- Students sometimes ask if they may take premed requirements in summer school in order to lighten their load at Gettysburg, to catch up if they decided late that they wanted to go to medical school, or to improve their grades.
- In principle, medical schools will accept summer school premed requirements and you will include the grades when you calculate your science GPA for your application. Gettysburg College students have been accepted to medical school with summer school premed requirements on their record.
- However, in general, we believe that taking premed requirements during summer school is detrimental to your application. Remember that the first two years of medical school include many science courses, and the pace is much more intense and concentrated than you will experience even while taking two lab courses simultaneously at Gettysburg. You must show medical schools that you can handle a heavy science load well, and taking summer courses may raise questions in this area. Medical schools want to see that you can succeed in the premed requirements at Gettysburg College while carrying a full load of courses. In addition, it is important to take your premed requirements at Gettysburg so that Gettysburg science professors will be able to write letters of evaluation for you.