December 5, 2025
Written By
Michael Minh Le
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Picking classes as a premed isn’t just stressful. It’s high stakes. One wrong course at the wrong time and you’re behind on the MCAT, tanking your GPA, or struggling to apply on time. That’s why knowing what classes are required for medical school, and how to schedule them right, is essential.
In this post, we’ll break down the Core 7 classes every med school expects, the recommended extras that boost your academic edge, and the strategic electives that make AdComs look twice. You’ll also learn how to stack these courses without burning out, how AP and community college credits are viewed, and how to turn all this into a master plan for med school success.
If you want a simple, proven framework to organize your premed timeline, download our free 4 Year Plan to Get Into Medical School. It’s a customizable template that helps you map out the classes, experiences, and application steps that actually move the needle when applying.
Get your free resource here.
There are a lot of opinions out there on what you should take before applying to med school. But when it comes down to it, every premed, regardless of major, needs to knock out these 7 core classes.
They're not optional. They're the baseline. Med schools will scan your transcript for them.
The backbone of all medicine. Two semesters with a lab. You’ll learn the fundamentals of life, like cells, genetics, and physiology. This is the stuff that gets directly tested on the MCAT and shows up again in med school.
Two semesters with a lab. This is where you learn how atoms interact, how reactions happen, and why drug mechanisms even make sense in the first place. It's also the gateway to every upper-division science course.
Infamous for a reason. Two semesters with a lab. You’re not just memorizing reactions. You’re learning how to think like a scientist. It’s painful, but necessary. Think of it as mental weightlifting for your med school brain.
Most schools require this now. One semester minimum. It pulls together everything you learned in biology and chemistry and shows you how it actually plays out in the human body. Enzymes, metabolism, proteins. It’s all here.
Two semesters with a lab. You’re not going to use equations to diagnose patients, but you will need to understand pressure, flow, electricity, and radiation. And yes, it’s on the MCAT.
Usually one semester of statistics, sometimes calculus too. Stats is the priority because today’s medicine is data-driven. Clinical research, diagnostic tests, patient risk scores. This is where math starts to matter.
One to two semesters. It doesn’t have to be “English” specifically. Most schools are fine with any writing-intensive course. But make no mistake: your ability to communicate clearly, especially in writing, will affect your application, your interviews, and your future as a physician.
If the Core 7 courses are the foundation, these are the upgrades. Not strictly required by every med school, but strongly recommended by most.
One semester each. These are the backbone of the MCAT’s behavioral sciences section. But more importantly? Understanding patients. Mental health, social inequality, cultural competency. This is real-life medicine. And med schools want students who already get that.
These go deeper than general biology. Genetics explains how traits (and diseases) are passed down, how DNA mutates, and why personalized medicine exists. Cell bio zooms in on the machinery that makes life work. They're not just helpful for the MCAT. They’ll give you a serious leg up in med school.
Courses like physiology, microbiology, immunology, and anatomy. If you have room in your schedule, take at least one. They’re the closest you’ll get to actual med school content. Plus, if you're looking to prove academic strength or interest in a specific field (like infectious disease or neuro), this is where you do it.
These aren’t even on the MCAT. But if you’re playing the long game (moving beyond just getting in and toward becoming a stronger, more empathetic, more effective doctor), then these classes matter more than you’d think.
Why do certain cultures trust doctors less? How have racism, war, and economics shaped the healthcare system we have today? These classes will blow your mind and give you critical perspective. They also make for incredibly compelling personal statements and secondary essays.
No translator is as good as a doctor who speaks your language. Spanish is the most immediately useful in the U.S., but Mandarin and American Sign Language (ASL) are incredibly valuable too. Even one semester shows AdComs that you’re thinking about real patient care.
Your ability to reason through tough decisions, like end-of-life care, resource scarcity, and medical errors, won’t come from orgo. These classes sharpen your critical thinking and help you make sense of the moral gray areas in medicine. Also, they can be a surprising edge in MMI interviews.
Getting the right classes is one thing. Surviving them is another. The fastest way to tank your GPA and your mental health is to overload yourself in the name of "being efficient."
Here's how to actually plan your schedule like someone who makes it to med school:
Organic Chemistry + Physics + Biochemistry in the same semester? Don’t. Just don’t. Each one of those classes on its own is a grind. Put them together, and you’re one lab report away from burning out completely. Split them up across semesters, even if it means graduating a little later. Med schools don’t care how fast you finish. They care how well you did.
Labs eat time. Writing courses eat brainpower. Doing both at once can work, but be strategic. Don’t take three science labs and a 20-page research seminar in the same semester. Mix a lab-heavy class with something that stretches a different muscle, like ethics or English. You'll stay sharper across the board.
Summer isn’t just for research and internships. It’s a golden window to knock out a tough class without the distraction of a full load. Taking physics over the summer? Great idea. It frees up room in the fall. Just make sure your school or transfer credits are accepted by med schools (some don’t like community college summer science courses, so check first).
Don’t take the MCAT until you’ve finished at least these:
These are all heavily tested and show up in almost every section of the exam. Taking the MCAT without them is like running a marathon with one leg. You might finish, but it’s going to hurt a lot more than it needs to.
This is one of the most misunderstood parts of premed coursework. Just because your school gives you credit doesn’t mean med schools will. And if you don’t plan around that, you could end up with missing prerequisites after you’ve already applied.
Got a 5 on AP Bio or Chem in high school? Congrats, but don’t assume you’re off the hook. Most med schools, especially top-tier ones do not accept AP credits to satisfy core science prerequisites. They want to see that you took the college-level version of the course, with a real grade, in a real classroom.
If you use AP to skip ahead, replace it with an upper-level course. For example:
This proves you’ve still mastered the content at the college level.
Yes, most med schools accept community college coursework. But. If you took all your core science classes at a community college and then transferred, it can raise red flags, especially if you later struggled at the 4-year level.
The safe move:
This shows med schools you can handle rigorous science at the level they expect.
You already know the stakes. One mistimed class or overloaded semester can delay your MCAT, derail your GPA, or push your entire application back a year. And in the premed world, falling behind even a little can feel like falling out of the race entirely.
That’s why having a clear plan isn’t just helpful. It’s essential. You need to know what to take, when to take it, and how to balance it with shadowing, research, and everything else med schools expect.
Our 4-Year Plan to Get Into Medical School is a customizable, proven framework that allows you to map out every semester of your premed journey. It’s the same system we’ve used to help thousands of students get accepted.
Get your free resource here.
