american requirements...

hey there,

i haven't been able to find a single american school that does away with the standard bio/chem/phys requirements...but was wondering if there are universities who don't care about them.

are there?

My guess is that there either all of the schools or most of them require the three or four basic science courses. Many in fact, also require English. One reason for this could be that almost all of the schools require the MCAT and taking those basic science courses can really help with your scores.

After applying in the US, I can tell you that every school I applied to out of 15 required at least the Chem/Bio/Physics sequence. Many schools also need 1-2 semesters of calc/stat, a year of english/literature and others needed at least a year of upper level advanced biology.

Get ahold of the MSAR book from aamc.org or your library. That's the best source of information for prereqs for every US medical school.

Good luck!

Hi. I was hoping you wouldn't mind posting your stats and how you fared in applying to the states as a Canadian. Is there any hope for Canadians trying to get into the US? Thanks a lot.

Hopkins used to not require prereqs. I think Penn doesn't require prereqs, but they are both very hard schools to get into.

Alot of the US medical schools that I looked at just said "MCAT requirements" but didn't specify any scores like "above 9" etc. Do they have specific requirements? I heard that anything about 8 is good. This may be a rumor. Can anyone clarify this for me?

Hi there Mala2003,

It really depends on the school. Although many of the US schools do not set a strict MCAT cut-off, to be competitive at some, you seem to need very good MCAT scores, as some of their class averages (for MCATs) are very high. It's best to check out each school individually, either through their websites, which normally house a good stack of information, or via the MCAS book, which is published annually.

Cheers,
Kirsteen

Most US schools don't have exact cut-offs. I know someone who got into a really good school (Vanderbilt) with a 6 in VR but was strong everywhere else. They look more at the whole package rather than focusing on a set of scores.