Medical Education US

HI
i am a high school student in canada and i wanted to know that if i take advanced placement subjects in bio or Chemistry will that help me in any way in taking a addmission in medical school in canada or USA.

from another thread:

When I was in high school, we had "AP" classes (Advanced Placement). At the end of the year, you can take a standardized national test, and those are scored on a scale of 1-5. Colleges would count certain scores towards college credit. Most medical schools would also count the AP credit towards meeting some of the pre-med requirements. However, some people retake the class in college anyway because the class may be more intense in college than it was in high school, and if some of it is review, it may make for a class to get a higher grade in to help your GPA.

Overall, I don't think it makes much difference regarding how competitive of an applicant you are.

thankyou very much for the reply
i have one more question so there is a chance of going straight to medical college from high school if you take AP courses in bio , chem and do calculus.
how much GPA is required for Medical college admission and how is GPA calculated?

I haven't heard of anyone taking enough AP classes to skip college entirely - but it's an interesting idea. I do know of the rare prodigy 13 yr old getting into medical school, like recently happened here at University of Chicago. I haven't read about the whole story to see how it all came about though.

I don't think most medical schools would consider your AP classes as sufficient for your pre-med requirements, though. In fact, I don't believe that there is any AP organic chemistry class offered - if so, I'd be surprised. I think I remember there were a few medical schools that would not accept AP credit towards pre-med classes - however, I never did take physics in college and that wasn't a problem at any place I applied.

Overall, I think you shouldn't seriously consider going straight from high school to medical school. However, if you have enough AP credit, you can cut off some of your college time - which is what I did.

As for GPA - I have heard of people getting into medical school with 3.2, or even lower if they have some other unique aspect to their application. Most people I'm guessing are between 3.4 and 3.8 GPA's. GPA is calculated out of 4.0, with A's counting as 4, B's as 3, C's as 2. If you have 4 courses, of equal weight, with 3 A's and 1 B, you'll have 4+4+4+3 / 4 = 3.75 GPA for that semester

Hopefully that was all clear.

I agree....before med school I taught AP as a high school science teacher. I took AP courses as a student in high school.

If you want to take them and enjoy them, that's great. It's often less expensive, maybe even free to take AP courses in high school.

Your main focus should be on avoiding burning yourself out on classes, and getting A's.

hi
i was wondering do medical colleges prefer students who have done AP courses? Or they don't care. Like is it same for them if you do Biology advanced placement Or Bio 30.

I think there are some medical schools that will not accept AP credit towards pre-med classes. I would also think that for the general chemistry and biology classes, it would be best to take the actual course at the 4 year college, because I would think the AP course would not be of the same level of intensity as pre-med level in college.