Guest MedDreams Posted March 24, 2002 Report Share Posted March 24, 2002 Hi everyone, A friend of mine needs some advice and I have no clue how to answer her. She wants to get into Meds (desperately) but due to financial/personal reasons she wasn't able to take the recommended full course load of 5 full courses per academic year. Instead all she could handle was 4 courses per year with good grades. Apparently, now things are working favourably for her and so she plans on taking at least the minimum 5 courses per year as she enters year 3 in September 2002. Her questions were: "Will not having at least 5 full courses in year 1 & 2 affect the chances of getting into med school?" and "will taking 5.5 or even 6 courses per year (yikes!) be sufficient to make up for it?" As far as I know, I think you need at least 5 courses for each year during undergrad. I suggested to her that maybe she should look into potentially applying under 'special consideration' status, if there is such a thing? Any suggestions?! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest UWOMED2005 Posted March 25, 2002 Report Share Posted March 25, 2002 Having 5 full courses certainly helps. Fortunately, not taking 5 full courses in either 1st or 2nd year won't totally implode her chances. The same thing happened to me in 2nd year. . . that year was either not looked at by schools (ie UWO) or instead of using favourable GPA calculation formulas, my gpa was based on my entire record (ie U of T.) I don't know all the details - she should check each school's requirements on their websites, but make sure she knows her overall chances of getting in are still good. But also tell her that taking 5 full courses is key for the next few years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest MedDreams Posted March 25, 2002 Report Share Posted March 25, 2002 Great advice. I had a feeling she might have a better chance at UWO because apparently they only take the two best years with 5 full courses in the calculation of your GPA, but I wasn't too sure. Thanks again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest UWOMED2005 Posted March 26, 2002 Report Share Posted March 26, 2002 Make sure she still applies to the other schools anyways. . . In most cases, she'll still be eligible, she'll just be ineligible for favourable gpa calculations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest SheD Posted March 27, 2002 Report Share Posted March 27, 2002 heard an interesting roomer though...UWO is changing their requirements in '03. So before your friend moves on...TALK TO A PRE-MED ADVISOR! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest haloo Posted March 28, 2002 Report Share Posted March 28, 2002 My situation is that I went through my entire degree taking only four courses per semester just because I wanted to. In fact, there were a couple of semesters where I only took 3. I wasn't thinking about future plans at the time. I only decided I wanted to go into medicine in my final year. Of course if I had been planning on med school from the start I would have done things differently. However, after two years of doing my science prereqs (I am an Arts student) and my MCAT, I got 3 interviews this year. I also got definite rejections from U of Calgary and Western because basically I can NEVER apply there since I was not taking a full course load. Most other schools did not seem concerned with my situation. If your friend's grades are good and she does well on the MCAT there is no hindrance in applying to med school. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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