Okay, so you are thinking about going into medicine and want to know what kind of major to pick and/or what courses you should be taking. Truthfully, most schools vary with the specific types of classes they want you to take for their medical schools. I will give the overall general list that I have found to be common among several schools from my years of applying, but if you know the specific schools you are considering applying to, I suggest you check their websites for details.
Why is it important to take the courses specified by the school you are applying to Joyce? Well funny you should ask there… basically if you don’t have the required courses they look for, when they put you through their generator to see if they want to give you a secondary application or possibly an interview, you’re application will go in the discard pile. They do the same thing if your MCAT score isn’t in the right range for that school (say if they are a school known to have a high average score), etc. So it’s important that you take a look to make sure you are taking courses for the schools you are interested in.
An easier way to do this than check every single school website is you can start an application on AMCAS (MD) or AACOMAS (DO) and choose the schools you are interested in possibly applying at. This way, you can find all of the requirements for classes in one area, and you don’t have to hunt! Plus you are going to have to do an application at some point, so you might as well look to see what you’ll need to fill out when the time comes.
Most medical school programs mention the classes that you need to take in credit hours. Each school is slightly different with how many hours their courses may equate to. My university had each science lecture down as 4 credit hours, and each science lab I took was 1 credit hour. A couple of courses I took (such as inorganic chemistry) where a combination of lecture and lab, which would be a total of 5 credit hours.
General Outline of Required Courses:
- Usually 8-12 hours of general biology with a lab. So a basic biology course I & II with their associated labs.
Example:
Basic Biology I : 4 credit hours
Basic Biology II: 4 credit hours
2 Biology labs: 2 credit hours
= a total of 10 hours.
- 8-12 hours of chemistry with lab. *Some schools combine inorganic chemistry and organic chemistry. Most schools have them separate.
Example:
Inorganic Chemistry I (with combined lab) : 5 hours
Inorganic Chemistry II (with combined lab): 5 hours
Organic Chemistry I: 4 hours
Organic Chemistry II: 4 hours
Organic Chemistry lab: 1-2 hours. (Some schools have 2 required labs for this course, mine only had 1 required lab).
- 8 hours of basic physics with a lab. This is usually your general physics course I & II with their required lab (again my school only had 1 required lab for the two courses together). There is also usually an option at most undergrad institutions for calculus-based physics versus non-calculus based.
- 6-8 hours of English/ Writing. This is usually required anyways as a general education requirement for most majors at most schools.
- 3 hours of biochemistry: this used to be optional, but this is becoming required at more schools. Usually one class is enough, but if you choose to do a science major, you will likely have 1-2 biochemistry courses that you need to take to get your degree. * I suggest taking it anyways because biochemistry is a beast in and of itself, especially if you have never seen it before. You’ll want the exposure later when you learn it in say 3 weeks like I will as an MS1.
- Usually 2-4 credits of a statistics class or other math course. *This one looks like it is becoming more recommended/optional. But most undergrad institutions make you take a certain number of math credits as well for your degree.
*Recommended (i.e. highly encouraged) but not mandatory: Human anatomy, physiology, genetics, microbiology, humanities, behavioral sciences (usually like one class of psychology or sociology). Some schools may also recommend molecular biology or immunology.
Each school has a varied list of what they have for recommended, so check the school’s site that you are interested in. Some only have 1-2 of these courses as recommended, others have part of these as mandatory courses to take and other courses as recommended. Should you choose biology or biochemistry as a major, you will likely have some or most of these courses already required in order to graduate.
My Route:
I took care of this by choosing to be a biology major. Some schools have set “pre-med” majors/course directions as well that can make this easier as they require all of these courses for you to graduate anyways. However, you don’t need to be a bio major like me to get all of this done. There have been plenty of people I know who did a completely different major, and still got into medical school. They did however check to see what classes where needed for the schools they were interested in, so they could make sure to take them along with their other courses during their time in undergrad.
Another option of getting all of these courses done is to do a post-bacc program to fill in their missing courses/classes that they need to apply to certain schools.
I hope this was helpful in helping you determine what courses you may need for medical school! Let me know in the comments of what you would like to see next.