I am a medical student a little overwhelmed “by all my classes. That was mainly in my Chem and Bio classes (med school and major requirements), but was worried about my other two classes – core general education requirements (a freshman class of political science and writing) required for graduation and mandatory for all freshmen at my university. How much effort I put into these classes? Or rather, how many medical schools participate in these courses? receive a B in his being a great business?
Tags: about, care, Education, from, General, Medical, much, Requirements, Schools, University
Med schools care about all of your classes, not just the premed prereqs.
When you apply to med school (via AMCAS run by the AAMC) two GPAs are calculated and given to med schools: your science GPA and your overall GPA. Med schools definitely consider both GPAs when considering applicants–usually when you hear GPA requirements or averages being tossed around it’s the cumulative GPA. Not only does this GPA include all of the classes you take in college (be they a science, a prereq, an elective, or a gen ed) but they include any college-level course you’ve ever taken….so if you took any college classes when you were a high school student, those count too.
All that said, one or two Bs isn’t the end of the world…but a pattern of them (and more than one or two) will be a big deal because it plummets your GPA (and in the med school admissions game, a 3.4 starts to be considered low).
If that doesn’t make sense to you, just think–not only are schools looking to see if you have the background and ability to handle the science in med school but they’re looking to see if you have the ability to handle the volume, time-intensity, and demands of med school…if you can only do well in 1-2 courses at the expense of your other courses, it’s not a good sign.
Well said, ladyroo.