Applications year..taking more electives..?

[Guest Gavanshir]

Hello, I'm doing a three year undergrad biology program (specialization). When I apply to medschools, they will initially only see grades from my first two years. My GPA needs some improvement and so I'm planning to take an extra non-science elective in my winter semester. This way my 2nd year will look like this:

 

Fall: 4 sciences + 1 elective

Winter: 3 sciences + 2 electives

 

These electives are relatively easy and I'm pretty much guaranteed to get As from them. By doing this I will have no electives left for my last year. I'm wondering if there is anything immediately wrong with doing this and whether adcoms will recognize it or just look at the overall GPA. Again I feel that I really need the GPA improvement and handling 4 sciences that winter might even bring my GPA down.

[Guest bioboy2007]

I think your schedule looks fine, but I do warn against taking electives for the purposes of getting an easy A. Make sure you are finding an elective that interests you rather than taking it for the purposes of being easy.

 

I would be concerned taking all your electives at once but it shouldn't be too much of an issue.

 

Finally, as discussed in a previous post, individual classes that you take are not considered, your cumulative GPA is more important. As such, make sure you meet the pre-reqs for med school and that you are taking courses appropriate to the year you are in (not too many first year courses if you are a senior undergrad)

[Guest richmond604]

hey, you go to mcgill right?

 

I was told by my deparmental advisor that adcoms do recongize the "birdy" courses mcgill offers .....:rolleyes

[Guest Gavanshir]

I go to Concordia actually. The 2 courses I'm considering are Intro to World Religions and Intro to Society. I think I could put a spin on both of them as being useful to me in the future as a doctor..

[Guest medicator007]

Bah....

 

I went to McGill, did two "Birdy" courses and got in just fine... so a pox upon that!!!

 

Medicator

[Guest cedar05]

I am sure lots of peolple have a bird course or two on their transcript, don't worry about it!

 

However, I have found in the past that when I took a bird course that didn't interest me thinking it would be an easy A, it ended up being a huge pain the *ss and I wished I hadn't taken it. Also it wasn't always an easy A if I hated studying for it.

 

So take electives that you are interested in and chances are you will do just fine!