Maybe those of you have been on adcoms can give me your two cents on this -
I have been taking pre-med classes informally (already have a degree). I signed up to take the last quarter of physics, microbiology, and biochemistry in the fall. However, I found out that the biochem prof is brutal - the last quarter he taught there were only 40 people who took the final after an initial class size of 200.
I can still get into molecular genetics and drop biochem. However, this will be my last quarter taking classes (unless I get rejected by the med schools and they tell me to take more classes), so I won’t be able to enroll in biochem later.
From an adcom perspective, should I keep the biochem and risk a less than stellar grade, or would I be okay replacing it with molecular genetics?
Thanks -
Amy
Hi Amy,
I don’t know about the adcom perspective, but I know some schools actually require biochem. Is that why you were taking it? Or was it for a different reason? That’s just something to keep in mind, anyway.
Well, I was actually taking it because it was “strongly recommended”, and I thought it was interesting.
At most of the schools I am interested in applying to this year, biochem and mol gen are both on the “strongly recomended” list. It seems to be a fairly even split right now of schools starting to require either biochem or mol gen. If a school requires one, the other is highly recommended. Some are requiring one of the two (your choice).
Another option would be to drop the micro, and take both mol gen and biochem. I kind of thought microbiology sounded interesting.
I could actually take all four classes (micro, biochem, physics, and mol gen), but after winter and spring quarter of 20 hours and taking the entire ochem series in 8 weeks, I’m really not enthused about the idea of another 20 hour quarter. Even more so since this quarter I will be facing an hour and a half (one way) commute, and the biochem is reported to be a b*tch. Rumor has it that physics and micro aren’t too tough.
Ideally, I would have liked to take all four of these classes, but I’m probably going to be able to take only three. I don’t want to put one off for another quarter because: 1. I don’t have any financial aid after fall, and have no money to pay for the class, 2. I don’t want to commute 1 1/2 hours for one class.
Hopefully, that explains the situation a little bit better. Perhaps I should just deal with the biochem. If so - any recommendation about micro vs. mol gen?
Amy