Among WUE schools, UNM (U New Mexico) could be a great one to add to your list if you are serious about premed. It’s a low cost option with WUE, and apparently gives you an admissions boost at its relatively affordable med school. See @WayOutWestMom’s posts for more info:
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Be aware that AP calculus AB covers material at a slower pace than college calculus or other math courses. Pre-med course work will require much more self motivation and time management than high school.
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Prioritize GPA over research. Prioritize GPA over clinical opportunities.
It’s much easier to pick up research experience and clinical exposure during a grace year between undergrad and med school than it is to raise your GPA into the med school worthy range.
(The med school application process takes a full year. If you want to matriculate directly into med school from undergrad, you’d need to apply near the end of your junior year of college. 3/4th of entering med students take 1-3 years between college graduation and starting med school.)
I also want to caution you that any college level classes taken during high school WILL be included in your GPA calculations for your med school application. If you take your calc repeat at a community college or online college, it counts in both your overall GPA and your science GPA (bio, chem, math and physics only). Your sGPA is more important than than your overall GPA for med school.
Repeated classes will be noted in your med school application.
Be aware that not all med school will accept AP/IB scores in lieu of actual classes. Those that do accept AP/IB scores require or recommend (and in med school speak recommend = require) that you supplement all AP/IB and community college credits with upper level coursework in the same dept at a 4 year college. This is prove that you have complete mastery of the material of the classes you place out of and that you are a competitive students in the field at a college level.
UWashington SOM is highly competitive for admission, even for in-state students. Because of the WWAMI program, 120+ class seats (out of 280 available) are reserved for the residents of the 4 other states in the compact, reducing the number available for Washington residents. Washington State (Floyd) SOM favors students who have strong ties to eastern/central Washington region or are from medically underserved areas.
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This is something I belatedly learned about that I feel like more kids should know about. Particularly in areas like, say, Physics, I am not sure it is really a great idea to be doing AP Physics if you intend to be a pre-med. I mean if you love Physics and love the idea of doing advanced Physics-for-majors classes in college, not a problem. But I now know a lot of pre-meds who are pretty happy they only have to take the standard first-year sequence in college.
Biology majors and most premeds at most colleges can take a physics sequence that has less math than the one that physics and engineering majors take. Physics for biology majors typically does not lead to any upper level physics courses.
So a premed with credit for AP physics 1 and/or 2 has to choose between:
- Not taking physics in college (but medical schools do not like relying on AP credit).
- Repeating the AP credit with physics for biology majors (but medical schools do not like repeating anything, including AP credit).
- Taking physics for physics majors (requires more math and only likely to be done if the premed is a physics or other major who needs physics with more math).
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In this case why not just skip taking the AP exam at the end of the year? Then it shouldn’t count as “repeating credit.”
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Prospective premeds need to know before they send their AP scores to the college they will attend. How many actually know before they actually enter college?
Most will know by May 1 which college they will attend. They could look at the curriculum and decide at that time. They could skip the exam or cancel the score.
The standard “first year” physics sequence (for physics, engineering and physical science majors outside of biology) is actually a 3 semester series: classical mechanics, E&M, and modern physics.
It’s also calculus-based instead of algebra-based.
There are advantages and disadvantages for the calc-based sequence. Many students with a strong math background actually find calc-based physics easier and more straight-forward to learn/understand than algebra-based physics. (In part because calculus was invented to solve problems in classical mechanics. Algebra-based physics kind of “fudges” its way to solutions.)
There are several medical specialties where a knowledge of calculus (and calculus-based physics) is very useful. Radiation oncology, radiology, nuclear medicine, anesthesia, to name a few.
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Just to clarify, students do not need to avoid AP classes (physics or otherwise) or taking AP exams. In fact, some high schools require the exams so choosing not to take is not an option.
But if a student knows they are interested in pre-med, they may want to avoid using their qualifying AP scores for credit for the reasons mentioned above. They can pick and choose which scores to submit for credit. It is my understanding that med schools do not see high school records so unless a student used the AP score for college credit and then took the class anyway, med schools would have no idea and it would not be viewed as retaking a class.
The advice here on CC aligned with the advice my D received from her advisor when choosing her first semester classes. She did not submit her science APs for credit and took the typical sequence. An added benefit was the first half of the semester was a review of the AP material, which made it easier while juggling the transition to college life. The full college semester definitely went beyond the AP curriculum, which would have been missed if credit was taken to go straight to a higher level class. That may be school-specific so it’s worth looking at the class description to make certain foundational topics are not being skipped.
Of course, there’s the risk that if one pivots from the med school plan they may wish they’d taken the AP credits, but you do your best with what you know at the time.
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I think it was Georgetown I was looking at one time which was discussing all this, and they apparently suggested an option of waiving credit for your APs. But I am not sure how that would really look to med schools.
In the end these are not necessarily insurmountable problems, but the simplest solution is just take something else in HS if possible. Like you probably want four years of science and one might be an AP, but for various reasons if you choose something like AP Bio this is less of an issue because you are taking more Bio anyway. Then if you want another AP, maybe do a non-science instead of Physics.
Edit:
And I believe this is what Georgetown was saying they would let you do even retroactively.
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Yes, I meant the calc-based Mechanics and E&M sequence. This is what is recommended for pre-meds at my S24’s college, and is required for their Bio major as well (which I understand is a bit unusual).
I was actually just talking to my S24 and predicting he would like it better than he is anticipating (he will take it as a junior). He didn’t like his year of introductory HS Physics, but I explained as someone very comfortable with calculus, he is probably going to like this version better. I’d actually go so far as to say is not only was calc in part invested to do this sort of physics, eventually basic physics evolved to make it easy to do with calc! Like the many simplifying assumptions when doing problems in these classes are basically stripping out anything that can’t be handled so easily with calculus.
I understand not every Bio major, or every medical school, will require calc-based Physics, nor does the MCAT. But if you ask me, this is so fundamental to a really good basic science education that anyone going into a scientific or related profession should make a point of doing it.
So I guess in context, my point was less about trying to dodge calc-based Physics, and more about why it might make sense to plan to take it in college if you are thinking about medical school.
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I was also discussing this with my S24. For context, his private HS has largely pivoted from APs for advanced classes, with the exception of Math, modern languages, and CS.
So, for example, he took their Advanced Biology class, which is college level, but not an AP. He also took a college Biology class as part of one of those summer programs where you take a college’s normal summer classes alongside actual college students. Not exactly the same but some substantial overlap.
But then as a possible pre-med, possible Biology major, he just took their standard sequence. And I think it is safe to say he was rather well-prepared. It definitely was not all redundant, indeed with Bio you can always focus on different stuff. But it made it easier for him that it was basically Round Three for some of the more foundational topics.
Again if your HS offers AP Bio as its advanced Bio option, apparently you can probably just waive the credits and be in the same position. And in fact, S24’s college, and others I have seen, won’t take AP Bio to place you out of that sequence. So problem solved, really.
But of course if AP credits were, say, a substantial cost-saver for you, you might want to see if you can take a different AP you would not have to waive.
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Required at D2’s undergrad too.
She said there was a lot of complaining about it, but she thought the class wasn’t all that difficult.
Waiving credits is at the discretion of the registrar at the particular undergrad. Policies vary.
And even if a student chooses not to accept advanced standing for AP scores, the AP credit is still reported on the college transcript, and thus reported to AMCAS/ACOMAS/TMDSAS.
I tend to put the introductory calc-based Physics sequence in a similar category to Calc 3. Some people dread it, but if you actually did well with Calc 1 and 2, Calc 3 (at least with a decent professor) can be pretty easy, possibly even kinda fun.
Indeed in cases where the Physics sequence is designed to be doable concurrently with Calc 1 and 2, you could well have a bit of an advantage doing it sequentially instead.
So does this mean you would ideally never submit to your college in the first place?
That does seem tricky.
It is common for physics prerequisites to be set up like this:
| Physics course | Prerequisite | Corequisite |
|---|---|---|
| Physics 1 with mechanics | Calculus 1, high school physics | Calculus 2 |
| Physics 2 with E&M | Calculus 2, Physics 1 | Calculus 3 |
It depends.
Some universities, particularly private universities, will not allow students to use AP credit to gain advanced standing in required major classes, but may allow students to use the AP credit to fulfill distribution requirements.
For example, at D2’s private uni, AP Bio credit was NOT allowed for bio/neuroscience/chem/BME majors as the university says it doesn’t meet their minimum academic requirements for the course. Students in those majors who do submit a AP Bio score get “general biology –3 credits” rather than a specific class credit. The general bio credit appears on transcripts and is reported to AMCAS. However, because the AP credit is not listed as being equivalent to a specific course at the university, no classes are marked as a “repeated” classes on AMCAS transcripts for medical schools.
For non-bio/neuro/chem/BME majors who report an AP Bio score, they received credit for non-major intro biology 1 and can use that credit to fulfill their physical science distribution requirement for graduation.
(For non science majors going to med school the credit for non-major intro bio is moot since medical schools won’t accept non-major biology courses as fulfilling med school admission requirements. They still have to take the university’s into biology-for-majors 2 semester sequence. )
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My older daughter similarly liked calculus-based physics. She liked it better than physics without calculus, largely for reasons that were discussed above. Calculus makes it easier to understand some aspects of physics. Centrifugal force and harmonic motion are two examples. She seemed to think of calculus-based physics as an interesting class and a solid A (or two) to help offset the B’s in two semesters of organic chemistry.
I understand that not all students taking the premed / pre-vet required series of classes will have the same experience here.
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Yeah, ultimately all these things are more just “know yourself” considerations than any sort of bright line rules. If you have some sense of what you are good at, what you enjoy (often but not entirely an overlapping category), what you might consider for majors, and so on, you can just think a little carefully about whether you want to do something in HS or college, including how that will affect what else you can do in HS, and what else you might have to do in college if you do apply to med schools.
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