Organic Chemistry

[Guest student1599]

Hi there, I've got a couple of questions and hope you guys could give me some solid feedback.

 

First of all, I'm a U of T student but I'm about to complete my degree and still haven't taken any organic chemistry courses (so I'm planning on taking them in the summer at York instead of U of T, it's must less condensed at York in the summer). Will the adcoms care if I fullfill the orgo requirement at another school? Secondly, when I took first year bio (with lab), I ended up with a combined average of 63%, but my marks have gone significantly higher in the subsequent years (around 3.62). Will they weigh the pre-requisites (most of which I took during first and second year) as much as they weigh my courses in my final two years?

 

Lastly, I didn't take a full course load in my first and second years (I actually took 2.5 credits in the first year, and 3.5 in the second year due to an illness of mine). However, I successfully completed my last couple of years with a full course load and decent marks. How badly will my two first years hurt my application?

 

Many thanks in advance, hope you guys can help.

[Guest 007]

First, it won't matter where you did Orgo. You'll just have to get transcripts from both schools when it comes time to apply.

 

Whether or not all years are looked at and whether your prerequisites are taken into account depends on which school you apply to. Schools like Queen's and Western only look at either your two best or two most recent years. However, these years must be full course load years. So, as long as you have at least two years with a full course load, you should be ok for at least some schools.

 

Also, most if not all schools have space on the application to explain things like illness affecting your course load/GPA.

[Guest studentz]

As 007 said, it doesn't matter where you do orgo, as long as you do it somewhere. Since you plan on doing it in the summer, the mark may not be included in the GPA some med schools use, but you'll get credit for having completed the course.

 

The BIO question is tricky. 007's right about Queen's and Western only looking at the last 2 years; depending on when you apply, Western may not have any prereq's anyway. UofT and Ottawa have a weighting formula that would have helped in that department, but your course load in your first 2 years may make you ineligible for weighting (in which courses are dropped or your latter years are given more weight at UofT and Ottawa, respectively).

 

Some schools, like Alberta I believe, consider your prereq average separate from your total GPA. You should look at the admissions pages of each school.