Question on chem req

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
1

<p>I’m a freshman in college. My first semester, I took an advanced general chemistry course which covers the normal year-long sequence in one semester. However, as I’m not doing as well as I could–I’ll finish with a B–and because I’m considering following the premed track, next semester I might take the second semester course in the normal sequence of gen chem.</p>

<p>If it didn’t make sense, let me explain. Say the name of the advanced gen chem course is Chem 115. The names of the two courses in the one-year long, easier sequence are Chem 104 and Chem 105, respectively.</p>

<p>If I didn’t pull an A in Chem 115 (which is supposed to cover all of gen chem), would it look bad on my transcript if second semester I took Chem 105?</p>

2

<p>Med schools won’t care because they won’t really understand the numbering.</p>

<p>However, at Cornell, they strongly discouraged us from dropping from advanced gen chem to the regular sequence for the 2nd semester. In fact, we needed an instructor signature to be able to drop down. I myself tried to drop down (this was after an A first semester; I simply wasn’t understanding anything the 2nd semester). After talking to the dean and the instructor, they wouldn’t let me drop so I had to ride it out. I hope your school is more lenient about this.</p>

3

<p>Um, why would the numbering even be listed? That doesn’t make sense at all if the numbers show up…</p>

<p>I just want to know how bad will it look when they see:</p>

<p>F1: Advanced Gen Chem - B
F2: Gen Chem Part 2 - A</p>

4

<p>Because there’s a part on the application that asks for course numbers in which case you’d have to write “Chem 115” and “Chem 105.”</p>

5

<p>I guess they do it in part to be on top of situations like mine… :(</p>

<p>So, you really think they won’t see through the numbers? Rather, they’ll be confused by them?</p>

<p>…Doesn’t seem like something I’d expect of a med school adcom.</p>

6

<p>I think you give med school adcoms too much credit.</p>

<p>Med school admissions isn’t precise or exact or fair. They get thousands of applications that they have to sift through. They’re not going to spend much time looking through individual courses on your transcript. They have much more important things to worry about like your PS, EC’s, grades, MCAT, recs, etc.</p>

7

<p>Whew. Thanks.</p>

<p>Another question, if you don’t mind: I put in around 200 hours of volunteering work at a hospital during high school. What’s a reasonable additional amount of hours I should put in during my college years?</p>

8

<p>200 hours during is a good number if you want a ballpark figure.</p>

<p>But the better answer would be: As much as you feel comfortable with. I didn’t really like hospital volunteering so I quit after roughly 120 hours. If you like it, then do more. If not, then find other ways to get clinical experience (EMT, shadowing, etc.)</p>

9

<p>1.) Enough that you can learn from it.
2.) As much as you can.
3.) Shouldn’t premeds love hospitals and sick people? The proper question is, how much can you do before you start to mess up other parts of your life?</p>