UCSB vs. UCI for med school?

blessingh
Tue, 02 Jun 2020 01:13:57 +0000

i’m so sorry this is gonna be long omg
yes i met the pre-req’s for chem, which was just a college math class (i took this last winter). so i should’ve been allowed to take gen chem in spring 2019, but registration was full. i was sophomore standing. UCR has these learning communities (all bio majors) who get priority for registration for all classes. i wasn’t placed in a LC because i am a psych major. i was told this wouldn’t make a difference, but i was continuously left behind, whether it was for registering for classes or finding study groups.
but the other problem was that this was happening w my psych classes too. half the psych classes at UCR weren’t offered, and the few that were available were full by the time i registered this past term. theoretically, i should’ve gotten priority because i was not only junior standing, but also a psych major. so this quarter i was unable to take any psych classes at all, and ended up taking some random linguistics class to fulfill a social science requirement. i think the other factor is that these pre-med classes are not required for me to complete, i’m taking them as electives. i think if it was necessary for me to take chem to graduate, they would give me more priority, but i’m not entirely sure.
honestly i was pretty open to a post-bacc but i’m worried i might end up spending 5 years in undergrad. and my advisor had told me that post-bacc is mostly for re-doing upperdiv science classes anyways, which i haven’t done yet. the main reason he recommended it (i went to him at the end of freshman year last year) was because i got a D in economics and a C in statistics. i did well (mostly A’s and few B’s) in my psych, philosophy, and other classes. he recommended post-bacc to raise my GPA. again, i’m pretty open to it, but i’m not sure how much it’ll help me and if it will really be worth it.
comparing UCSB to UCI, irvine definitely looks like it would end up being similar to UCR because of the BA thing. i’ve also heard the major i was accepted into is more social science based (career pathways would be therapists, social workers, etc.) rather than medicine/hard science based. on the other hand, SB has the hard science/pre-med req’s integrated into SB has more psych classes that fit my interest (like labs, memory, etc.) but of course, this is only helpful if i can actually get a spot.