AnonymousJanuary 11, 2014 at 9:34 PM
Hi K!
I read somewhere online that Cal allows students to skip Chem 1A if they did well on the AP Chem exam. Having scored a 4, should I skip it or take it? (I know Chem 1A has a notorious reputation :P )
I read somewhere online that Cal allows students to skip Chem 1A if they did well on the AP Chem exam. Having scored a 4, should I skip it or take it? (I know Chem 1A has a notorious reputation :P )
Dear Anonymous,
Thanks for stopping by! If you're pre-med, then skipping it would not be a good idea :(
Medical schools require students to take two semesters of chem (for berkeley, it's chem 1A and mcb 102) and those classes cannot be replaced with AP scores. HOWEVER, you might be able to get away with skipping chem 1A and substituting it with a different chem class. On the other hand, many upper div classes require chem 1A as a prerequisite (if you still want to skip chem 1A, you might want to ask a counselor about the chem 1A prerequisites for those classes and see if you can get away without doing it). Overall, I think it would be more of a hassle to not take chem 1A than taking it. Many people have said that if you've done well in AP chem, then chem 1A shouldn't be too difficult. I, on the other hand, did not do as well in AP chem haha
Best of luck!
-K
Hi K! Just commenting because I didn't know where else to.
ReplyDeleteI'm in my third year now here, MCB major. I started off strong my freshman year actually - 3.9 GPA. But last semester, my grades dropped quite a bit (only got one A). And on top of it all, I've started to waver in my convictions in being pre-med. But when I looked at other requirements for other paths (like pre-opt, PA) I started to panicking because I would have to take a lot more extra courses (hard ones too) on top of my MCB upperdivs for my major with only one year of college left! I typically only take 3 courses (two core and one breadth) each semester and a decal. What to do?
Sidenote: What are your thoughts on taking IB 132 separately from IB 132L?