recommended courses

[cindysays]

On the Calgary Medical School website there is a list of recommended but not required courses for applicants and I am just wondering if anyone knows how important it is to have all of those courses. It says to have a two semesters in biochem and two semesters in orgo but I only have one semester for each. Will that hurt my chances?

[Who M.D.]

Yes it will—anything recommended that you haven't done will be a knock on you.

 

However, since they're recommended, you'll still have a chance. My guess is that not having those two requirements will have a pretty small overall effect on your chances—many students are missing some of the courses and they get in.

[cgy_guy23]

Directly from the U of C Med Applicant Manual:

 

"Although no specific courses are required, the admissions committee strongly recommends that applicants prepare for medical school by completing the following recommended courses..."

 

To me this does not imply an applicant will be penalized in any way by not having the recommended courses. I personally know people who have gotten into U of C and definitely did not take a bunch of those recommended courses. So no I think it is not a big deal if you do not have all of the courses but obviously having as many as you can will benefit you once you get into med school.

[Who M.D.]

To me this does not imply an applicant will be penalized in any way by not having the recommended courses. I personally know people who have gotten into U of C and definitely did not take a bunch of those recommended courses. So no I think it is not a big deal if you do not have all of the courses but obviously having as many as you can will benefit you once you get into med school.

 

I think there's a subjective component of one's academic score as well, and by the nature of it being subjective, I suspect some assessors may take into account your pre-requisite courses and performance.

 

But, I agree, many students get in without all of the pre-requisite courses and it's probably not something to sweat over (I didn't have all the pre-reqs when I got in). I'm sure the more one has the better for the admissions process so it's worth thinking about adding to them.

[cgy_guy23]

Yea I agree there may be a slightly subjective component to it however wouldn't it make more sense that they use some kind of standardization/curving system to calculate the GPA into a score...I would imagine how many points you get varies per year, depending on the entire applicant pool? Hmm who knows...ad coms is so mysterious in their ways.

[Who M.D.]

Yea I agree there may be a slightly subjective component to it however wouldn't it make more sense that they use some kind of standardization/curving system to calculate the GPA into a score...I would imagine how many points you get varies per year, depending on the entire applicant pool? Hmm who knows...ad coms is so mysterious in their ways.

 

I think the idea is to somehow take into account the difficulty one one's courses, one's degree, etc. It's hard to get a computer to do that.

[Steve-0]

They are highly recommended for a reason. Many of those courses directly prepare you for the material taught in class. The animal physiology course, for example, teaches much of the basic science of endocrinology, nephrology, muscle physiology, etc. The biochem courses prepare you for lots of the biochemical details (digestion physiology, bilirubin metabolism, lipid metabolism, etc)

 

Some of them are harder to find examples of how they directly apply to medicine, but they have to torture you one way or another, right? (see: organic chemistry)