Med students: need your advice please!

[Lumiere8]

I am a longtime lurker, and i have noticed that there are quite a few med students in the community.
My sister is thinking of going to med school...she is currently a social worker. She has completed the basic science prerequisites. What would you advise are the ''must take'' courses to prepare for the MCAT? What subjects helped you to most in terms of doing well on the MCAT? Thanks so much in advance.

 

[allycat0303]

Hi Lumiere!

Well I''m Canadian (although we have the MCAT too) so the classes I took were

Light and optics (physics)
Electricity and magnetism (physics)
Simple Mechanics (physics)

Solutions (General Chemistry)
Organic Chemistry 1
Organic Chemistry 2

Biology of organims 1
Biology of organisms 2

I also took:

Cal 1
Cal 2
Cal 3

Although these weren''t on the MCAT.

I did my bachelor''s and Master''s degree in biology, so that obviously helped a lot. However, if she already has her science prereq''s I wouldn''t necessary take more science classes (on the off chance that in some cases, they can end up lowering your GPA) I took the MCAT prep class with Kaplan, which was expensive, but I found that the practice tests, and the estimated scores were spot on.

Aside from that, I would say volunteer and research work is always an asset (although not always necessary)

Hope that helps!

 

[Lumiere8]

Thank you Allycat!
My sis is one of those people who does well on standardized exams. Thank you for the advice. She''s a bit worried since she wasn''t a science major for her Bachelor''s, but she has done very well with her science prereqs.

 

[allycat0303]

Lumiere,

I know a lot of non science bachelor people (who only had the prereqs) that did really, really well on the MCAT. I also know a lot of EXCELLENT science students that did very, very poorly on the MCAT. I think it depends on whether or not the exam suits your personal strengths and weaknesses. So if your sister does well on standardized tests, I don''t think she needs any more science courses (in case she wants too of course

). In my case, my biology helped me alot, but I''m sure there are a lot of NON biology people that did a lot better then me

in the biological sciences portion.

 

[icekid]

Lumiere- I am a second year, who also happens to do well on standardized tests. And I will say that is definitely a help for MCAT. Though I do know people who rocked the SAT and didn''t do so well on MCAT, so it''s definitely not a guarantee.

If she has already taken the prereqs, she really does not need to take any additional courses. She might want to take a MCAT prep class (priceton review or kaplan etc) , as their materials are very helpful, but even that is certainly not necessary. Might be useful though if she has been out of school for a while.

She might want to check out http://www.studentdoctor.net/. There is a lot of helpful information there, especially for non-traditional applicants.

Good luck to your sister!