Taking premed courses as pass/fail

@Reddyparent3

The most heavily weighted academic factor used by med school admissions committees is the science GPA (sGPA). So, no,having a weak/poor science GPA will keep one out of med school, no matter how good all one’s other grades are.

Don’t believe me? See this report that compiles the responses of med school admissions committees: https://www.aamc.org/download/462316/data/mcatguide.pdf

And there isn’t a single allopathic or osteopathic medical school in the US that will accept P/F grades as fulfilling the pre-reqs. Consult the MSAR and CIB, if you don’t believe me.

Med school applicants are required to report every single class they have ever taken at the college level–even if there is no grade or credit awarded, even if the coursework was taken during high school or at foreign schools, even if the original grade for a repeated course no longer appears on one’s transcript. Failure to report it is considered making a fraudulent application. A fraudulent application means the application will be revoked by AMCAS/AACOMAS, any acceptances will be revoked, and the student will be permanently barred from ever applying to med school. A fraudulent application can result in a medical school diploma being revoked even years or decades after the student has graduated from medical school. (And for the record, this has happened in not too distant past.)

Adcomms will see that a course has been repeated and that will (negatively) influence how they view an applicant’s academic strength.

Admission to medical school is extremely competitive with schools receiving up to 15,000 applications for 150-175 seats in the first year class. It’s a negative process. Adcomms are looking for reasons to eliminate applicants from consideration. A poor sGPA, repeated classes, P/F pre-req grades are easy reasons to reject an applicant.