Congratulations on your achievement !!!
It's amazing how you reply to all the questions so sincerely Thanks!
I was wondering,,,
is it true that 60% of the courses during 3rd and 4th yr shoud be courses of the corresponding year?

Thanks Suzy!

The number of type of prerequisite courses you should take depend on which medical school you are applying to and the requirements of your undergrad program. For example, UofT states this:

"For example, a student who applies for admission while registered in the third year of undergraduate work should have at least three third-year or higher courses in his/her program. Applicants in the fourth year of their program should be enrolled in a majority of courses at the third- and fourth-year levels."

So for them, it's 60% of your courses, but you can complete it as a mixture of third year and fourth year courses. They just don't want you taking all first year courses during fourth year You'll have to make sure to spread your bird courses apart, like natural disasters, water, gemstones, explorers, body mind spirit, instead of taking them all at once. Other medical schools have different criteria, you have to check each of their websites.

Nonetheless, I think taking at least 60% of higher level courses during those years is a great goal to keep in mind!

Does Anyone know if English 1CS3 is an acceptable English credit for medical schools?

Originally Posted by cajennin

Does Anyone know if English 1CS3 is an acceptable English credit for medical schools?

You should ask each medical school, each school is different.

I don;t know if you already answered this but I was too lazy to read through all your replies
but do you need to take any english classes to get into med school? is english one of the requirements?
Thanks!!!

Originally Posted by cjdzl

I don;t know if you already answered this but I was too lazy to read through all your replies
but do you need to take any english classes to get into med school? is english one of the requirements?
Thanks!!!

http://www.macinsiders.com/search.php?searchid=4 09374

I'm confident you need it for US Medical Schools.

Hey Mitch congrats
So when would you recommend taking the MCAT after 2nd or 3rd year?

@ cjdzl: You shouldn't be that lazy already! jhan is right that you need it for almost all US schools which is why I took it in my year off. Some Canadian schools need it, but not most. However it's somewhat of good experience for the MCAT. Look into which schools you want to apply to and check their prerequisites.

@jdia: I would definitely recommend taking the MCAT after 2nd year! The material that is on the MCAT such as 1st year bio, 1st year chem, 2nd year organic chem and 1st year physics is still fresh in your mind. Also and probably more importantly, if you do poorly, you have lots of time to prepare to retake the MCAT after 3rd year. That's what I did, and I always had that option up my sleeve.

You said you got into US Medical Schools so I was wondering did you do the 1 year of English like the wish? If you don't mind can I know what courses you took that were recommended or required for most US school?

hey mitch! thanks so much for all your sincere and informative responses !
i was wondering if you have any tips for tackling the VR part of MCAT? aside from the kaplan course did u use any additional supplementary books or haven taken any specific courses that helped?

Originally Posted by paperplanes

hey mitch! thanks so much for all your sincere and informative responses !
i was wondering if you have any tips for tackling the VR part of MCAT? aside from the kaplan course did u use any additional supplementary books or haven taken any specific courses that helped?

If you read regularly, it makes the VR component easier. Many students find the science passages easy, but have difficulties with the social sciences/humanities passages. Try reading the Economist regularly as some of the passages come directly from there.

The Exam Krackers 101 Passages was incredibly useful for VR. I also used Kaplan to study. I didn't really "Map" the passages as suggested because I find you get caught up in the smaller details. As long as you can figure out what the author's thesis and supporting arguments are, the rest should be fairly simple. To avoid getting thrown off, don't look at the multiple choice answers until you've conceptualized your own answer to the question.

Originally Posted by Lij

VR isn't that difficult if you read regularly. The science passages are easy, try reading the Economist regularly as some of the passages come directly from there.

The Exam Krackers 101 Passages was incredibly useful for VR. I also used Kaplan to study. I didn't really "Map" the passages as suggested because I find you get caught up in the smaller details. As long as you can figure out what the author's thesis and supporting arguments are, the rest should be fairly simple. To avoid getting thrown off, don't look at the multiple choice answers until you've conceptualized your own answer to the question.

This helps so so much. Something else that I find really helpful is actually reading aloud (under your breath, of course...you don't want to bother other test-takers). This may seem unnecessarily slow, but you absorb everything much better and won't have to refer back to the passage nearly as much.

@ vp15: What is the wish? I took a full year of English from York U during my year off for the US schools. I didn't take it during my undergrad because I didn't know I was going to apply to the US beforehand, and I was worried about how it would affect my grades. It was an easy course and didn't affect my work that much.

Almost all US schools have the same prereqs. They are very consistent in contrast to Canadian schools. The majority of them are like Wayne State which is this: 1=full year
General biology or zoology (with lab)1 General or Inorganic chemistry (with lab)1 Organic chemistry (with lab)1 General physics (with lab)1 English1
@Paperplanes: The VR was definitely the hardest part of the MCAT for me. No matter how many times I practiced and prepared with reading things, I just couldn't get a really high mark. Saying that, I didn't do anything special other than what you or Lij have said. In my opinion, the VR difficulty is all about your learning style. Some students (not that many) are okay with it and can read and comprehend long professional essays in short times. My biggest difficulty was the time limit. I think that's the problem with most students because science majors (logic-oriented people) comprehend things and learn in a way that makes this type of testing very hard.

I mean absolutely no disrespect Lij, but it wasn't very comforting when I saw posts back in the day where a student would say that the VR wasn't hard. It made me feel like I was doing something terribly wrong or that medicine wasn't for me. The truth is, most students struggle with the VR because it's a different type of learning. The average score one achieves on the VR is a 9. All I can say is keep practicing and read things like Lij said. You will get better, trust me

With the VR it's all about constant practicing and don't get yourself down if the marks aren't that good. It's like that for a reason. Just keep an upbeat attitude and you'll get in!

Originally Posted by mitch

I mean absolutely no disrespect Lij, but it wasn't very comforting when I saw posts back in the day where a student would say that the VR wasn't hard. It made me feel like I was doing something terribly wrong or that medicine wasn't for me. The truth is, 3/4s of students struggle with the VR because it's a different type of learning. The average score one achieves on the VR is a 9. All I can say is keep practicing and read things like Lij said. You will get better, but maybe not >10 better, and that's ok I got consistent 6's during my practice tests, and finally I got a 9 on the real one. Seeing how Mac only looks at VR, I would saying that my 9 was good enough

With the VR it's all about constant practicing and don't get yourself down if the marks aren't that good. It's like that for a reason. Just keep an upbeat attitude and you'll get in!

I should proof-read before I post. I found that a lot of people are afraid of the VR section even before they write the MCAT and think that it's impossible to do well - consequently, they go into it with a terrible self-defeating attitude. I've edited my previous post for clarity.

It's possible to do well in VR. It's different than the BS and PS sections which is based off of material, since improving VR relies on your ability to conceptualize information and reason things out. Although there are no "materials" to help you do well, but reading on a regular basis should help you do better on VR. Most people are very good at the science passages because it's familiar to them as many applicants have a science background. On the other hand, many of my friends who wrote the MCAT had a lot of difficulties with the humanities and social sciences passages. So if you're reading on a regular basis, it should help you a) become more familiar with the types of passages b) read and process the passages faster, and c) help you gain more confidence.

The reason why VR is so difficult is because getting one or two questions wrong, can mean the difference between a 9 and a 10. Practicing and reading regularly to become more confident is essential to doing well on VR.