes are strongly discouraged unless taken at oneās home college. Taking coursework at an institution that is not oneās home college usually requires an explanation in medical school secondary applications.
- not all medical schools will accept AP credits for science/math/English classes
Hereās a year old list of AP policiesā
https://oaa.rice.edu/sites/g/files/bxs1651/f/pdf/AP%20Credit%20-%20Allopathic%20Medical%20Schools%20%28Updated%20Summer%202019%29.pdf
Nearly every med school that does accept AP credits, expects that AP credits will be supplemented with an identical number of UL elective credits in the same discipline if the student wants to be considered as a competitive applicant
For the most up-to-date admission requirements, check MSAR.
One other consideration for the student attending a local SLAC--does the town provide sufficient opportunities to participate in the expected pre-med ECs? Clinical volunteering, physician shadowing, clinical or lab research, community service with disadvantaged populations, holding leadership roles in campus organizations and other activities?
Unless the OPās daughter is committed to majoring biology, Iād also recommend considering another major. Both my daughter majored in math (alongside a second major). Math offers much better post college employment opportunities and offered them a multitude of choices post-graduation had they not been accepted to med school.
(And 60% of those who apply to med school every year donāt get a single acceptance. Every pre-med needs a Plan B career path.)
I recommend this website to any pre-med who isn't sure of their path
[Explore</a> Health Careers](<a href="https://explorehealthcareers.org%5DExplore">https://explorehealthcareers.org)
Information about dozens of healthcare and health-related jobs--most of which students have never heard of.In this particular case, the OP can research the issues of what it would take to get a bio degree at her home college, as well as getting premed courses there.
My personal experience in getting into medical school outside of ones home college has been favorable among those I know and they were not prime candidates.
Cornellās CALS has great majors and is generally easier to get into.
If the NPC is unaffordable though, donāt let her apply.
Beside TE, look into LACs with merit scholarships. Perhaps colleges away from your current region- Macalester, St Olaf, Whitman, Pitzer, Scripps, Davidson, Sewanee (depending on what environment sheās interested in?)
Does she have the same name as you?
It seems that itād be pretty uncomfortable to have your own child as a student, especially if you teach classes in the major sheās aiming for. If this were just about the couple bio classes for a premed, itād be one thing but hereā¦ Could she attend a few classes in neuroscience or biochemistry to see if sheād be interested?
^ So have no faculty children ever majored in the same department at the LAC before?
People homeschool their children and give them Aās all the time. If the grade for this course is out of whack with her other grades (A+ in bio, D in chem? overall average 2.0 but A in bio?) I think there would be a red flag, just like with homeschooling, but if she has a 4.0 and the bio grades are also Aās, I donāt think anyone would question it.
I donāt know if anyone would even question the professorās name being the same as the studentās name, so how would the med school (or any grad school) even know that a course taken 4 years prior was taught by a relative? My sister doesnāt have the same last name as her children, so why would anyone question that Professor G is somehow related to Student Brown? And there could be 10 other Browns in any class who arenāt related to the professor.
If the school has an issue with it, the school can arrange for someone to supervise the grading of exams or labs.
The instructorās names donāt show up on any transcripts I have ever received. The only issue of āopticsā would be how the colleagues in the department or university feel. If they are fine with it then I donāt see the problem. This is not uncommon.
Iām kind of astonished that people are suggesting going to another university or changing majors for a reason this trivial. Either they trust the professional integrity of the professor in question to not commit academic fraud. Or they do not. And if they do not, then I would think it is incumbent on the school to make arrangements, not the student.
I say, enjoy having your daughter in class and donāt worry about it. And if you are worried about it, just keep all her work in a file for future reference so you can show she did the work and was entitled to the grade she received.