Whats wrong with taking organic chemistry in the summer??!!

sakky
Fri, 26 May 2006 01:29:30 +0000

Sakky, look how everyone is asking who you are. You do have the right to remain anonymous.



Ecnerwalc3321, considering the hyper-excitedness of certain posters here, I am better off remaining anonymous.



And it’s even better to get top grades at a top school!



And also a heck of a lot harder.



sakky is right for his premise (better to get an A at a CC than a C at home inst.), but that doesn’t imply that people should go to CC’s and take classes.

First, there is a disadvantage to going to a CC - med schools definitely will notice.

Second, there’s no way to guarantee you’ll get a C at your home institution.

Third, things that are too easy tend not to teach you as well. This may come back to haunt you on the MCAT. Granted, Ochem on the MCAT is pretty easy anyway, but every point matter



Personally, I think this should be up to the individual to figure out. While it is obviously true that nobody really knows whether he will get a C or worse in his home institution Ochem class, people can usually tell approximately where they stack up relative to the other students in his/her school. It doesn’t take you all that long to learn about the grading philosophy of your school and of how strong you are relative to the average student at your school. Some students find themselves in schools in which they can clearly tell that they are one of the worst students at that school and/or where the curve is brutal, and hence they know that they are unlikely to get high grades in any of the premed courses they take at their home school. Hence, these students are almost certainly better off doing OChem and lots of other premed coursework at a community college.

Furthermore, there are plenty of schools that simply don’t offer OChem over the summer. I know MIT doesn’t. I doubt Caltech does. So if a guy from MIT wants to take OChem over the summer (and can’t afford Harvard Summer School), then he has little choice but to do it at a CC.

However, my main point is that every single premed student has to assess what his individual situation is. If he honestly feels that he won’t do well in his home institution OChem class, then a CC may be a better option. It’s better to get an A in a CC than to get a C or worse in your home institution. There are a LOT of people who get C’s or worse in Ochem at the top schools. I know that Berkeley gave out a LOT of bad grades in its OChem classes. All of those Berkeley premeds who wound up with bad OChem grades would have frankly been better off not taking the class at Berkeley at all.