Course and Degree Requirements for Medical School Applications

When you are planning on applying to Medical School, you may, like most students, choose to follow a Traditional Path through a Bachelor's Degree in a science-related field. Students may elect to pursue a degree in Chemistry, Biology, or Microbiology to name a few — but this is well-treaded path is not the only way to get noticed by a Medical School Admissions' Board.

About 50% of candidates who are currently enrolled in a US Medical School have instead elected to pursue a degree through a Non-Traditional Path. You are able to chose a degree in English, Psychology, or Philosophy, to name a few options, and still be eligible to apply to Medical School programs.  

The key thing to remember is that there is indeed a list of courses that you are obligated to take and must score highly in to be able to apply to Medical School. In this article, I will cover the general courses that you need to take in order to become eligible for consideration, as well strategies to improve your chances to make it to Medical School with a Non-Traditional Degree.  

The Required Courses That You Must Take in Undergrad and a Strategy for a Scientific Degree 

Although Medical Schools do have various individual requirements of their own for what courses a student has to have successfully passed when they were completing their Bachelor's degree, all schools require you to have at least 1 year of Biology, 1 year of Physics, 1 year of English, and 2 years of Chemistry.  

In most cases, universities will offer these programs as semester courses of Biology 1 and 2, Physics 1 and 2, some type of English course, and then Inorganic Chemistry 1 and 2 and Organic Chemistry 1 and 2.  All these core Science courses also have some type of Laboratory component that can eat away at your schedule, so it is important to make sure you are not overly ambitious when you are designing your course load.  

What most of my colleagues did as Freshmen was to start with a Biology and an Inorganic Chemistry class, and then take simple courses necessary for their degree requirements afterwards. It is going to be hard to adjust to the pace of the coursework. Most students who have a passion for Science will find, however, that Biology starts relatively slowly until after the mid-term, when you cover DNA sequencing and amino acids.

Chemistry will be the hardest hurdle to combat for many students, but if you are completing a traditional Fall and Spring semester, you will have to complete Chemistry eventually, so just utilize office hours with Teaching Assistants and make sure you study as hard as you can to score well on assignments.  

Another strategy would be to delay Chemistry until a later year, but the longer you delay these required courses, the more challenging it can be to complete your prerequisites for other classes if you are in a Science-related field.

Physics is also a hard class to tackle if you are weak in Calculus or theoretical thinking, so you would be wise to stagger Physics to your Sophomore year so you learn how to study effectively before you get started. You will face Organic Chemistry with Physics in this circumstance, but one year is a sufficiently large amount of time to develop new and more effective study habits. You will be more capable of dealing with these topics with more experience as you progress up the educational hierarchy.  

A Useful Strategy For a Non-Scientific Degree 

How to Schedule Your Courses as a Non-Scientific Degree Candidate on a Pre-Med Track 

If you choose to take a degree in a field not directly linked to Science, you have allowed yourself a wonderful opportunity to excel in your science coursework. You are only obligated to take the same courses in Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and English but now you have more freedom in when you choose to take these courses. You can enroll in courses and delay overlapping difficult courses, so you can dedicate most of your time to studying for one subject most effectively. 

This is a strategy I have seen done by a few of my colleagues who chose to not follow a traditional path to Medical school, and it worked very effectively for them.  They decided to take Biology during their Freshman year and could dedicate all of their time to focusing on the hard aspects of this material.  

Because they were not obligated to take additional Science credits to meet prerequisites, they did not have to stack Biology with Chemistry and were able to delay Chemistry until the next year. Should you choose the same path, by Sophomore Year, you will have the same experience of learning how to study effectively so you will be able to take Inorganic Chemistry and Physics. This leads to a much more desirable schedule than dealing with Organic Chemistry and Physics at once. Inorganic Chemistry is a relatively easy course and should be manageable so a student can bear down dedicate more time to Physics instead.  

By Junior Year, this is where students can start focusing on Organic Chemistry and dedicate all of their year tackling this beast of a class. Organic Chemistry is often the first class where the majority of students do poorly on the material, and this challenging course is going to be a struggle for the whole class.  

If you have no other Science course to worry about, you will have an easier time applying yourself to make sure you are successful with the material.  This can equate to having higher Science GPAs than your Science-degree colleagues, and choosing this route will position you well when you are applying to other programs.  

What more, you will have additional free time without having to deal with lab components of the courses all at once so you can get involved in research and volunteering much more quickly than a Science major would. That, in turn, means you can end up having an impressive list on your resume, while your competition is struggling with multiple Science courses at once.  

A Beneficial Strategy for Both Non-Traditional and Traditional Majors 

The strategies I listed in the first two sections only considered the Fall and Spring semesters that are available at universities.  What most universities offer is also a Summer semester where students will be able to take a course and focus on it more intimately.  In my University, these summer courses were much more accelerated and students would often meet daily for lectures but the material was often easier to digest.  Most of the student body would be home for the Summer Break, so you also allow yourself the opportunity of studying in a deserted library and will have fewer distractions without University athletics to worry about, or hanging out with all your friends for that matter. This makes this path a good choice for people who want to focus intently.  

Although it is more expensive to pay for housing all year round and it can be hard on your wallet having to pay for expenses that would be covered by your parents most of the time at home, you can spread out your studies to make it more manageable.  

You will have a more manageable schedule at the start of your studies and will then transition to a more accelerated pace during your Sophomore year while still having all your prerequisites completed so you can progress into the higher material you must complete to get your degree.  

Medical Schools do not care during what semester you are taking your courses as long as you have strong grades in each class.  It may be more difficult for you to adjust to the Science-rich curriculum that is going to be waiting for you if you get into Medical School, but you at least are in a class and have the opportunity to struggle in Medical School as opposed to being on the outside waiting to see what happens next.