Happy New Year’s everyone.
I know there’s about 23984738 of these posts, but I’m going to ask anyway.
My school seems to be doing its best to screw evening students this semester, and I just found out they cancelled the only evening section of Cell Bio next semester that I could get into.
I am still enrolled for Orgo II.
My options at this point are:
1. Take Statistics at my current school.
2. Take Molecular biology or Anatomy & Physiology at a community college.
3. Take the time to do more volunteer work, or whatever.
Any suggestions? I’m leaning toward the community college at this point.
Thanks,
Erica
skip the statistics, take more biology. It will make your life way easier in med school. And on the MCAT.
Erica, from my vantage point the right answer is “it depends.” Your application package is different from anyone else’s. What do YOU think you need to 1) best prepare you for a career in medicine, and 2) make your application as strong as possible? Possible answers are: more science credits, more volunteer hours, more biology, a better understanding of statistics… and maybe other things you haven’t mentioned in your post.
I know that’s a non-answer at best, but med schools actually do look at each individual application carefully and so your own application really will be different from anyone else’s. You want your application to represent YOUR best effort, your best foot forward, so to speak. THat does NOT mean choosing whatever YOU think will most impress a school - it means being true to yourself and doing the things that feel right to you.
I hope that makes sense. I know your original post doesn’t ask, “What looks best to AdComs?” but I also know that’s on a lot of folks’ minds as they prepare their application so I am going off on that tangent a bit. I hope I’ve also answered your question, although I recognize it’s not the sort of cut-and-dry definitive answer people like to get.
Mary
Mary, as usual, makes some good points. All three plans have merit. If you haven’t taken a statistics course before, a good statistics course will give you a lot of insight into understanding the many stats presented in research.
The anatomy won’t be that helpful for the MCAT, but if the course covers a significant amount of physiology, I think that would be helpful. Also, the more anatomy or molecular biology exposure you get now, the less new material you will have in med school.
But, if you need volunteer work and etc. for your app, go that route.