There are lots of things to consider when choosing university courses in general. As a student applying to a professional school, however, your strategy for choosing course electives should be much different than say a student who hopes to work right after finishing his undergraduate degree.

Let me preface the article by first saying that there will be students who disagree with my viewpoint on the issue of course selection. I’m going to share with you my opinion on course selection, under the assumption that you are serious about maximize your chances for getting into medical school. If you aren’t, that’s fine, and you may very well disagree with some of my suggestions.

You have to take prerequisite courses for some medical schools

Like with your compulsory courses, some medical schools have prerequisite courses that you must take by the time of your admission to their school. For example, the University of Toronto’s medical school requires: “One of Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages; two Life Sciences”.

It is important that you find out what these prerequisite courses are, and make sure you complete them by the end of your application year.

Fortunately, there aren’t too many prerequisite courses in general. Most of them are usually part of the basic science undergraduate program, and tend to overlap with prerequisites of other medical schools. There are also some schools (e.g. McMaster and Western) that do not have any prerequisite courses.

But assuming you are applying to a reasonable number of medical schools, I advise you to fulfill all of the prerequisites.

Let’s face it, your marks matter

There’s really no other way to say it. All medical schools take your GPA into account, whether that be through a cutoff or using your exact GPA in the evaluation process. If you want to maximize your chances of getting into a medical school, then attaining the highest marks you are capable of can only help. Sure a 3.85 is a good GPA, but if you think you can bump it up to a 3.90 with some hard work, why not go for it?

Of course, if you are only planning to apply to medical schools with GPA cutoffs (e.g. Western and Queen’s), then by all means, you may not need to work/study as hard, and your goal is to aim for that 3.7+ (or whatever the cutoff is). But if you’re like me, and you want to be as competitive as possible at all other medical schools as well (where GPA cutoffs are not used), it makes sense to aim for the highest grades possible.

So knowing this, it makes sense to pick courses that you believe you will get the highest marks in. But how do you figure this out?

Pick subjects and professors that match your learning and performance style

Everyone is different, and everyone has their own type of subject they do best in. Much of this is based on what your optimal learning style is, and what evaluation style you tend to prepare best for and perform on.

Personally, I have trouble working hard at things I don’t like to do, and this extends to my study habits. I dislike excessive memorizing so I try to avoid courses that require a lot of rote memorization (e.g. human anatomy, animal biology, history, physical geography, etc.). I am a biology major, and biology courses are especially known for being heavily content/details based. To tackle this, I research all of my courses and possible professors beforehand, and pick the biology courses that I learn are less memorization based.

Conversely, I enjoy thinking and problem solving, so I prefer courses that are more about concepts and less about facts (e.g. chemistry, genetics, mathematics, etc.). Now, you might not be the same way. Maybe you are great at memorizing facts and dislike concept-based courses. Or maybe you are an excellent essay writer. Perhaps you should pick some electives in English or philosophy, where you are primarily marked on essays and assignments. Whatever the case is, choose courses you know fit you best.

In addition, this depends not on just the type of course, but also the professor delivering the course. I know that in my program, there are some biology professors that test heavily on memorization while others test heavily on application and problem solving, even for similar subjects.

There are lots of courses with more than one section and different professors. Talk to other students who have taken those courses. Older students are great resources, and in my experience, are only more than happy to provide advice and share their experiences – just ask! If you find a general consensus that one professor’s teaching style would fit you better, definitely take that into consideration.

Pick courses you know you can ace

In the York University grading system, A+’s (4.0) are given to final course grades of 90-100, and A’s (3.8) are given to final course grades of 80-89. For me, I like to pick courses I know I could potentially ace and get an A+.

Although it also depends on your interests and skill set, aceable courses tend to be those where answers are either right or wrong. So courses evaluated based on multiple choice, calculations, problem-solving, etc. tend to be aceable courses. Conversely, essay-based courses are not aceable (at least not for me) because there is no absolute right or wrong way to write an essay, and thus, evaluation is somewhat subjective.

For example, I took a philosophy course last year. It was my easiest course of the year in terms of workload because it only required one test, one exam, one essay, and showing up for weekly tutorials. It was an easy A but an impossible A+. As a result, I had no motivation to work hard in the course.

You may be placing a disadvantage on your grades by choosing courses that you have almost no shot at acing.

Is it wrong to be choosing courses I will do well in? Shouldn’t I be choosing courses on topics I will enjoy more?

There are many students who say I am wrong, and that would tell you to simply study the topics you enjoy, and worry about the marks later.

It really is my ultimate hope for you that the courses you are most interested in will also be the ones you do best in. Lots of times they are. But lots of times they also aren’t. Personally, I take a heavy biology course load, so it’s nice to have some courses where I don’t need to go full speed ahead.

There are also students who will say: “If you can’t handle a tough course load in undergrad, then you won’t be able to handle medical school.” I don’t want to waste too much time on this, but this type of thinking is illogical. Comparing the content and type of education at undergrad programs to medical school is not fair at all. In addition, from my point of view, preparing for medical school by taking an excessively tough course load, while nice for the ego, doesn’t help if it’s the cause of a less than stellar GPA.

Success is all about adjusting to the situation. Just because you choose not to take an overly tough course load in your undergrad, does not mean you are incapable of adjusting to a tougher course load in medical school.

I love philosophy and think it is super fascinating. I know that I can easily get an A in philosophy with relatively little effort, but that it is nearly impossible for me to get an A+. Subjectivity plays a significant role, and my essay writing is probably not on par with the best writers in the class.

But that’s okay because I can always read and learn about philosophy anywhere outside of university. Just because you aren’t taking a course on a topic, doesn’t mean you can’t learn it at the same level somewhere else for free.

Of course, in the end, it comes down to your values

I’m not saying it’s wrong or right to be more premed strategic in the courses you take. You might value more interesting but much tougher courses. All that matters is you understand how that affects your grades, and thus your probability of getting into medical school in the long term.