I agree with you mostly, Nephyr. A&P for med school isn't nearly as important as biochemistry. Though I do disagree with you on Analytical. There isn't anything substantial from Analytical Chemistry that I needed when I took my practice MCAT's. There isn't really a lot of anatomy on the MCAT (outside of Biology-based anatomy) because you're expected to do a heavy amount of that work in your first year. But biochemistry is invaluable. In fact, I would argue a lot of the chemistry focuses on Biochemistry, even over Gen Chem or Orgo. All three are important though ultimately. Orgo wasn't a pre-requisite for anything except Molecular and Cellular Biology and Biochemistry at my college and the upper level chemistry courses, of course. Microbiology could be taken without it.

When did you take the MCAT? I wonder if it was a year based thing. The year I took it, probably half of the "physical sciences" questions were things that came straight out of my second year Analytical course. I know a lot of the "balance" of the questions has to do with the year. Most of the questions could have been answered with something else, but really, they were right out of our analytical textbook which made it very easy.

Personally, I'm a big fan of encouraging people to major in Chemical or Biomedical Engineering, or Chemistry if they want to go to med school. Seems to make the apps a lot more competitive, and generally higher MCAT scores.

I do know that all of my friends in med school said if they had it to do over again, they wouldn't have taken undergrad A&P... That it really wasn't as helpful as most other courses. On the flip side, everyone that took the two course series of Biochem said it was one of the most helpful courses they had taken- it covered all the material that you'd hit in your 1st year Biochem course at med school, and really took it down a notch from "brutal" to "manageable". Obviously not a choice for you with your major, though.

Also, it appears that o-chem does allow labs to be taken later. So I'm feeling a little easier about it. I could just attempt to do the lectures over the summer if A&P seems like too much.

Really? I would actually suggest breaking the labs off from the lecture.

A lot of places they *try* to line them up, but in reality the lab will always be behind the lectures. I wouldn't recommend waiting too long, but I'd actually take Org1 lab with Org2, and then Org2 lab the semester after.

But yeah, I wouldn't take them over the summer. I used to TA for the summer labs, and they rush through way, way too much.

A lab being a week behind the lecture is far preferable to being a full semester (perhaps more) behind. This is especially true for people who aren't majoring in that field. A lot of times you're also looking at a student who took the lecture in the spring and had the entire summer for stuff to atrophy. The first EE lab kills our MEs for precisely this reason. A semester after they took circuit analysis, they don't remember most of it.

Taking Organic 2 while you take the Organic 1 lab is good, because you're still thinking about organic chemistry. Now, what about someone who doesn't have to take Organic 2?

That I could see. Lining them up with the next semester I mean. But I wouldn't take the labs the next year or something along those lines. I forgot a lot of the basics I learned in Orgo 1 by the year I was taking Biochemistry (Fall of one year to Fall of next year). I still liked taking the labs with the lecture. I always felt like it gave me the best experience. The only time I didn't was Biochemistry. We had to take the lecture in Fall semester and then the laboratory, aptly named Experimental Biochemistry Laboratory, the next semester. I felt like I had to do a lot of reviewing, especially in the beginning of that laboratory semester.