Homemade Pre-Med program

[WanderingTeacher]

WanderingTeacher, I've been thinking further about your proposed schedule.





In ISP program you're looking at, it seems each "Block," the ISP's counterpart to a semester, lasts 3 weeks plus 2 days (so as to include 4 consecutive weekends), except where blocks are extended to accommodate holiday weekends.

Let's say you take two courses per block.
4 weeks (to account for the week between regular block course starts, or studying during a bonus week during a block with a holiday break) * 5 weekdays * 3 to 5 hrs per weekday / 2 courses = 30 to 50 hrs per course of outside-class studying.

The ISP schedule is based on doing the work of one traditional semester – approximately 15 weeks – in each block.

So you're planning on the same total outside-class study time as a pre-med on a traditional semester schedule who allocates 30 to 50 hrs per course / 15 weeks = 2 to 3.3 hours of outside-class studying, per week, per semester-length science course.

This is total outside-class studying, all forms, before and after class – reading the textbook, looking up supplementary sources, taking practice exams, in study groups with fellow students, at office hours with faculty, making notes, reviewing notes…

Would you bet on that student, committing 1.5 to 2.5 hours total per course, maintaining a high science GPA and strong faculty recommendations, then rolling into the MCAT almost immediately after coursework and scoring competitively? (Maybe they'd allocate two semester courses' worth to studying for the MCAT overall – at this rate, 60 to 100 hours.)

At least a student on a traditional schedule who out started this way and found that it wasn't setting them up for success would have time to correct course. The plan above to start science coursework in February, have more or less one academic year's of credit completed and take the MCAT circa July, and start applying circa September, leaves very little margin in which to correct course.

This isn't a good plan. I couldn't even endorse it for a student who knew most of the premedical science curriculum already. Spending 3 to 5 hours per weekday in total outside-class studying becomes less and less reasonable if a student is either maintaining a very heavy course load or moving on a very fast academic schedule. The ISP's "block" schedule is exceptionally fast. And if the ISP cuts any corners the MCAT, as Jennifer says, is the great leveller.

Hi Jonathan. Well firstly, I've decided to do JFK's program instead, John F. Kennedy University • Weekend Intensive Science Courses - JFK University, San Jose , mainly because it is a lot cheaper, and I can avoid any potential accreditation problems that may arise in the next couple of years. As far as the course load and study time, you can't take two courses in 1 block. Both JFK and ISP's block schedule is set up to where you are in class Saturday and Sunday all day, for just one subject. So it would be impossible to take another class during the same block because you can't be in both classrooms at the same time. Which is why taking all the required science course will take approximately 6-7 months. So essentially I am dedicating 25-30 hours of outside studying time to one course only.

Also, like I said in a previous post, I won't have any outside obligations, besides the volunteering/shadowing that I hope to do during this time. With 16 hours of Up time Monday-Friday, with let's just say 2 of those are dedicated to volunteering/shadowing, and 5 dedicated to studying, that still leaves me with 9 hours remaining. Throw in daily tasks like eating, showering, driving, occasional errands, jogging, etc., we'll just take that down to 5 hours. So 5 open hours, Monday-Friday that if need be, can be allocated to additional studying. So say I do in fact add those 5 hours to the 5 I'm already studying. That's 10 hours per day of studying, 5 days a week, bringing the total number of weekly study hours to 50, and a total 200 outside study hours for the entire course. Obviously, this most likely will not be necessary, but I stated this so you can see that this is completely doable, again only if you have no outside obligations that takes up a huge chunk of your time per day. There would be no way I would do this with a full time job, I wouldn't recommend that to anyone. But I'm sure there have been people who have.