Why exactly is OChem a premed requirement?

[sakky]

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every person I’ve ever spoken to thinks that his school’s orgo class was the hardest

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<p>My brother went to Caltech, not me, and I’ll be the first to say that his OChem course was harder than mine. In fact, I suspect that, except at a small handful of schools, all students would concede that their OChem course is probably not as hard as the one at Caltech. </p>

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Sakky: The idea of MDs teaching college courses is great, but there are only 100-some med schools attached to colleges. What about kids that go to other schools?

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<p>Well, first off, if those 100-odd colleges begin offering premed courses taught by MD’s, that’s still better than nothing at all. Just because we can’t get perfection doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try to get something. Something is better than nothing. </p>

<p>Secondly, I don’t see why the MD’s necessarily have to come from a med-school that is attached to the college in question. For example, why can’t MIT premed courses be taught by MD’s from Harvard Medical School? After all, MIT already has an extensive cross-reg relationship with Harvard. Similarly, perhaps MIT can arrange for its premeds to take courses taught by MD’s from the Tufts SOM or BUSM. </p>

<p>Furthermore, I don’t even see why you necessarily need a medical school to be involved at all. All you really need are MD’s who are willing and able to teach. For example, I suspect there are some retired or semi-retired doctors out there who might be willing to teach (or co-teach) a course or two because they think it’s fun. Heck, one of my neighbors is a retired doctor who enjoys talking to premeds and I suspect he would be willing to teach, or at least help to build, a premed course. </p>

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High GPA, low MCAT -> you may have taken the easy route through college. Vice versa-> you might be smart but lazy

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<p>Or you might be smart and hard-working, but just took difficult courses. </p>

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There is space in the personal statement and interview to explain any discrepancies.

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<p>The problem with using the interview to explain discrepancies is simple: you first have to be invited to the interview. What if you’re not even invited because your GPA was ostensibly too low? </p>

<p>The real problem is clear if you think about the borderline candidates and the first-round screens. Somebody with both a borderline GPA and a borderline MCAT may get past the first-round screen and be invited to interview, whereupon that person may indeed try to explain how difficult his coursework was. But somebody with the same borderline MCAT, but a subpar GPA (perhaps because he took difficult courses), won’t even get an interview. Hence, he’s lost the game before it ever really got started. *That’s the problem. *</p>