Course Prerequisites

Course Prerequisites

A minimum of three years of college work is required, and strong preference is given to applicants who will earn a bachelor's degree from an American college or university before medical school matriculation. No specific major field of study is required. College credits must include:

Biology: A full-year (eight semester credits) of introductory biology, including laboratory work, is required. Knowledge of classical genetics is essential and may be acquired through the introductory biology sequence. An additional genetics course is highly recommended.

Chemistry: A full year (eight semester credits) of general chemistry with lab and a full year (eight semester credits) of organic chemistry with lab are required. An additional course in biochemistry is highly recommended.

Physics: A full year (eight semester credits) of introductory physics with lab is required. Topics covered should include mechanics, heat, light, sound, electricity, and nuclear radiation.

English: TUSM does not have an English course requirement, although applicants must possess the ability to communicate effectively in spoken and written English.

Math: TUSM does not have a math course requirement, although course work in calculus, statistics, and computer science is recommended.

Our course prerequisites are defined above in terms of the traditional premedical curriculum at a college that operates on the semester system. Such a school typically offers two courses, each a semester in length, each with a lab section, and each worth four credits, in biology, general chemistry, organic chemistry, and physics.

If you completed all of your premedical course work at one school, and if that school operates on the model described above, it should be relatively easy to determine whether you have met our course prerequisites. If, however, your school operates on a different model, or if you have taken premedical course work at more than one school, then determining whether you have met our course prerequisites can become complicated. The guidelines that follow should help you to make that determination.

Variability in Premedical Curricula

Some colleges offer a premedical curriculum that differs from the traditional model described above. Perhaps the school operates on the trimester system, in which case a full-year sequence involves three, not two, courses. It is not uncommon for such a school to offer two courses in organic chemistry followed by a third course in biochemistry. Perhaps only two of the three courses in a sequence are offered with a lab section, or perhaps all three are lecture courses and an integrated lab course is offered separately. Many variations exist.

If you have done all of your premedical course work at one school, this is the guideline that applies to you: we will accept the premedical curriculum in biology, chemistry and physics that is recommended by your school to its premedical students. We would not require or expect you to take courses not offered by your school, and we would not require or expect you to take courses (like physical chemistry) that are not normally part of the premedical curriculum.

However, to the degree that options or choices exist within the curriculum recommended to premedical students at your school, we would require you to select the options that most closely approximate our course prerequisites. For example, if lab sections are offered separately from lecture courses and are available to you but not required by your school, we would expect you to take the labs.

If you have done your premedical course work at more than one school, especially if the schools operate on different models, it may not be clear to you whether you have the equivalent of a full-year, eight-semester-credit sequence in a particular discipline. For example, if you took the first semester of intro biology at one school, then transferred to a school on the trimester system, you would need two, not one, trimester courses in the biology sequence to meet our prerequisites. Think in terms of the calendar: a semester course and a single trimester course do not add up to a full academic year (September to May), and a full year is what we require. In these situations, it is more helpful to think in terms of the calendar than in terms of semester and trimester credits.

Alternatives to the Introductory Sequence

The premedical curriculum consists of what we have called the "introductory courses" in biology, general chemistry, organic chemistry, and physics. Our course prerequisites refer specifically to these courses, not generically to any course offered through the biology, chemistry or physics departments. For example, astronomy cannot substitute for intro physics and botany or zoology cannot substitute for intro biology.

Advanced Placement Credit

Advanced Placement courses can fulfill TUSM course prerequisites if your undergraduate school awarded you credit that appears on your transcript and if you subsequently took at least one higher level college course in that discipline. ("Higher level" means any course for which the introductory course sequence itself is a prerequisite).

For example, a student begins college with a semester of AP biology credit. The student then takes the second semester course of the introductory biology sequence. This student has met our biology prerequisite because he/she has a full year of introductory biology: one semester of AP credit and one semester of college credit. If this student had arrived at college with a full year of AP biology credit, he/she would need to take at least one higher-level biology course, such as genetics or biochemistry.

AP biology credit earned by students who then become biology majors is by far the most common situation we encounter in the TUSM admissions process. If you majored in biology, be assured you have met (and exceeded) our biology prerequisite.

Another example: a student arrives at college with a full year of AP general chemistry and then takes a full year of organic chemistry in college. This student has met our chemistry prerequisite because the organic courses are considered the higher-level course work in the discipline.

Another example: a student arrives at college with a semester of AP physics credit and then takes the second semester course in the introductory physics sequence. The student has one AP course and one college course, which together fulfill our physics prerequisite.

The situation that causes the most difficulty is this: a student arrives at college with a full year of AP physics. The problem is that the student cannot apply the AP physics credit towards our prerequisite because he/she has not taken any physics in college. This is a real dilemma because most premedical students are, understandably, not inclined to take upper level physics courses. The most practical solution is to take the second semester course of the introductory sequence, even though you have already received AP credit for the course.

Please note that AP courses often do not include the laboratory experience associated with college courses; nevertheless, we accept AP courses in accordance with the guidelines stated above and do not require applicants who apply AP credit to our prerequisites to take additional lab sections.

Exemption Exams

Please note that AP credit that appears on your transcript is entirely different from "placing out" of a course by virtue of an exemption exam. If you placed out of a course, you cannot apply that course to our prerequisites.

For example, if you placed out of the first semester of introductory biology, you would need to take the second half of the intro sequence followed by at least one additional biology course, because you need a full year and you cannot count the course you placed out of.