Just Bio no lab for premed with AP Credit?

[WayOutWestMom]

The resource you’re looking for is the MSAR (Medical School Admission Requirements)

This is a database maintained by AMCAS that has the current requirements for admission at nearly every US MD school. (Note that I say current, as admission requirements can and do change–including famously one med school that changed its requirements midway through the application cycle which sent hundreds/thousands of students scrambling to find a last minute A&P class. )

Some/many med schools will allow a student to substitute an UL class in the same discipline as the AP credit. (IOW, bio AP should be supplemented with more bio classes; AP chem should be supplemented with more chem classes.) Some/a few med schools specifically prohibit substituting classes.

Please read this FAQ about AP/IB/CC credits:

FAQ Pre-med courses, AP/IB/etc. credit and college/DE courses, etc.

Frequently asked questions from pre-meds in college and prospective pre-meds in high school often involve AP/IB/etc. credit and college or dual enrollment courses taken while in high school. This page hopes to answer some of these questions. (Thanks to @WayOutWestMom for help writing this page.) A. Course requirements and policies relating to the issues described here for specific medical schools can be found in the Medical School Admission Requirements™ (MSAR®); see https://students-residents.aamc.org/applying-medical-school/applying-medical-school-process/medical-school-admission-requirements/ (requires subscription or payment to see that part of each medical school’s profile). Medical schools may also list some information on their own web sites. Due to variation in requirements and policies, check the requirements and policies for each specific medical school that you are interested in. B. Medical schools commonly require or expect applicants to have completed a set of pre-med…

In either case, it’s always best to contact the admissions office in writing and ask. (Don’t do it right now, the new application cycle just opened and staff is swamped dealing with thousands of applications. Wait until later in the cycle–maybe December?) Your child should save the email in case questions about the substitution arise later.

There are a number of med schools that have no prereqs at all. These are competency based programs, and they will consider multiple means for proving the required competencies. (USC and UMichigan are two examples of med schools using competency-based admissions requirements.)

In any case, for any student using AP/IB/CC credits for pre-reqs, it is strongly recommended that the student supplement these credits with additional UL coursework in the same department if they want to be considered a strong applicant for admission.

ETA: AP policies vary widely by med school. Some, like Harvard won’t accept AP credits. Others will only accept a limited number of credits (6 credits is the typical maximum). Some will accept AP credits only in certain subjects–AP Calc but not AP Lang/Lit.

Really AP policies are all over the place. You need to check each individual med school your child may be interested in applying to.