Homemade Pre-Med program

[Jonathan Whatley]

Here's how specific med schools can be about these prerequisites.

I'm taking General Chemistry I at Harvard Extension School at Harvard University this semester. My lab partner took AP Chemistry in high school for college credit, General Chemistry I at the Ivy League college where she earned her bachelor's degree, and Organic Chemistry I and II at HES last year. She's also taken standard premedical biology and physics sequences, and she's applying to medical schools this year.

She is outstanding. She's been accepted to one U.S. MD school already and interviews or are pending with or replies pending from a good number more.

However, meanwhile, she's still finishing up this General Chemistry prerequisite with newbies like me.

Why? AP Chemistry doesn't count. Having taken the higher-level organic chemistry courses doesn't count against the general chemistry requirement. General Chemistry I from her first college doesn't really do anything without part two of the sequence. Different schools split up their sequences differently, and one school may change how they divide it year to year… The best way for her to clearly meet the requirement was to start a qualifying general chemistry sequence one more time from square one.