<p>" After all, UMich Eng’g requires 16 credits of humanities/social sciences and 10 credits of electives, so it’s not like there isn’t room to require one 3 credit Frosh Comp class."</p>
<p>Actually, composition classes are one of the ones which are not acceptable for that requirement. If one wanted to take an English Comp class, they would have to use free electives for it. It won’t count for Humanities or Social Science credit. If it would, I would probably take one. </p>
<p>UMich incorporates some technical writing into Engineering 100, which freshmen take, and in the Major Design classes which seniors take one of.</p>
<p>Probably we don’t even disagree mom2collegekids, we are probably mincing words. I’m sure we have similar predictions here, but a different philosophy, if you will. </p>
<p>What I think I was trying to say is “it doesn’t matter”. If one isn’t cut out for pre-med, they will likely find out soon enough vis a vis their efforts and grades. It’s hard for one to know if or why they are an exception and there is nothing lost by testing it out, literally and figuratively (assuming everyone, regardless of prior score, has a back up plan for a non-med career they are happy with).</p>
<p>my school has a pretty intense set of general requirements (7 areas, 10 classes), but English isn’t one of them. You do have to take a freshman seminar though, which are almost all designated as “writing intensive”. And I’m sure an English class would fulfill one of the required areas.</p>
<p>I agree with you, Starbright. No need to make any decisions of whether to advise someone to forgo being a pre-med candidate based on high school ACT scores. </p>
<p>As for why O-chem is seen as a weeder class for pre-meds…there was a lot of grueling memorization and also the need to be able to see conceptually when I took organic chem decades ago. It’s a lot of class to slog through–usually a year of lecture and a semester of lab on top of that. At the end of o-chem, a pre med student has usually just finished two years of college and often has grades from 1 year of calculus, 2 years of chemistry, and 1 year of biology to evaluate. Many may look at their academic records at that point and decide to take another path.</p>
<p>We were in the book store the other day, looking at school guides. There were shelves upon shelves of study guides for different topics. Most were an inch thick at the spine, maybe two, and then there was one that looked about six inches thick. Holy cow, iIt really stood out…the spine read “organic chemistry”.</p>
<p>Our S got credit for his two AP English exams but still had to take TWO English courses. He’s an EE (not pre-med), but I believe there are very few exceptions at USC. Pretty much EVERYONE has to take AT LEAST two English courses.</p>
<p>D took one English course at another U before transferring to USC & I believe it transferred but she still needed to take another, upper division English course at USC, as do pretty much all students there.</p>
<p>RE Organic Chem, one student we know well opted to audit it over the summer & then enrolled in it in the fall at her U. She did well but was glad she did the audit so she had the confidence (she had a pretty awful experience in HS chem–horrendous teacher). She will be starting podiatry school with merit scholarships in the fall, tho she could have applied & likely would have been accepted for med school. She got into all the podiatry schools she applied to WITH significant merit aid, which is quite unusual.</p>
<p>The question I always wanted to ask has been whether specific schools or majors add exceptional gains to MCAT, LSAT, or GRE scores over ACT/SAT scores. I have heard of many students disappointed when graduate admissions test scores did not reflect college admission test scores at all, especially if they had invested in an elite education. (Yes, I realize that it is difficult to work around variables such as availability and quality of test prep in all instances, but still…)</p>
<p>The MCAT is more like the verbal section of the SAT and several SAT subject tests. If I recall correctly there is no pure math on the current MCAT exam.</p>
<p>A person should be a pre-med if they want to and if they can take and pass the required courses. There can be many explanations why a kid doesn’t do well on their board exams at 16 or 17 and could still do well in pre-med or on the MCAT.</p>
<p>I majored in biophysics. I wasn’t pre-med, but most of my classmates were. I know I probably had higher SAT scores than 90% of them. But many of them did much better than I did in in the required biology and chemistry classes. I think it was their level of interest and work ethic. I did better on the math/physics side of things.</p>
<p>If you had ACT/SAT scores good enough to be accepted into a college or university that will allow you to take the prerequisites for Medical School, that’s all you need to call yourself a “premed.” Individual results vary.</p>
<p>When I was in school, it was just another course along the periphery of what I was in school for (engg) - nothing memorable one way or the other. Now it appears that, at least for those aspiring to go to med school, schools such as DD1’s - NU - deluge the students with material in this course and curve it harder than normal. I don’t believe there is anything intrinsically more complex in Orgo or anything that is so connected to medicine that mastery of it is essential. It appears to be a strategy of dumping a whole lot of material on the student to see if they can cope with it.</p>
<p>If colleges need to weed students out it would make sense to make aspiring vets to attend classes where they have to stick their arms up you know what, or aspiring aero engineers to do a lot of differential equations. Orgo to weed out med students doesn’t make much sense - seems more like a tradition.</p>
<p>Bovertine has hit the nail on the head. There is no pure math on the MCAT, since the general requirements for Medical School are two college math courses, ANY two. If math material was on the MCAT, we’d have a more definite list of required math courses (in order to satisfy the MCAT math portion). </p>
<p>Also agree with the second part. I didn’t do stellar on my SAT/ACT but past getting into my UG school, no one cares. Medical Schools will never see either score and I think if they did, they wouldn’t care either. It’s all about three things: </p>
<ol>
<li>GPA</li>
<li>MCAT</li>
<li>Extra curriculars (and not just any). </li>
</ol>
<p>*If you had ACT/SAT scores good enough to be accepted into a college or university that will allow you to take the prerequisites for Medical School, that’s all you need to call yourself a “premed.” Individual results vary. *</p>
<p>I don’t agree. The pre-requisites for med school can literally be taken by anyone at a university. They aren’t unique or “hard to get into” courses. (See my post #16.)</p>
<p>And, since many state schools admit a wide range of students (with a wide range of test scores), virtually anyone can call themselves “pre-med.” It’s not an impacted program at most schools.</p>
<p>That’s exactly right. Any student can call him/herself a premed and I insist that, once you are in college, the only requisite to call yourself one is that you want to become a Physician. Whether they are still standing at the end of the gauntlet is something else. Competition is definitely stiff. To give you an example on a related field, UF Dental School had 1800 applications for 86 spots in their class a couple of years ago. Med School is similar if not worse. Desire and determination are very important parts of the equation.</p>
<p>This thread has got me thinking. It’s funny and curious how students (well not just students but people in general perhaps), use the term ‘pre-med’ like as if a label for a major, or one’s college identity…yet you don’t hear much about ‘pre-law’ or ‘pre-dentistry’ or ‘pre-MBA’ or ‘pre-PhD chemist’. </p>
<p>^I’ve heard pre-law, pre-dentistry, and pre-business (given that last one isn’t very common). There are overwhelmingly more pre-med students than those other groups though.</p>
<p>This weekend at an alumni function at my university I spoke with a fellow alumni who is also a Dean of Academic Advising at that school. He told me that approximately 40% of incoming freshmen state pre-health as their intended major and only around 220 actually end of going to medical school after UG. </p>
<p>As a high school teacher I have very few former students who are actually still studying what they planned to study when they were hs seniors. I know of many who end up not wanting to work as hard as needed for medical school and change to something else, I know of others who change their majors because they took a class or became involved in something that inspired them to change direction and I do know of some who found that college wasn’t for them at this particular time in life. </p>
<p>I guess what I am trying to say is that those who are able and really want to become a doctor will, the others won’t.</p>