About taking courses that are relevant to the year you're in

[Guest Collabo]

Hi everyone,

 

I was reading the OMSAS instruction booklet and it says in the U of T section that 60% of course load should correspond to the year of program you are in. The problem with my program is that I've already completed most of my required courses by 3rd year. This means I don't have a lot of 4th year level courses to take, and it is even recommended that we take more electives than the other years. Therefore, I'm wondering if I should take 4th year courses that are not required for my program or take electives from other subject areas?

 

Thanks for all your help in advance.

[Guest kylerh]

I'm sure they would be quite understanding. Just explain your course selections at the interview(if you get one) or in your autobiographical sketch.

 

Hope this helps

 

kylerh

[Guest satsumargirl]

You could discuss this with an advisor at the schools you are interested in.

 

Does your program not have 4th year electives?

 

I think the admissions will wonder a bit if you are in fourth year and have a bunch of 1st and 2nd year courses on your transcript.

[Guest BlazinKhan]

Question: In 4th year can you take majority 3rd year courses, or does that 60% rule apply as well?

 

I don't see why they would want you to take 6 credits (assuming your taking a full course load) worth of 4th year courses seeing as you generally take them if you have an idea for a project or something. And as originally stated, most programs don't have that many 4th year requirements anyway. So if you were to take other electives for 4th year courses, you probably wouldn't have the prerequisites, right? Well, I am confused :|

[Guest scrubbed]

Hello,

 

Looking at this post from the U of T forum, and Leslie Taylor's supposed statement, it appears that 60% of your courses must correspond to the senior level (3rd and 4th year). As long as your electives fit that criteria then, you should be in good shape. Although I had done 3.5 years at the time of application, I wasn't on track to do 6 credits of fourth year courses, and it didn't seem to be a problem with me. I did meet the 60% criteria as stated above, though.

 

Because of this, down the line, you probably don't need to explain it in your interview, or even your essay either. You may want to focus on why you took the courses that you did, including your program and possibly your electives.

 

Best of luck!

[Guest aneliz]

Don't stress too much... as a general rule, the med schools are only looking to see that you aren't taking 80% of your courses at the first year level when you are in fourth year. Usually both 3rd and 4th year level courses count as 'appropriate to your year' for both third and fourth year.

[Guest dayne67]

What if a non-traditional applicant decided to take premed courses in the fourth year of my studies? I enrolled as a Life Sciences student at UofT after my third year of engineering and took first year bio, first year chemistry (with lab), and first year psych (another life science course). I then came back and finished my final year of engineering the year later.

 

Eventhough, I really had no choice but to take those courses if I wanted to apply, the year seems to stick out because of those first year courses. But I don't think a student jumping into another program and taking lower year courses for a specific purpose (i.e. applying to med school) should be penalized.

[Guest Jochi1543]

Dayne,

I'm in a similar situation. I had 300 and 400-level courses in my major, but 100 and 200-level courses for my premed classes. I think the adcom perfectly understands this. Not everybody enters university set on going into medicine.

[Guest dayne67]

Yeah, I figure that as long as there is a purpose to taking lower year courses - and that one has already shown that they can achieve a decent GPA while taking courses that correspond to their year - then it shouldn't be a problem.

 

I may have taken first year (premed) courses while in my fourth year of studies, but thoughout engineering, all my courses always corresponded to the specific year that I was in.

[Guest iownhonda]

What if you only took 5 upper level courses in your 3rd year as opposed to the minimum requirement of 6 but took more senior level courses in the previous year and summer? Are you still eligible to apply?

[Guest aneliz]

You are always eligible to apply. Nobody is sitting there counting your courses in a year and refusing your application. All of the schools will happily take your money and accept your application... however, if you don't meet their requirements, it won't go very far. In general, if the year was full time, it counts. If it wasn't, at many schools, it doesn't. That said, you should attempt to have courses that correspond to your year level. If you are a senior student, you should be taking predominantly senior level courses... not first year ones. If you are a first year, you are expected to take predominantly first year course... But there is no magic number of courses that satisfies this expectation.

 

Also, keep in mind that many schools do not look at summer courses at all, and really don't care what or if you took courses in the summer. You cannot use summer semester courses to compensate for a part-time workload or under-level courses that you are taking during the regular school year.