Need advice for pre-med!

[Gary]

SAU Tech has online Anat/Phys I & II w/labs + Biology w/lab + Phys Science I & II w/labs coming up in May. They are shortened (summer) and very doable. Cost recently went up to $160.00 a cr hr but if your looking at pre-med, you might want to get used to the pain (as in cost-OUCH). Here's a couple of sites.
Class Schedules - Main Menu
Annual Course Listing
Make sure your class is accepted for pre-med prior to taking like everyone said or you'll be doing double work.

[hex099]

Thanks Jennifer! I found the class on Clovis CC's site after I realized I was looking in the wrong place, haha.

[cookderosa]

Thanks Jennifer! I found the class on Clovis CC's site after I realized I was looking in the wrong place, haha.

>>

As best as I can tell, I think Clovis is the cheapest community college in the country for out of state students. Someone can correct that info if they know of a cheaper school, but I'm pretty sure it's still Clovis. Clovis also lets you see the cost/title/isbn of books before you register!!

[craftkc10]

Bambi had some great advice. Additionally, it's important to remember that med schools have much more stringent requirements than most other graduate/professional schools to ensure applicants are capable of meeting the demands of med school. For instance, many will "penalize" you for shopping for classes when you transcript courses from several different schools (beyond what would be expected from a transfer from one school to a new one). Likewise, a part-time transcript will not compete as well as a full-time, challenging schedule. Finally, I would caution against using CLEP to satisfy the science requirements. As stated they won't count for the lab requirement. And while some schools will allow them as long as additional advanced courses are taken in the subject, some schools won't.

Jennifer had a great point about not wasting time and money on a 2nd Bachelor degree, but there is another option that many have used to get into med school. It's a post-grad med school prep syllabus which is sometimes completed years after the BS. This requires a full academic year plus a summer session and consists of the courses Bambi listed: 2 semesters of Biology with lab, 2 semesters of Gen Chem with lab, 2 semesters of Physics with lab, and 2 semesters of calculus (not required by all schools, but by enough to include it) followed by a summer session to get your 2 semesters of organic chem with lab. This is a very challenging schedule, but if you can get through this with somewhere around a 3.5 gpa and put together a good score on the MCAT, you'd be in pretty good shape for getting into a med school.

[cookderosa]

Bambi had some great advice. Additionally, it's important to remember that med schools have much more stringent requirements than most other graduate/professional schools to ensure applicants are capable of meeting the demands of med school. For instance, many will "penalize" you for shopping for classes when you transcript courses from several different schools (beyond what would be expected from a transfer from one school to a new one). Likewise, a part-time transcript will not compete as well as a full-time, challenging schedule. Finally, I would caution against using CLEP to satisfy the science requirements. As stated they won't count for the lab requirement. And while some schools will allow them as long as additional advanced courses are taken in the subject, some schools won't.

Jennifer had a great point about not wasting time and money on a 2nd Bachelor degree, but there is another option that many have used to get into med school. It's a post-grad med school prep syllabus which is sometimes completed years after the BS. This requires a full academic year plus a summer session and consists of the courses Bambi listed: 2 semesters of Biology with lab, 2 semesters of Gen Chem with lab, 2 semesters of Physics with lab, and 2 semesters of calculus (not required by all schools, but by enough to include it) followed by a summer session to get your 2 semesters of organic chem with lab. This is a very challenging schedule, but if you can get through this with somewhere around a 3.5 gpa and put together a good score on the MCAT, you'd be in pretty good shape for getting into a med school.

Well, I can't pass up an opportunity to promote Harvard's medical school prep courses now that we are tossing around options. You can do them through their extension- on campus only- but as long as you have never taken a science course, you can enroll. (odd rule?) Anyway, completers get a letter of recommendation for med school- not a bad deal!
Harvard home
go into the Continuing Education College, and then into the Extension School link. You'll find it under certificates.

Edit- I forgot to say, these are undergrad classes (8 credits each=1 year), so if you went to Cambridge for 2 summers, you could do the certificate AND transfer these classes back into your home college's bachelor's degree program.

[jaryu]

Well, I can't pass up an opportunity to promote Harvard's medical school prep courses now that we are tossing around options. You can do them through their extension- on campus only- but as long as you have never taken a science course, you can enroll. (odd rule?) Anyway, completers get a letter of recommendation for med school- not a bad deal!
Harvard home
go into the Continuing Education College, and then into the Extension School link. You'll find it under certificates.

Edit- I forgot to say, these are undergrad classes (8 credits each=1 year), so if you went to Cambridge for 2 summers, you could do the certificate AND transfer these classes back into your home college's bachelor's degree program.

For that certificate you need to complete 8 classes. And no matter how good you are the most you can take is 3 per semester. Since you can't do the level 2 classes until you do the level 1 and Org Chem can't be taken until you take Chem 1 & 2.

And never even consider taking a class from the Harvard summer school (unless you are desperate or need the certificate in 12 months exactly). It's nice that they have accelerated versions of the courses (Org Chem 1&2 8 credits in 1 accelerated term) but they are 2.5 times more expensive than the normal extension school. That 8 credit Org Chem in summer school is 4950 bucks for just that class. But if you don't do it this way, it will take you another 2 semesters to finish the certificate and you will only be doing 1 class on each semester which kind of bites.

So ideally you would do Chem 1 and Bio 1 on the fall semester, Chem 2 and Bio 2 on the Spring Semester. Skip summer school and take Phys 1 and Org Chem 1 in the Next fall and Phys 2 and Org Chem 2 in the Spring. So it will take 2 years for the certificate... so unless you wanna spend lots of money for the summer school you will be considered part time the whole time, except that taking 2 classes at the extension school means you need health insurance... hopefully you have your own...cause any B&M health insurance is a worthless waste of money.

[cookderosa]

For that certificate you need to complete 8 classes. And no matter how good you are the most you can take is 3 per semester. Since you can't do the level 2 classes until you do the level 1 and Org Chem can't be taken until you take Chem 1 & 2.

And never even consider taking a class from the Harvard summer school (unless you are desperate or need the certificate in 12 months exactly). It's nice that they have accelerated versions of the courses (Org Chem 1&2 8 credits in 1 accelerated term) but they are 2.5 times more expensive than the normal extension school. That 8 credit Org Chem in summer school is 4950 bucks for just that class. But if you don't do it this way, it will take you another 2 semesters to finish the certificate and you will only be doing 1 class on each semester which kind of bites.

So ideally you would do Chem 1 and Bio 1 on the fall semester, Chem 2 and Bio 2 on the Spring Semester. Skip summer school and take Phys 1 and Org Chem 1 in the Next fall and Phys 2 and Org Chem 2 in the Spring. So it will take 2 years for the certificate... so unless you wanna spend lots of money for the summer school you will be considered part time the whole time, except that taking 2 classes at the extension school means you need health insurance... hopefully you have your own...cause any B&M health insurance is a worthless waste of money.

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The reason I mention it isn't for a cost savings, but getting a full year class done in 7 weeks is pretty fast. A person could stay in Cambridge and enroll in the full ssemesters through extension (cheaper than summer school), but summer sessions are probably more practical if you are a regular full time student at your home college working on your degree. If you are only taking the courses for the sake of taking the courses, this is not the cheapest option; but if you do the certificate you have to take into account that they write you a reference & recommendation for your med school application. What's that worth?

[jaryu]

>>


The reason I mention it isn't for a cost savings, but getting a full year class done in 7 weeks is pretty fast. A person could stay in Cambridge and enroll in the full ssemesters through extension (cheaper than summer school), but summer sessions are probably more practical if you are a regular full time student at your home college working on your degree. If you are only taking the courses for the sake of taking the courses, this is not the cheapest option; but if you do the certificate you have to take into account that they write you a reference & recommendation for your med school application. What's that worth?

If all you want is the reference and recommendation it's faster to just sign up for the HCP program and do the sponsorship instead. Depending on your undergrad gpa, you only need to do 5 classes instead of 8 to get the medical school reference.